Too Much of a Good Thing

Activist groups are fighting back. The Mail Abuse Prevention System compiles lists of companies accused of sending spam. It offers that list - called the Realtime Blackhole List - to ISPs, many of which use it to protect customers from incoming spam. Some companies, including 24/7 Media, protest their inclusion on the list, claiming to be good-faith, permissions-based marketers rather than spammers. 24/7 sued to get its servers off the list, but so far has been unsuccessful.

Users are getting smarter about avoiding spam. Net vets like Jensen configure their e-mail clients to shunt anything that's not personal mail into a separate mailbox. Some e-mail providers, including MSN Hotmail and Yahoo (YHOO), automatically route messages that appear to be spam directly into an easily ignored "bulk mail" inbox. According to John Horrigan, senior research specialist with the Pew Internet Project, 37 percent of experienced Internet travelers (those online for at least three years and who go online daily) say they use fake e-mail addresses when registering at Web sites, presumably to avoid spam.

But e-mail advocates are fighting back, looking for ways to stand out from the blizzard of junk. For starters, says e-mail guru Seth Godin, who co-authored Permission Marketing in 1999, it's crucial to keep your list to yourself. "The best way to make your list worthless is to sell it," he says. "The future is, 'The list is mine and it's a secret.'"

That's not to say you can't expand your universe of e-mail prospects. If your customers trust you, you can urge them to tell their friends - the much-touted viral marketing. "Consumers actively resist marketing," says Godin. "The idea is to create an environment where consumers market to each other." He uses software from a company called Qbiquity to track the ways existing customers recommend him to others. "The stats are spectacular," Godin says. People who forwarded his messages told an average of four friends, and half of those referees went to his site for more information.

Other secrets to effective e-mail marketing: Keep things personal, and tone down the sales pitch. Last year, for example, Ticketmaster.com sent out a series of mailings about an upcoming Bruce Springsteen concert to customers in New Jersey. The twist: The company sent the messages only to Boss fans that it knew had already bought tickets. Instead of pitching them, the message offered tips on planning for the show, such as directions to the arena. After the show, Ticketmaster sent out another mailing offering a set list and a link through which recipients could buy CDs and other merchandise. According to Ticketmaster, the campaign registered a click-through rate approaching 90 percent, as well as a 25 percent sales-conversion rate. The sales were nice, but the program was more about keeping customers loyal.

To get around services like Hotmail that preemptively filter spam for their users, a recent report by Jupiter Research analyst Christopher Todd predicts that marketers will one day pay ISPs to have their ads delivered to your inbox instead of a spam bucket. Todd says such pay-for-access could be a good thing: It could decrease the volume of spam in users' inboxes, but could also signal that those messages that get through are worth looking at - the assumption being that the fee will filter out the bottom-feeders.

But such programs are still a ways off. In the meantime, no matter how well marketers protect their lists and tailor their campaigns, says Jensen, "established companies are doing violence to their brands" by appearing in inboxes alongside unwanted spam. As users like Jensen get smarter about keeping spam out, marketers will have to get smarter about avoiding that taint.

Jodi Mardesich is a freelance writer in New York.