Selecting Email List Vendors
These are the important questions to ask and issues to address before purchasing an Email List :-
What type of List is being offered?
How Up to date is the list? When was the list last checked? Our own research suggest that email addresses in any B2B email list will degrade and become out of date / undeliverable at the rate of approximately 8% pet annum
Is there a Guarantee of Delivery? No list vendor can guarantee against Soft Bounces but you should look for a meaningful 100% guarantee against Hard Bounces. Reputable list vendors will be sending email messages to their lists themselves and removing hard bounces on a very regular basis. Some vendors will only give a 90% guarantee against Hard Bounces and some give no guarantees at all! which suggests all such lists are not up to date. This can be more of a problem than it might seem as a high level of Hard Bounces may give you problems with your ISP or Email Delivery Service and identify you as a spammer.
A guarantee against Hard Bounces should include the provision to refund part of the monies paid rather than to supply you with replacement (and possibly more out of date) email addresses
How has the list been researched? Check to see how the list has been researched and how the data has been compiled.
Are there any other quality markers? Most lists contain other data, not just email addresses. What other quality markers and guarantees are offered covering such data?
Have you read and understood the List vendors TOS? The devil can be in the detail (and in the small print.) Ensure you read and understand the list vendors Terms of Service before purchase – especially quality and delivery guarantees.
Complaints? Have a numbers of complaints been made against a particular list vendor at sites such as the Better Business Bureau, the Rip Off Report, Complaints Board etc? See “List Vendors to Avoid”