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Is it possible to buy email lists ?

by LCDesigns
36 replies
I know this sounds crazy but has anyone ever done so ? Bought some emails off of someone selling them in a related niche. I have seen someone on another site selling 5,000 emails .
#buy #email #lists
  • Profile picture of the author jamie3000
    buying emails always looks dodgy, I mean how'd you know they just haven't fired up scrape box and scraped them off a load of forums? Then you're unknowingly breaking the law emailing them :-(
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  • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
    I have been monetizing purchased data(email) for over 16 years.

    You are not buying subscribers, you are buying at best what would be considered a lead, depending the type of data you buy.

    For example I do all the following.

    I buy fresh / targeted data that I know what the users are interested in and I know that a PPL offer exist that matches their interest.

    In addition to buying fresh / targeted data, I also do rev-share deals where I get the data for $0 upfront cost and then split the revenue that I generate with the list owner.

    I also buy aged data and this is a bit more complex, as you need some additional tools / resources to do it profitably.

    Lastly, I generate real-time co-reg targeting specific PPL offers.

    All the data I buy is data where the user has given permission to receive third party emails and with co-reg, it's first party, as the users are directly requesting info from me.

    One thing you need to keep in mind is that an opt-in list that you build yourself is going to be more responsive than a list you purchase. So to compensate for this, you need to send volume. Which is perfectly OK, as it quicker and cheaper than list building ever will be. The key though is to segment the users that open and click and dump the unresponsive data. That way you will developing smaller, but very responsive lists, so that you will eventually be sending less and making more with each mailing.

    This is not for everyone and I personally consider it more of a business model than a traffic strategy and in many cases, you may very well be better off building an opt-in list than buying data.
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    • Profile picture of the author ECWin
      Originally Posted by DIABL0 View Post

      I have been monetizing purchased data(email) for over 16 years.

      You are not buying subscribers, you are buying at best what would be considered a lead, depending the type of data you buy.

      For example I do all the following.

      I buy fresh / targeted data that I know what the users are interested in and I know that a PPL offer exist that matches their interest.

      In addition to buying fresh / targeted data, I also do rev-share deals where I get the data for $0 upfront cost and then split the revenue that I generate with the list owner.

      I also buy aged data and this is a bit more complex, as you need some additional tools / resources to do it profitably.

      Lastly, I generate real-time co-reg targeting specific PPL offers.

      All the data I buy is data where the user has given permission to receive third party emails and with co-reg, it's first party, as the users are directly requesting info from me.

      One thing you need to keep in mind is that an opt-in list that you build yourself is going to be more responsive than a list you purchase. So to compensate for this, you need to send volume. Which is perfectly OK, as it quicker and cheaper than list building ever will be. The key though is to segment the users that open and click and dump the unresponsive data. That way you will developing smaller, but very responsive lists, so that you will eventually be sending less and making more with each mailing.

      This is not for everyone and I personally consider it more of a business model than a traffic strategy and in many cases, you may very well be better off building an opt-in list than buying data.
      What email marketing service do you use? Wouldn't it be hard to import those lists in Aweber, GetResponse, etc?
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  • Profile picture of the author DaveOnline
    You can, but I would highly advise you to build your own.
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  • Profile picture of the author Hearn
    Buying converting emails is ok, email addresses not so much.

    Instead you can buy some solo ads traffic and send it to an optin page. You will get around 60% optin rate. Kinda low quality emails, but better than the ones you buy out right.
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  • Profile picture of the author ProducerK
    Buying lists is perfectly fine if you know how to monetize that type of data well.
    Most people fail at purchasing data and monetizing it well because they do not understand the ins and outs of self hosted mailing systems, and how to segment out the good from the bad within the data.

    Warrior Forum is filled with people who will tell you never to purchase lists, but thats because these people mostly run their own websites, and do not have an idea how to monetize purchased data well.

    Buying Solo Ads is about one step up from buying purchased data. People who sell solo ads are in the business of selling emails or subscribers to people. While they might be "opt in", the quality is going to be very similar to purchased data that has been segmented and cleaned properly.

    The biggest benefit of purchased data is scale, you can generate a large list of people and send them a long list of offers that have a very broad scope of people who would be interested in them. The ability to make a lot of money, much faster, is available when you purchase data and use self hosted email systems and a strong end to end strategy.

    I am sure they are plenty of people on here who will disagree with me, but I have been running an operation like this for some time with plenty of success. There are a few other guys on here I know and communicate with who do the same.
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  • Profile picture of the author DavidGWelch
    Yes, you can, there are a lot of sellers out there, but you need to make sure what youre buying has good quality and the emails are from your targeted audience.
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  • Profile picture of the author jimish1982
    You can buy email list for getting fast increase your business. email marketing is the best way to increase your business very fast.

