Buying an email list typically costs between $100 and $1,000 CPM (cost per 1,000 contacts), depending on the quality of the data, targeting, and whether the list contains consumer or business contacts.
While purchased email lists may seem like a quick way to reach new customers, they often come with serious downsides, including spam complaints, low engagement, legal compliance risks, and damage to your sender reputation.
In this guide, we’ll break down how much email lists cost, what affects pricing, the difference between buying and renting lists, and why building your own opt-in audience is usually the better long-term strategy.
Email list pricing and what it depends on
The price of an email list depends on the quality of the addresses and types of people on the list. That is, a business-to-business email list will be more costly than a consumer email list.
For instance, a consumer list costs between $100 and $400 CPM. CPM stands for cost per mile; it is the price charged for every 1,000 email addresses that you purchase.
At the same time, you have to pay a lot more for the business list — from $200 to $1000 for the same number of addresses. The more targeted the email list is, the more expensive it becomes.
Although purchased email lists may appear cost-effective at first, low engagement rates, spam complaints, and deliverability issues often make them far more expensive in the long run.
Email list rental cost
Renting a list only provides limited access to the data and only allows for temporary message sending. Once purchased, the “email broker” will send out the message to the audience at the agreed time/date.
Rental email list prices are also usually charged per thousand views. For a focused email list with around 2,500 to 5,000 contacts, be prepared to spend $200 to $400 per CPM for a consumer list and $300 to $600 for a business list. In addition, there are often other costs associated with an email marketing campaign, such as managing and tracking your emails. You’ll get tracking results that show you things like open and click-through rates as well as valuable insights into what works and what doesn’t. This service could cost you $500 to $3,500.
Are email marketing lists worth buying?
You can find ready-made email lists for sale on the internet, but using a purchased email list doesn’t really mean that you have found potential customers. Consider the disadvantages of purchased email lists and whether they have any benefits.
Benefits
- Purchasing or renting an email list can save you time and effort by letting a vendor do the work for you.
- Buying a list of potential customers can help you easily reach new markets. This increases the number of potential leads. Having access to more contacts can help you reach a larger audience.
Risks
- Most likely a bought email list is either out of date or of low quality. There are many invalid addresses in purchased databases and databases from open sources — misspelled or abandoned. The people on these lists typically never opted in to hear from you.
- As the recipients of emails did not consent to mailings, there is a high probability that your email will be marked as spam and your IP and domain will be blacklisted. Email services promptly block the authors of unsolicited emails.
- Such lists are likely to contain spam traps — addresses that mail services use to catch spammers. Sending an email to such an address also can cause your IP and domain to get blacklisted, making it difficult to restore the reputation of a reliable sender. If there are serious problems with your IP address or domain, you may have trouble sending even legitimate emails from that address or domain in the future.
- First impressions matter. Recipients are unlikely to respond positively to emails from a company they never subscribed to. The reputation of the brand will be damaged.
- You are neither the first nor the last person to buy this email list — it could be used by your competitors. That’s why some recipients may already have spam protection set up against a particular list and won’t see your emails.
- Purchasing an email list can be risky, as you could be held liable for CAN-SPAM Act violations if the company you purchased the list from did not obtain its contacts legally. These violations can result in significant fines.
Furthermore, email service providers would not allow a sender to use a purchased list, as this is generally considered spam. If you try to send a campaign using a purchased list, you’ll find yourself blocked. Therefore, it is not worth your time to compose a campaign using a bought email list.
Is buying an email list legal?
The legality of buying email lists depends on where your business and recipients are located. In the United States, email marketing is regulated by the CAN-SPAM Act, while businesses targeting EU residents must comply with GDPR requirements.
Even when purchasing lists is technically allowed, sending emails to people who never explicitly subscribed to your communications can still lead to spam complaints, poor deliverability, and reputational damage.
How to build an email list on your own
There are many ways to collect email addresses, but the best way is to do it yourself. This ensures your subscribers actually want to hear from your brand. It may take more time and effort than other methods, but it will pay off in the end. Plus, you won’t have to worry about ending up on a blacklist.
The main rule when building your own list of addresses — the user must leave their contact voluntarily. Follow the tips below so that your email list is full of valid addresses of subscribers who are most interested in what your company offers.
Create a pop-up form on your website
If you don’t have an email list but have a website, you can collect contacts by setting up a subscription form. To get maximum attention, use pop-up forms.
They are usually triggered by a user action, such as spending a certain amount of time on the page, reaching a certain point on the page, hovering their cursor over the exit button.
When one of these conditions is met, a pop-up form will appear with an offer to leave an email address. These forms can offer something useful in exchange for an address, such as a free downloadable product, or without it.
It’s a good idea to ask users to confirm their subscription through a double opt-in method to make sure they really want it and that you’re not getting any invalid or unwanted subscriptions.
To make a form work, you need to tell your subscribers:
- What the newsletter will be about. Good ideas: interesting news on the topic, useful tips, new services, and products, and, of course, promotions with discounts and bonuses.
- What kind of bonus they get for subscribing. Online stores often offer a discount or gifts. Choose a bonus that your audience will like.
- How often the emails will arrive. Predictability of the newsletter is important. Users won’t are less likely to worry about receiving too many emails, and will wait for the newsletter according to the promised schedule.
Subscription forms can also include banners or buttons located at the bottom or at the top, but they should be unobtrusive and always have a close button so as not to irritate users.
Pop-ups can be annoying, but they are also one of the most effective ways to encourage people to sign up for your email list — the average conversion rate of 11,09% shows their effectiveness. A well-designed pop-up that appears at the right time can be very effective in getting people to sign up.
Offer an incentive in exchange for the email address
To make people more willing to subscribe and give their consent to receive the newsletter, offer a variety of incentives for signing up for your email list. Examples of incentives include:
- Discounts
- Helpful email series
- Free downloads
- Time-saving cheat sheets and more
Only you will know what the perfect subscription gift is for your audience, so devise something that you think they will find valuable.
Make it really easy to subscribe
The fewer fields the visitor has to fill out, the higher the conversion rate. It’s best to limit yourself to the basic information — name and email address.
According to statistics, the most popular subscription forms have one field, but the forms with the highest conversion rates have three lines.
Encourage everyone to sign up immediately
If you have something that nobody else has, or that is only available for a short time, people will be more likely to sign up for it.
Leveraging FOMO technique is a great way to get more people to sign up for your email list because it taps into our natural desire to be part of something and not miss out.
Cosmetic Packaging’s form introduces an access to new products, creating a VIP “in-group” that the reader can relate to.
Spam tactics can seriously damage your email marketing performance and sender reputation. It is much better to build your own list of subscribers than to buy lists of email addresses. Buying lists can lead to penalties and a loss of reputation while building your own list can result in strong relationships with customers and more effective email marketing overall.
Final thoughts
Although purchasing an email list may save you time, it is generally not worth the risk.
There are many downsides associated with buying an email list, including:
- Getting poor lists with many invalid or outdated addresses
- The possibility of being marked as spam
- Having your IP address blacklisted
- Damaging the reputation of your brand
- Being held liable for CAN-SPAM Act violations if the contacts on the list were not obtained legally
Building your own email list is important if you want to do effective email marketing. How to build an email list? Collect the names and contact information of people who visit your website by letting them sign up for your newsletter. Use pop-up forms to encourage sign-ups.
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