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Don’t Blame the Email Data for Failed Marketing

Deliverable email data can’t make up for poor targeting.

As an email database provider (and to a lesser degree, list provider) who seeds licensed files to some of the biggest compiling names in the business we have the opportunity to see and approve hundreds of campaigns a month. We see the names selected and the content distributed in an impartial sort of light.


So when I read an article on the first page of google when querying a search term like “buy email lists” I get frustrated when the author references email marketing horror stories and plants the low response rates solely on the shoulders of the email data list.

Recently, email data was selected for a commercial roofing offer. You know, “Do you need your roof redone, best rates!” from a national contracting group. They selected job title “owner” and similar as the only list criteria. That’s it.

I mean, try a little harder here guys. Blasting away at tens of thousands of inbox’s with decimal place open rates should tell you something.

People are still sending electronic messing like this halfway through 2015? The roofers do not appear as of this writing to be re-testing.

Email Data doesn’t need to be first party opt-in from last week’s techno-widget conference to perform well, it needs to have a thoughtful business purpose in mind and appear to come from a real human being and you’ve taken your first step. Then, you adjust based on response (or lack of).

For us our specific success has been with super targeted one to one outreach using the same dataset mentioned in the roofing example above and we’re having terrific response rates stemming from careful targeting and monitoring of results. So stop blaming the email data lists, Google author. There are still plenty of people out there using our stuff doing thoughtful marketing that you probably don’t even recognize as marketing but as communication. Want a second opinion on your targeting? Contact EMM.

P.S: Mr. Roofer, if you’re reading this and you do decide to re-test, you should consider starting with industries that tend to have large buildings. Maybe facility managers or property managers. Or use a postal specialty file to identify owners with big square footage, then append emails and send direct mail and really work a small list with your big average sale.

Stop Blaming Bad Response Rates on Marketing Email Data!

When we read popular marketing data related articles while researching a key word like “buy email lists” we get frustrated when the author references email marketing horror stories and blames the low response rates solely on the shoulders of the email data list.

As a marketing email database provider we have the opportunity to see and approve hundreds of email marketing campaigns a month and we have found that the devil is in the details.

Many email marketers believe that buying a list is the magic lead magnet, when meanwhile it’s only a quarter of what you need. Here is one of the horror stories we came across: A commercial roofing company decided to run an email marketing campaign. They decided that the only criteria the data needed to fit was the job title “owner”, that’s it.

Then they bought thousands of email contacts directed at “owners” and had a terrible response rate.

WHY? Because owners are anyone! Who is to say that these owners even have buildings that need roofing? As an email data provider the roofer’s poor response rates have nothing to do with the data which was provided to them, but everything to do with the marketing technique.

Here are 5 tips we would give to the roofers and any other email marketing data purchaser who is blaming the marketing data for a failed marketing attempt:

  1. Have a thoughtful business process in mind.
  2. Use your business process to put together a list of consumers or businesses that are a good business fit
  3. Personalize your email to make it seem as if every email has come directly from you to only that individual.
  4. Use follow up emails as part of your campaign.
  5. Document your marketing process to monitor which email campaigns worked better than others. Optimize future campaigns based on this data.

There is no quick fix for getting leads but there is a faster fix then blaming the email data or data provider.

So stop blaming the email data lists!

There are still plenty of people out there using email lists doing thoughtful marketing that you probably don’t even recognize as marketing but as communication.

Want a second opinion on your targeting or a FREE count? Contact EMM.