    I am also use this method for getting business. I have lots of email database from different country.
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  • Profile picture of the author silveroaks
    Buying list is a big thing in the industry. It may not be the most ethical thing to do but it has its attractions. The list should be recent though
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  • Profile picture of the author Svetoslav Stoyanchev
    It is not recommended to to this,really..
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  • Profile picture of the author Matthew Iannotti
    Regardless how you get email addresses whether it be an optin, purchased, extracted.. ALWAYS makes sure you validate an email address before ever sending an email, this is where most marketers get lazy and fail. Don't be that guy.
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  • Profile picture of the author jdjenkins
    Buying lists has been going on for many years - from the days of ordinary postal, or direct mail marketing. As others have said, you need to know what you are doing to use the data effectively, but it can be a quick way to build up very large lists.
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  • Profile picture of the author bluemotion
    Originally Posted by LCDesigns View Post

    I know this sounds crazy but has anyone ever done so ? Bought some emails off of someone selling them in a related niche. I have seen someone on another site selling 5,000 emails .
    I agree with some of the other comments here, Buying lists is not the best way to progress. You can't be sure of what you're getting.


    Create a squeeze page, invest in an autoresponder and get your own list of targeted subscribers.
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  • Profile picture of the author sendizo
    Email Marketing can be used as an outbound marketing tool.
    You can buy leads, Carful what you buying. thats the key
    Follow what @DIABL0 said and you will be good.
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  • Profile picture of the author John Cho
    I've bought an email list before of 30k earlier this year 2016.
    Didn't turn out so well. The strategy might have worked back 10 or more years ago but if you're intention is to simply buy a huge list upload them into an ESP like aweber or getresponse and start sending out promotional emails - first of all ESP's will most likely reject your list.

    Even if you get your list cleaned and somehow manage to upload, you'll have a lot of your emails go into the lists spam folders or emails completely ignored since the folks on the list won't know you.
    You could use some cold emailing strategies to introduce yourself and try to have them opt in to your free gift and a new list.. which if you're lucky you may salvage 5% of your original list at best.. from my experience anyway.

    Good luck!
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    • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
      Originally Posted by John Cho View Post

      I've bought an email list before of 30k earlier this year 2016.
      Didn't turn out so well. The strategy might have worked back 10 or more years ago but if you're intention is to simply buy a huge list upload them into an ESP like aweber or getresponse and start sending out promotional emails - first of all ESP's will most likely reject your list.

      Even if you get your list cleaned and somehow manage to upload, you'll have a lot of your emails go into the lists spam folders or emails completely ignored since the folks on the list won't know you.
      You could use some cold emailing strategies to introduce yourself and try to have them opt in to your free gift and a new list.. which if you're lucky you may salvage 5% of your original list at best.. from my experience anyway.

      Good luck!
      You need to have a monetization and sending strategy for the type and age of data you are acquiring. You have to understand the business and have the necessary tools/resources, so that you acquire and manage data cost effectively. Additionally, It's about working with volume and segmenting the responsive users and dumping the unresponsive.
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  • Profile picture of the author ProducerK
    Someone should sticky this thread right to the top.
    There are a few of us in here that will advocate that buying lists is highly effective with the right systems in place.
    The majority of people will say that its a terrible idea.
    With good systems in place, its easy to bring in big six figure incomes.
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  • Profile picture of the author batman9g
    You will have a mix of positive and negative opinions for buying an email list. If you buy the database from a trusted brand, you can definitely expect good result, because that mailing list may have a good quality. But buying from unknown or lesser known brands can result into scam. I suggest that you check email list samples from brands like InfoUSA, Confaab, Melissadata, Dunlopmarketing, etc. Send test emails to the samples to judge these mailing samples are authentic or not. If you are satisfied, then only consider the decision of buying.
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  • Profile picture of the author Anky
    Read this before buying email list.
    Here is dedicated article for this:
    https://orderhive.wordpress.com/2014...ds-reputation/

    How buying email list can ruin your brand's reputation.
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  • Profile picture of the author sprucevn
    Absolutely possible, but you should not buy an email list for the following reasons:
    1. Reputable email marketing vendors don't let you send emails to lists you've bought.
    2. People on a purchased or rented list don't actually know you.
    3. Good email address lists aren't for sale.
    4. Your email deliverability and IP reputation will be harmed.
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  • Profile picture of the author George Schwab
    yeah, its better to do personalized co-reg, they see your ad on other sites
    and respond directly in real time to your specific offer. Costs more, but seems
    more legit.

