8 comments

  1. OK, it has come together in one sad moment thanks to you Mitch Joel. Your post about SPAM working on the day of the Democratic National Convention in the US is depressing. This should be an historical campaign of two candidates that give the US clear and different paths for the future.
    It looks like instead of a fair discussion of the issues, it will be a typical negative led trashing of quotes out of context and minor missteps made to portray the other as having fatal character flaws. Why? because like SPAM, negative ads work. The best SPAM and ads work because they have similar characteristics.
    1) they look credible or funny catching our attention
    2) they invite consideration, whether that consideration comes in the form of opening the email or opening your mind to the illusion it is about to present as truth
    So fight SPAM and negative ads by calling them out for what they are, a deception for personal gain.
    Thanks, I’m over my sad moment now, on with a glorious day.

  2. “Check out this news item from AppScout: 29 Percent of Internet Users Admit Purchasing from Spam.”
    Aaaaaaagh! Say it ain’t so!

  3. @ Christopher Penn – I know you’re kidding, but for the record it’s not a 29% conversion rate. 29% of people admit to having bought something at least once from spam. If the average person gets (say) a thousand pieces of spam in a month, then you’re really looking at a 0.029% conversion rate. (note: my math sucks, so that may be off).
    @ Mitch – This is a pretty shocking finding, I have to admit. It makes sense though (tragically). At the end of the day, there is a hige blackmarket for these products. How else are they going to be sold? The work involved in running a website to sell them and get good SEO would be worthless because the sites would get pulled down too fast. Spam allows near-immediate results. The websites used to process the sales can probably be built and taken down in the span of a few days and still turn a good profit.

  4. Stupid consumers.
    If interruption has a future then I would like to inform everyone that I have cheap Viagra and free porn on my blog if anyone is interested.

  5. Unbelievable! Thanks for posting this Mitch. What a huge surprise! And 29% probably wouldn’t be representative of the population, but it’s still unbelievably high.

  6. Very interesting to see these stats, Mitch. All along, I have figured that spam must work because the spammers keep doing it. The volume I receive grows daily. So far I have avoided buying a knockoff Rolex, sex enhancement pills or anything else. Ick.

  7. Small victory story – I had just placed an order with an online printing company for some bus. cards, vehicle magnets, banners, etc – came to around $300. Was about to give final approval for the order when I happened to check out an old email account I haven’t used in years – whaddaya know – this company was a HUGE spammer. I called their head of sales, explained who I was and gave her my order info, and then explained exactly WHY I was canceling my order. I refuse to knowingly do business with companies that use spam to advertise.

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