Is it wise to buy an email list to get leads from the USA?

29 replies
I have been thinking of buying an email list of small businesses from infousa for my marketing agency business but some say that buying an email list is not a good idea because they are not highly targeted. Is this true?. Where can i find highly targeted leads of small business owners?
#buy #email #leads #list #usa #wise
  • Profile picture of the author JasonMorrisCMP
    You might want to consider Solo Ads instead. I used a service called TrafficForMe and it yielded some good results. You basically send the provider your offer / landing page. They look it over and send to a targeted list, then emails go out and you get charged per click until you reach your clicks. So, you might run a campaign of 200 clicks, they will send emails until you get those clicks. There are many others out there so, you will have to do research and look for reviews. Hope that helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author Benjamin Ha
      OOOO this sounds really interesting gonna take a look
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    • Profile picture of the author HansDavid
      Originally Posted by JasonMorrisCMP View Post

      You might want to consider Solo Ads instead. I used a service called TrafficForMe and it yielded some good results. You basically send the provider your offer / landing page. They look it over and send to a targeted list, then emails go out and you get charged per click until you reach your clicks. So, you might run a campaign of 200 clicks, they will send emails until you get those clicks. There are many others out there so, you will have to do research and look for reviews. Hope that helps.
      I had a bad experience with TrafficForMe. Out of 126 clicks, I only got one opt-in.

      They sent me additional 100 clicks but the opt ins are mostly dead leads that do not open emails let alone buy stuffs.
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      • Profile picture of the author TobiMDD
        Originally Posted by HansDavid View Post

        I had a bad experience with TrafficForMe. Out of 126 clicks, I only got one opt-in.

        They sent me additional 100 clicks but the opt ins are mostly dead leads that do not open emails let alone buy stuffs.

        thats the problem with solo ads, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose..
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      • Profile picture of the author talfighel
        Originally Posted by HansDavid View Post

        I had a bad experience with TrafficForMe. Out of 126 clicks, I only got one opt-in.

        They sent me additional 100 clicks but the opt ins are mostly dead leads that do not open emails let alone buy stuffs.
        1 opt in out of 126 clicks?

        I think your opt in page was not that good or was not active when clicks were sent.

        I bought clicks from them in the past and always had at least 20% opt in rate.

        Plus, I know that T4M is one of the best places for a solo ad because lots of top earners go there for their traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
    I've been monetizing purchased email data for over 19 years.

    Most will tell you not to do it. However, it's usually because they tried it and didn't know what they were doing and failed or that's what they heard and preach it as the truth.

    By no means am I saying everyone one should do it. If you do decide to, get it from a reputable broker and just buy a sample and test it. Then based on the results you'll know what it's worth to you and need to pay to make it worthwhile.
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    How to Build LARGE EMAIL LISTS on a Budget and MONETIZE Like a PRO
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    • Profile picture of the author dhruvcasper
      Hi, how to find reputed broker for email or contact list. the ones i have found till date are mostly unprofessional
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    • Profile picture of the author MR BAYOU32
      when you bought an email list where you upload it
      because when you import your list the provider rejected that
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  • Profile picture of the author myob
    There are many reputable business lead providers. I've been getting excellent results for decades from infousa and dun&bradstreet. For best results, order by verticals and sic closest to your existing customers' interest or niche.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chris-
    You need to get good info from others who have bought from that list provider so you know how good their list is. Or buy a small part of their list to test, initially.

    Other options include using existing scraping software or services . . . some are free some cost money. You need to be targeting as accurately as possible. Some services (such as GetProspect which scrapes business from LinkedIn) will also Verify each email it finds, or you can use a separate list cleaning service to clean your list (make sure you use one which your mailing-list management-system recommends, because some of them don't do a good enough job for the resulting "cleaned" list to be acceptable by your mailing-list management-system).

    Note that it might be much cheaper to hire outsource workers (some of whom are happy to work for a few cents per hour), than to pay for an auto-scraping service, and can be more legal too since scraping software can be prohibited from sites (such as Yelp) which allow manual data collection.