    The other side of buying lists: its so easy today to get ips blacklisted, then
    doing biz gets expensive, rotating 250 ips, ok, once you are profitable, why not?

    But to get there is nerve wrecking, so far i gave up too early, always something
    wrong, bad list or bad server, ips or something totally unexpected, like no
    response from about 1 million B2B list. They simply delete every message.
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    • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
      Originally Posted by George Schwab View Post

      yeah, its better to do personalized co-reg, they see your ad on other sites
      and respond directly in real time to your specific offer. Costs more, but seems
      more legit.

      The other side of buying lists: its so easy today to get ips blacklisted, then
      doing biz gets expensive, rotating 250 ips, ok, once you are profitable, why not?

      But to get there is nerve wrecking, so far i gave up too early, always something
      wrong, bad list or bad server, ips or something totally unexpected, like no
      response from about 1 million B2B list. They simply delete every message.
      With real-time co-reg, you will pay a high premium per record over buying data. It is really more of a list building strategy and can take longer to get to break-even. It can be imported real-time directly into your autoresponder and complaints are very very low, unless you really hammer users with messages.

      If your buying aged data that has mixed domains, you will want to use your own mailer / IPs and break the data down by domain or groups of domains that you know you can get decent deliverability with. Also, the way you mail is different. For example: you would use one strategy for AOL and a totally different one for GI. Some domains you will never do anything other than hit the spam folder. The biggest key to making this work is getting your IPs at the right price, so you can ROI, You also want to have your own tools to remove bounces, so your not wasting money on a service to do it, which are all way over priced!!!

      If your mailing fresh / targeted data, you can use autoresponders and smtps. You want to use services that provide shared IPs, That way the IPs should have decent reputation based on all users and you can piggyback off them and get decent deliverability. With new data, you want to control as best as you can any complaints, as they allow less that the actual email providers/ISPs allow. But there are some tricks to this.

      With both aged and fresh/target data you want to test samples of lists before spending a bunch of money. You also need to get the data cleaned before sending, however, this doesn't eliminate all risks., so the potential for collateral damage will exist.

      With all data, you always want to be segmenting and removing the unresponsive users, that way you will be building smaller, but much more responsive list, that when you mail, you will be sending less and making more.

      Anyway, you really want to know what you are doing.
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      Free Proven Blueprint: http://emailmonetize.com/blueprint/
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      • Profile picture of the author George Schwab
        Originally Posted by DIABL0 View Post

        With real-time co-reg, you will pay a high premium per record over buying data. It is really more of a list building strategy and can take longer to get to break-even. It can be imported real-time directly into your autoresponder and complaints are very very low, unless you really hammer users with messages.

        If your buying aged data that has mixed domains, you will want to use your own mailer / IPs and break the data down by domain or groups of domains that you know you can get decent deliverability with. Also, the way you mail is different. For example: you would use one strategy for AOL and a totally different one for GI. Some domains you will never do anything other than hit the spam folder. The biggest key to making this work is getting your IPs at the right price, so you can ROI, You also want to have your own tools to remove bounces, so your not wasting money on a service to do it, which are all way over priced!!!

        If your mailing fresh / targeted data, you can use autoresponders and smtps. You want to use services that provide shared IPs, That way the IPs should have decent reputation based on all users and you can piggyback off them and get decent deliverability. With new data, you want to control as best as you can any complaints, as they allow less that the actual email providers/ISPs allow. But there are some tricks to this.

        With both aged and fresh/target data you want to test samples of lists before spending a bunch of money. You also need to get the data cleaned before sending, however, this doesn't eliminate all risks., so the potential for collateral damage will exist.

        With all data, you always want to be segmenting and removing the unresponsive users, that way you will be building smaller, but much more responsive list, that when you mail, you will be sending less and making more.

        Anyway, you really want to know what you are doing.
        thanks mate, in this case i will learn from you. Your posts are the best in this section...
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  • Profile picture of the author wordsandthebees
    While it is obviously the preferred option to build your own list organically, we all know that it takes time to do this.

    Buying a list is a fail safe way to get your content in front of a lot of people in a short period of time.

    If you are sending quality content and have done your research and put effective strategies in place to make your list work for you before, during and after you press send; then go ahead.

    If however, you're looking at this as a method of cutting corners it's quit honestly a waste of time and money.

    Whether you buy a list tor not, your genuine followers are only going to increase as a direct response to the level of hard work you put in.

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author AronParker
    Yep you can.

