The risks
Third-party email lists can work. There is a large industry that recycles the lists that can attest to it. I’ve done it myself (see the bottom).
But there are serious risks.
It takes experience. Don’t try this at home. As the process below shows, it CAN be done. But it preferably requires someone who has the war wounds from doing this a lot before and can avoid the many painful lessons.
The cost advantage is an illusion. You don’t just push a button. The time spent massaging the email, list, mailings, and providers is significant. If you hire and pay for an experienced consultant, the cost advantage may disappear.
Email provider cancellation. Despite your best list cleaning efforts, cheap lists will contain dead, invalid, and fake email addresses that cause emails to bounce back. They are a clear signal to your email company that your list is unverified. Using such lists violates their Terms of Use. Account restrictions, freezing, and even cancellation are a regular occurence.
Spam traps. The danger isn’t just low list quality. Lists can be ticking time bombs. List brokers often plant spam traps (recycled or fake addresses) that get shared and copied from one list to another. Email passes across multiple services from sender to recipient. Spam filters, Internet Service providers, and email security services all build, contribute to, or subscribe to blacklist services that scan emails and can prevent your mail from being forwarded.
Domain reputation. The damage isn’t confined just to bulk email senders. Blacklists can cause your entire sending domain, including regular business email, to be affected and undelivered.
Hello junk mail folder. Once your sender reputation is ruined, your emails, including legitimate ones, may start getting filtered straight into spam or junk folders.
Severe Legal Violations and Fines: Sending unsolicited emails breaks privacy laws like GDPR in Europe or CAN-SPAM in the United States, risking massive regulatory fines (up to thousands or millions of dollars depending on the region).
I’ve been there
The boss demands a mass email blast, regardless of your concerns. He’s not going to pay $10,000 or more for a high quality list. He asks you to reach into your bag of email magic to generate more leads.
You get a clean domain. There shouldn’t be a link back to your company.
Edit your oubound emails for content and direct company mentions. You can use the company name but only if it’s on a graphic. This isn’t a friendly newsletter to your clients. Let’s be real - it’s a spam email.
Do the research to find a cheap third-party email list.
Even better, use the list that the boss sent you from his own received spam email. That way there is no blame on you if it doesn’t perform.
Buy yet another cheap third-party email list for your target market that’s a fraction of the legitimate list price.
Filter out the addresses you already have. There goes 20% of the list. This isn’t your first rodeo.
Clean the emails through an email validator to remove another 20% of the crap.
Remove info@, sales@, and other general addresses that your email provider doesn’t like.
Verify to your email provider and your God that it’s not a third party list.
Slowly send the group emails to avoid tripping your email provider bounce and complaint rates and blacklists.
Even better, mix the new addresses with your opt-in and aged lists to water down bounces and complaints.
Remove the bounces. After all the list hygeine your list is now less than HALF the size of the original list.
Still, at some point your email provider freezes your account due to tripping their rate or aggregate limits.
Come up with a brilliant explanation (that damn admin didn’t know any better. You fired him. It will NEVER happen again.). They unfreeze your account.
Get several responses that result in a few big sales. The attributed sales numbers and ROI show that the third party list was competitive with other marketing channels. Success!
Rinse, repeat, and risk 6 months later.