Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

You are allowed to send one email to them, but it's not the greatest idea.

My company's database system allows a "Do not market" box to be checked so they will remain in the system to be found if looking specifically but not get pulled by marketing for a mass contact list. A note could be attached to the contact, too, that said where the address was found.

You already know that, in doing this, you're not following best practices when it comes to permission marketing.

However, your question asked whether you were violating CAN-SPAM. I am not sure there's a concrete answer here.

CAN-SPAM does not permit you to:

"harvest" email addresses from Web sites or Web services that have published a notice prohibiting the transfer of email addresses for the purpose of sending email

https://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm

So, there are two questions here. What does "harvest" mean? And do your Web sites -- the ones you're getting this information from -- have such a published notice?

In some people's definition, "harvest" means to do it electronically, like "screen scraping" and so forth. But if I go out into a field and pick ears of corn one at a time, am I not "harvesting" corn?

I'd say that I am.

So, until I see otherwise, I have to think that "harvest" means to pick or get, no matter the means, and even if one by one.

As for the second question, I would wager that most, if not all, of these directory-type networking sites prohibit the collection of their data for this purpose.

I think the point is that you can find just about anyone's e-mail address but do you want to do that....and is it worth your time

If it's for general public campaign, I'd say no

If it's a B2C campaign and you're looking for the CMO or CFO's address, I'd do it

Either way you still need a great message.

Michael

Oh, I never complain about SPAM. To me it's just part of life

In your email campaign, so long as there's an opt-out mechanism and physical contact info (address/phone), you should be fine.

Make sure that you identify this as a commercial message, by including ADV: at the beginning of your subject line.

Personally, I never add anyone to my email database unless they opt-in. Although you can technically send one message to ask people if they want to opt-in, you're going to have a bunch of people who will decide you are a spammer, and block all future emails. Some may have a policy to never do business with a spammer, in which case your efforts will work against you.

Better to have a small list of people who want your email and will open it, than a large list of people who ignore you completely.

Others have already eluded to best practices, which I fully agree with.

Personally I feel trolling sites and entering individual email addresses into your database, while manual, is still "harvesting them", whether you are on the right side of the law or not.

Why not rent a list? Those names are people who have given permission to be contacted (sometimes unknowingly, but that's the List Companies problem). And as long as you Can-Spam compliant in other ways, you'll be okay. It doesn't resolve you being perceived as SPAM though.

Why not rent a list? Those names are people who have given permission to be contacted (sometimes unknowingly, but that's the List Companies problem).

Respectfully, I disagree on two fronts.

First, I seldom think that renting an email list is a good idea. List quality is often poor, and the economics rarely make sense. Lists that cost $1 CPM are garbage, and lists that cost $250 or $350 CPM are just very expensive. Only if you are a known brand name do I think that renting email lists has a realistic chance of delivering the goods. The one possible exception here is if you're dealing with a company (probably business-to-business) that assigns a high value to leads and prospects and is willing to pay for them -- and knows how to convert leads to sales.

Second, it's most certainly your problem if the list you're renting was compiled through less than legitimate means. Not only are you paying good money for ineffective email addresses, but also you're possibly damaging your reputation.

I agree with Inbox_Interactive here. He knows what he is talking about as he is an expert in this field.

Do not rent a list. Take a look at the services that people like Inbox_Interactive have to offer. You will get much better results.