    Here's what I usually do, I buy leads and then upload that as an audience to Facebook and run retargeting ads.
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  • Profile picture of the author George Schwab
    I shifted my outlook in direction of data buying, as explained by DIABLO

    it's interesting because you can start today, and get a list today!

    and everybody that replies to your mailings will be on your PERSONAL list

    usually you do advertising, but with a bought list you are already inside the email media, so your prospects already ALL use email, and know what to expect.

    thats a shortcut, unlike PPC where you have to make them switch from Web to email, thats a longer way and many of these people do not like to receive or read email.
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  • Profile picture of the author james flynn
    Originally Posted by LCDesigns View Post

    I know this sounds crazy but has anyone ever done so ? Bought some emails off of someone selling them in a related niche. I have seen someone on another site selling 5,000 emails .

    Don't go for it.Many email addresses out there were already purchased by many internet marketers before and were squeezed until the last drop.Therefore buying them and using them for your business might result in you being part of another spam.

    In my opinion instead of looking for an easy way out you should try ' Gating' your assets. Gating can be any form of a landing page or a pop modal that asks for personal information like email address or first name to access the content on your site. For this your content should be worthy enough so that your site's visitors are inclined to share their info with you.For example it can be an e-book,webinars...etc. Second,use social media and other platforms to promote these gated assets to attract a wider demographic. It can do wonders for you if you focus on the quality instead of looking for easy shortcuts. I wish you success for your future endeavours.

    Cheers-James
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike46
    how much you paid?
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  • Profile picture of the author mithu1992
    Yes, you can buy but be ensure the quality and activeness. You should send out your opt in page to this list to create your own subscribers' email list as your purchased email list is not your subscribers. To make email marketing legal you must do it. You can buy a huge email list from marketplace to send out your opt in page to build your subscribers email list. Then you will get good results from your new email list otherwise you may not get good results from email marketing.
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  • Profile picture of the author rritz
    I read a lot about buying lists and buying data, and these two are not the same .. or do I go wrong?

    If someone builds a list, in say aweber, then buying and selling that same list is a bad idea, and illegal.

    If you buy data from someone who has collected the data and can prove to you that the submitters allowed the data to be sold, then it's ok.
    But still, you can only use that data to send from your own server. Importing bought data to aweber for instance is not allowed (as far as I know)

    Plus: If you are buying an email list that someone built, you never know he hasn't already sold that same list to hundreds of other people ... and they are all spamming the hell out of that list.
    Or maybe the list is old and you get high bounce rates ( not too good for your autoresponder account or your IPs you're sending from) and you may get a lot of spam complaints as well.

    I'd not buy an email list that way, never
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  • Profile picture of the author John Cho
    I've bought email lists before.. I think I paid $6k or more..
    Simple answer: I wouldn't buy it again.

    If you have the expertise of what Diablo is doing and have a strategy in place perhaps but if you're looking at this list buying as a magical "shortcut" to building an email list then don't do it. Trust me there's a night and day difference to buying a list vs building a list.
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  • Profile picture of the author Virginia Sanders
    This is an interesting discussion... As I just received an email from a well known marketer who wants to sell me a list of 4800 emails for a small price. It sounds good but the problem is how in the world would you mail to this list? None of the top autoresponders will allow you to import this list into their program.
    So, what seem like a good idea maybe isn't. I looked at the new Mail It Program that is being sold as a wordpress plug in but am not sure that wouldwork. How would you even get around all the restrictionsto even try this process? Since the money is in the list? How long does it take to get one ?
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  • Profile picture of the author Ellen Chedid
    Yep, it is definitely possible. However, If were you I would be weary of bad lists that cause a lot of spam complaints and ruin your reputation. It important that ask the vendor that is selling the list to you questions about how he grew his list, what is is open rate and spam rate. Is is also important to ensure that the list is relevant to your niche or you will lose big time.
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  • Profile picture of the author Madhukar B
    Yes there are many sources to buy e-mail list, but better you can build your own.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tony D
    To be honest.
    If you're buying off a list.
    Autoresponders or those commercial email platforms will not do the job for you and you'll just waste time.


    In which that's why you have to have your own email server. It's very easy to make and maintain to be honest with PMTA around but the thing is when you have no knowledge go hire someone else or find a service that can provide you one.


    With your own email server you have no delays on what you do. You can oversee and control everything else.
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  • Profile picture of the author jimish1982
    Yes, Lots of buy email list source available in market, But only few source provide genuine list. I am already buy list for my clients and get email list with approx 80% delivery rate.

    It was very good for email marketing.
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