    There are lead sellers on FB lead groups, BUT a lot of them are only selling scraped prospects, NOT real leads (a lead is someone who has knowingly expressed an interest in your specific business), so you have to be careful . . . you might be able to get some recommendations there for good lead providers. Most have a $500 minimum purchase.

    What matters most is how well targeted your leads are, how fresh, are they cleaned, how many other buyers are they sent to, and then the cost per lead. So creating your own leads in some way might be more effective overall.

    Another option most people are not aware of . . . did you know that you can set Google ads to "call only" . . . so you only pay for people to Call you direct from an ad on a mobile phone? The cost per call is often about the same as the cost for a mere click using other types of Google ads, yet are much more valuable, since the person is calling you direct in response to an ad about exactly what you are offering. You can limit the ads to your office hours, location etc.

    Chris
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  • Profile picture of the author Yusuf Dogan
    Collecting leads yourself by ads and funnels will make you to get best results, instead of buying e-mail lists that you don't know anything about the targetted audience.
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  • Profile picture of the author JPs copy
    An old department manager of mine used to buy lists. He only bought in a few times, but it didn't net any results.

    I definitely agree with Yusuf. Building your own leads is slower, but the difference in quality is night and day.
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  • Profile picture of the author jeffreywalton
    firstly, it is not legal. secondly, many messages can get into spam.
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    • Profile picture of the author myob
      Originally Posted by jeffreywalton View Post

      firstly, it is not legal.
      Lead sales is a legitimate $200 billion+ industry.

      Originally Posted by jeffreywalton View Post

      secondly, many messages can get into spam.
      Nearly all "spam" is the result of knuckleheads either not knowing or ignoring standard marketing practices.
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    • Profile picture of the author ProducerK
      Originally Posted by jeffreywalton View Post

      firstly, it is not legal. secondly, many messages can get into spam.
      Regarding legality, you can review this article here:

      https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/busi...guide-business

      It is very easy to stay on the right side of the law in regards to bulk emailing.

      Regarding going to spam, this is 99% due based on the content of your email message and not knowing best practices and copyrighting errors. Inboxing is not hard if you spend the time learning how to do it correctly and effectively, like in all other businesses.

      As usual, more misinformation being posted by users who have no business making those statements. You should research your stuff or learn about it before posting it as a truth. I cannot count the number of threads I have posted in correcting the mis-information about purchasing lists on the email marketing forum here.
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  • Profile picture of the author Urbiab
    Try, and make sure you know what you are getting before you buy it.
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    • Profile picture of the author ProducerK
      Originally Posted by Urbiab View Post

      Try, and make sure you know what you are getting before you buy it.
      Good advise, its always recommended that you use a reputable list broker to purchase leads from.

      Over the last 2 years, there has been an influx of lead brokers coming into this industry thinking its an easy way to make a quick buck. You never want to use a fly by night broker, you want someone who has been in business for a long time, has solid connections, and does right by their customers.

      Hope this helps.
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      EMAIL & SMS MARKETING | DATA & LEADS SALES | SYSTEMS SETUP | EXPERT CONSULTING
      LeadsPlusData.Com | PM For Skype, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, And More....
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  • Profile picture of the author ProducerK
    Originally Posted by felisitie View Post

    I have been thinking of buying an email list of small businesses from infousa for my marketing agency business but some say that buying an email list is not a good idea because they are not highly targeted. Is this true?. Where can i find highly targeted leads of small business owners?
    One final note, InfoUSA's B2B pricing is very very high for what you get.

    They have some of the highest pricing in the industry I think, so YMMV.
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    EMAIL & SMS MARKETING | DATA & LEADS SALES | SYSTEMS SETUP | EXPERT CONSULTING
    LeadsPlusData.Com | PM For Skype, Telegram, Signal, WhatsApp, And More....
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    • Profile picture of the author myob
      Originally Posted by ProducerK View Post

      One final note, InfoUSA's B2B pricing is very very high for what you get.

