Not everybody is playing the email game with the same rules

[jkiley]

I have noticed that we are told here million times a day that you have to do what aweber is telling you to do if you want to play the email game. I receive 10s of emails a day from linkshare (and other websites) and they are not playing the game with the same rule. If I want to unsubscribe from the email, I have to logon. There is no direct link to unsubscribe.

I get tons of emails from other companies/people on daily basis and I never subscribed with them. Most of them don't have the link to unsubscribe either, and I am not talking about nigerian emails. I am talking about legit businesses.

Anybody wants to comment on this? I feel like I am being fooled here.

[Kevin Riley]

Originally Posted by jkiley

I have noticed that we are told here million times a day that you have to do what aweber is telling you to do if you want to play the email game. I receive 10s of emails a day from linkshare (and other websites) and they are not playing the game with the same rule. If I want to unsubscribe from the email, I have to logon. There is no direct link to unsubscribe.

I get tons of emails from other companies/people on daily basis and I never subscribed with them. Most of them don't have the link to unsubscribe either, and I am not talking about nigerian emails. I am talking about legit businesses.

Anybody wants to comment on this? I feel like I am being fooled here.

Not being fooled. If you want to be a legitimate marketer, you allow people to easily unsub - as Aweber autoresponder allows.

If you want to be a dirtbag who gets a bad rep, you make it difficult for people to unsub. Needless to say, I wouldn't promote someone if I knew they were pulling those shenanigans with their list.

[policy]

It's very annoying, If they don't have an unsubscribe that I can easily click and press unsubscribe, then I go into my e-mail account and create a filter and have their e-mails go directly to the trash can, and any e-mails associated with them also go there.

I use different passwords for almost every website, so of course I won't take the time to reset my password or remember my login when I can just make sure I never hear of that scummy business again.

[SageSound]

I just got one and wondered, "How the heck did I get THAT?" It actually had an un-sub link at the bottom. I clicked it, and it redirected me to another domain entirely, and I landed on a page that literally said, "Yes, Please BLACKLIST MY EMAIL so I don't get any more messages from you".

Frankly, I don't understand why aWeber is so doggone scared about getting shut down when there are so many others who NEED to be shut down! So where are the email police when you need them?

I think that conforming to the laws just makes it easier for legal eagles to take pot-shots at the LEGITIMATE folks who might wander a little off-course. There doesn't seem to be much if anything they can, do, or even bother to do, about all the others.

[jkiley]

Originally Posted by SageSound

Frankly, I don't understand why aWeber is so doggone scared about getting shut down when there are so many others who NEED to be shut down! So where are the email police when you need them?

I don't think it is them who is scared. I think they have created this business for themselves by putting fear in our hearts. Good for them, bad for us.

[Slin]

What?!?

Haha K let's clear a few things up for everyone here.

These emails that you cannot unsubscribe from generally are untargeted, meaning they make little money.

The majority do go into spam if you have gmail, yahoo, or hotmail. Why? Because there ISP is blacklisted by those blockers. (or something like that, I am not tech savvy but I do know that they usually get blocked)

Keep with the legitimate businesses, get a good name for yourself. Huge profits will follow if you do this.

[Jag82]

I hear you. And I know how that feels.

One of my other peeves is that I get mails out of
nowhere. And they offer me the chance to unsubscribe.

But let's see. I didn't sign up to your mailing list in the
first place! You shouldn't even be sending me emails!

And there's another one...

Networkers who immediately put me on their mailing
list just hours after we met at a networking session...

No asking for permission at all. Sheesh.

Jag

Originally Posted by jkiley

I have noticed that we are told here million times a day that you have to do what aweber is telling you to do if you want to play the email game. I receive 10s of emails a day from linkshare (and other websites) and they are not playing the game with the same rule. If I want to unsubscribe from the email, I have to logon. There is no direct link to unsubscribe.

I get tons of emails from other companies/people on daily basis and I never subscribed with them. Most of them don't have the link to unsubscribe either, and I am not talking about nigerian emails. I am talking about legit businesses.

Anybody wants to comment on this? I feel like I am being fooled here.

[InternetMarketingIQ]

Get a Yahoo email account for your opt in tests. When you get tired of the same old crap send it to the junk mail. I delete 100's of spam mails on Yahoo everyday. Their spam filter works great. This is the easiest way I've found to test out other marketers products and get rid of the annoying mails when I no longer want them.

[dean_holland]

Ok maybe I misunderstand here ....

Are you saying your NOT happy the way aweber operates ??

Because quite frankly the way they do is the CORRECT way !! Just look at what is being said about the kind of people that do not operate in this way... JUNK !

If you want to build and operate a legitimate online business then you will follow the rules that ultimately see that you do run this kind of business.