      They have some of the highest pricing in the industry I think, so YMMV.
      In my experience, InfoUSA has been well worth the extra costs. There are some verticals for which there is no other reliable source. Nothing else I have found come close to their fresh updated business contact lists. They also provide telephone numbers and mailing addresses.
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  • Profile picture of the author withoutlimits
    No. Because those people don't have anything to do with your company. They haven't made a prior transaction with you sending them a campaign is spamming.
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    • Profile picture of the author DIABL0
      Originally Posted by withoutlimits View Post

      No. Because those people don't have anything to do with your company. They haven't made a prior transaction with you sending them a campaign is spamming.
      You can buy 3rd party data, which are targeted leads (niche or offer specific) that the users have given permission to receive messages from third parties. So you're not spamming them.
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      How to Build LARGE EMAIL LISTS on a Budget and MONETIZE Like a PRO
      20+ Years Exp . . . . . . . . . . . . Email - CPA - PPL
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  • Profile picture of the author radhe bhardwaj
    Sorry to say but I don't think this would be a great idea. If you ask me then I would recommend you to scrap the emails from Google instead of buying the list from database. Buying the list can be costly as well as it is not that reliable however scrapping the list from Google is the best. I do the same for my website design and SEO/PPC business.
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  • Profile picture of the author Dan Miladinov
    As someone who provides this types of lists my answer might be biased, but let me share my opinion.

    I truly think at this moment in the USA this is one of the better ROI channels you can use for your business. B2C, B2B doesn't matter. Europe is a different story.

    A few things to consider:

    - Reputation of the provider
    People sell all kind of useless information on the internet. Emails especially is something that loses value and becomes useless as time goes by. Especially business emails. There are a lot of sales people who will give you outdated email data and that is absolutely useless.

    - Your niche and target audience
    If someone is selling data scraped from instagram for example, and you need to reach C-level executives, of course that would be pointless to do. Vice-versa.
    Ask for a small sample, and just be thoughtful yourself about what an individual or another business can offer you and what your needs are.

    -Do you even know what do to with the emails?
    Can you send them? Do you know how to send them without ending up in spam. Until you figure out this part don't buy anything.

    I have clients who send over 2 million emails per month for over half a year now.
    I also have clients who will buy 5k emails and never come back.

    Why? Because they put the 5k emails in mailchimp, send them out with a template, get a 20% open rate and 1% click through rate.

    So, there is a lot of things to consider.

    If you know:
    1. How to send them
    2. Who to send them to
    3. Have a sales funnel in place what do to when people reply to you
    4. Have a reputable provider

    Go for it, otherwise learn about it first.
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  • It is not wise to do so because all your campaigns will automatically goes to their spam folders. You should try buying solo ads instead.
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  • Profile picture of the author amybol
    There are two type of leads, one provided by the vendor as a csv or directly in autoresponder and other is when vendor sends traffic to your capture page and when the subscriber opts in, they get to see the thank you page.

    So, never buy leads, where subscriber has himself not opted in.

    Build for long term and avoid all tricks
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  • Profile picture of the author MiLe1987
    IDK, why not just scrape them yourself? I'm currently doing that and it works well. I scrape about 100k a day.
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  • Profile picture of the author Profit Traveler
    Banned
    Data is Gold that is why so many Data breaches.

    But with emails you never know if they already been spammed to death before you came along.

    I would try to joint venture with someone that has current list in your field of interest.
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  • Profile picture of the author starbaby
    You could reach small business owners through your local library with your library card with Reference USA directly or go to sites like local search sites for free
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  • Profile picture of the author amybol
    Never buy an email list even it is from a trusted source.

    So, if you buy email list and send email then, if people on that list don't know you, then many of them will mark your email as spam. Now, getting marked as spam by many people indicates the delivery partners that there is some serious problem with your list. So, they might ban you and also the email address which you have been using might get permanent spam mark from the email clients.

    Better to start fresh, even if it is slow.
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