If you want to be one of those trashy fools that operates in a trashy way then you go ahead and do that. Everyone has a choice but don't complain about operating the correct way my friend

Dean

[Richelo Killian]

The simple truth is that NOT having a WORKING unsub link is against the law.

Go ahead, run a autoresponder script on your own host, DON'T put in a unsubscription link.

See how long before you are shut down, sued, and everything you ever owned taken away from you.

Think it doesn't happen?

I DARE you, TRY it!

[jkiley]

Originally Posted by Slin

What?!?

Haha K let's clear a few things up for everyone here.

These emails that you cannot unsubscribe from generally are untargeted, meaning they make little money.

The majority do go into spam if you have gmail, yahoo, or hotmail. Why? Because there ISP is blacklisted by those blockers. (or something like that, I am not tech savvy but I do know that they usually get blocked)

Keep with the legitimate businesses, get a good name for yourself. Huge profits will follow if you do this.

I get these emails on my hotmail account. So, no hotmail doesn't block them.

[jkiley]

Originally Posted by Richelo Killian

The simple truth is that NOT having a WORKING unsub link is against the law.

Go ahead, run a autoresponder script on your own host, DON'T put in a unsubscription link.

See how long before you are shut down, sued, and everything you ever owned taken away from you.

Think it doesn't happen?

I DARE you, TRY it!

How is linkshare in business for so long? I can name few more

[Steven Wagenheim]

Everybody plays with the same rules.

They just don't all play by the same rules.

Those that don't, they risk their reputations and their business.

Don't worry about what other marketers are doing.

Worry about what you are doing.

[scfc16]

Ewan Chio seems to bombard me with spam !! has any one else heard fo the guy ?

[Hesaidblissfully]

Originally Posted by jkiley

How is linkshare in business for so long? I can name few more

Not speaking as a lawyer, my understanding of the legal definition of spam is that it's unsolicited commercial email. Are these emails from Linkshare just announcements about new programs and offers, or are they actually asking you to purchase something? Because if they're not actually selling anything, then they may not fall under the definition of "commercial" email. Yes, I know technically they could be considered commercial since they want you as an affiliate to help them make money, but if the messages themselves aren't asking you to buy anything, they may not fall under the definition of spam. Again, I'm not a lawyer, that's just my take on the situation.

As for getting emails from companies you never subscribed for, a lot of companies use what's called co-registration, where when you opt-in to one list, you're also opting in to receive offers from their partners. So it could be that at some point in the past, you opted in to a co-registered list, and so your email address was automatically set up to receive offers from their partner companies. And you may not have known you were doing it because you usually have to opt-out, or uncheck boxes to indicate that you DON'T want to receive offers from these partner companies. If you were in a rush, or their policy wasn't clear, you may have just overlooked it.

[JohnMcCabe]

IMHO, there are a couple of ways to handle unsubscribe requests, and I have no problem with either of them.

First is the Aweber-style link that zaps you when you click it. Quick, clean and easy.

The other is the link that takes you to a page that shows all of your subscriptions with that account holder. You then get the choice to drop one list, all lists or just change your email address. Also quick and easy, although not quite as clean.

I don't particularly care to have to log in somewhere just to kill a subscription. If I don't have the log-in info handy, I'm likely to follow the example of a previous poster and just filter the email into the trash.

Now, I don't use Aweber, I'm a bit too much of a control freak for that. I use a self-hosted application. I also make it really, really easy to get off my lists because I'm too lazy to deal with spam complaints. So I play by the spirit of the rules.

Funny thing, though. My delivery rates are fine, my unsubscribes are low, and I don't remember the last spam complaint...

[danhughes]

There are lots of legitimate companies that would not be able to use Aweber if they kept with their current practices.

Aweber errs massively on the side of caution, but mostly for the members benefit.

If a company with a gigantic list like 1800PetMeds (major leauge over-emailers) get a spam complaint, that means only 0.000001% of their list have complained. I'm willing to bet that the average Aweber member list size is probably under 1000. That means with just a handful of complaints you could have some serious deliverability issues.

Some things to remember:
If you're affiliated with a group or company (as with Linkshare) then CAN-SPAM doesn't apply. Your affiliation with the company means the correspondence is no longer unsolicited.

CAN-SPAM only requires a sender to have an "unsubscribe mechanism" . So having to log in somewhere to opt out is totally expectable. It doesn't even need to be a link. Of course, if it's difficult to unsubscribe then you run the risk of a spam complaint. The issue again comes down the size of your list.

Areas that many people get wrong:
Don't mess around with the from line. Special characters or changing the from name could be considered illegal.

If you're mailing an affiliate offer then you are no longer the advertiser and become a publisher. That means in addition to your physical address being present, you should also include the advertisers.

Finally, never register your domain or get hosting from Godaddy. With just one complaint (not even a verified complaint) they can and will hold your domain / hosting hostage unless you pay their $150 fine.