Spam, Scams and Autoresponder Nightmares!
Posted on February 18, 2008
Filed Under Scams, Software, Spam, Technology and Web 2.0, Web Site ToolBox
If you're new here, join the community by subscribing to my RSS Feed. 
via Email or Enter your "EMAIL ADDRESS" to the form located at the top of each blog page => for email updates and out "Get Online Now" course! Glad to have your onboard!
How to choose an autoresponder that won’t get you banned, anger your customers and drag your credibility down the toilet!
How long would you consider reasonable for a list owner to manually remove your email address from their mailing list?
How about 24 hours or within a few days or so. Maybe they’ve been away from their computer so a week or two at the most should be reasonable enough.
Well how about NEVER!
I’ve unsubscribed myself from several affiliate programs over time mainly because I decided not to promote their products or the conversion rates were unsatisfactory. Anyway to cut a long story short I have been trying to unsubscribe from a credit card affiliate program email updates. I received a personal message from their admin that my email address had been manually removed and I kept all reply messages just in case. Yet more than 7 months later I find yet another unwanted email from them.
What is up with them?
The reason I dropped this company is because I was actively promoting my affiliate link and when I sent an email to make an inquiry into the location of the statistics page I received a “Page Not Found” error message so naturally I sent an email to the Affiliate Manager for answers.
The reply back was that they had changed the affiliate tracking system and had issued new links. Furthermore I would receive ZERO credit for any sign ups generated from the old links, even though they were still redirecting as normal to their product pages.
I was then instructed to sign up again with their new system.
I wrote back and told them to forget about it and that I don’t want to be affiliated with the company any longer. I also instructed them to remove my name, email address and personal details from their mailing list.
They obviously did not remove my email address and do not remove ANY BOUNCED MESSAGES because that I have set up MailWasherPro to bounce all messages from their domain months ago!
With all of the talk about FTC and email practices what does this kind of blatant spamming. Yes, I could change my email address but I have had enough of doing this over and over again.
Unsubscribe Me Now
Their emails to not have an unsubscribe link in them at all forcing you to contact them direct in hope that they will remove you.
They give me the distinct impression that they have absolutely NO INTENTION
of removing me. I hadn’t even noticed their messages because of my email settings. MailWasherPro automatically remembers my preferences for Spam messages plugging cheap prescription drugs, replica watches and so on. Leaving my real messages, “friends” in plain view.
I’ll be taking the matter further letting them know that I am contacting the FTC with copies of all their apparent reassurances that they have removed my email address from their autoresponder. I’m sure they will miraculously remove me or better still ban my email address from receiving their messages permanently.
What a complete waste of time.
Another Email Dilemma
A well known marketer sent out their apologies to their entire list for their in-house mailing list scripts not removing unsubscribe requests. Now I’m not going to preach here but Autoreponder Plus is a good script that I have been subscribed to on many Marketer’s lists and unsubscribed with no problems. However if you have web server has issues or a glitch somewhere that creates errors with your mailing lists script then you’re to be held fully responsible. This could ruin your credibility and relationship with your subscribers. Do you think it is really worth the problems you will have by saving a few nickels and dimes for a monthly or annual subscription.
Third Party Professional Autoresponders Services
I personally use Aweber because they can manage all bounces, subscriptions, unsubscriptions and have unlimited autoresponder capabilities. Plus…
- No Hosted Script Issues
- No Spam complaints that will stick
- No Bounce Management Issues
Build trust with your subscribers when they see you are using a professional autoresponder company with long term good standing. Let the autoresponder service deal with establishing “whitelisting” for their domain with the major email providers like Yahoo, Gmail etc.
Hosted scripts may seem like a good cost effective means to manage your mailing list but unless you have a dedicated server or have good programming knowledge to sort out any scripting issues then I highly recommend using a third party service.
There are many professionally third party autoresponder services to choose from. More and more savvy Internet Marketers are using and switching to Aweber after using their own hosted scripts. So that should give you a good idea that professional third party autoreponder services is the best way to go. When it comes to mailing lists it really does go without saying…
“YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR”
You also have a better chance of thwarting Spam complaints using a third party service than one hosted on your own domain. Remember people are human and can easily forget they have subscribed to your list out of many others. People are TOO QUICK to cry ‘Spam’ and ‘Scam’ before they double check to see if they DID actually subscribe to receive further information from you. Its just plain human nature to be forgetful. At least with a recognized autoresponder service like Aweber under your belt you can be sure that any Spam complaints will be dealt with in your favor because they have very strict rules to abide. You will also have details of each subscribers data showing:
- Name
- Email Address
- Date Subscribed
- IP Address
- URL subscribed etc
All logged and recorded in you Aweber account. No more hairs at the back of your neck standing up on end. These kinds of dilemmas are more than likely some of the reasons that disuade people from starting a mailing list in the first place!
Does this include you?
Alternatives For Bloggers
If you only have blogs then you’re best course of action is to use services like FeedBurner, FeedBlitz as they will manage all of your RSS and Email subscription for you on autopilot. FeedBurner costs $0.00 has high delivery rates and is one of the most trusted email delivery systems. Try bombarding them with Spam complaints. :oops:
Freebie Alternative – Well Sort Of!
An excellent way to build a mailing list WITHOUT having to deal with mailing list scripts of ANY KIND can be found with Web 2.0 social network sites. Just use the in-built mailing list service, within the user terms of course. Contact your friends as and when the system allows and build credibility and trust. A good tip is to GIVE to people. Warm them up to you and share your knowledge with others first and foremost. People will appreciate your generosity and may well sign up to receive more details about your business thereafter.
What mailing list script do you use?
If you use a hosted script have you experienced any Spam complaints?
And if their was a problem with the script do you have the skills to fix it yourself or would you have to contact the script developer and wait for them to get things sorted on your behalf?
Recommended Reading:
How To Automatically Save Draft Messages
How To Integrate Google Analytics With Your Autoresponder
Comments
5 Responses to “Spam, Scams and Autoresponder Nightmares!”
Subscribe to RSS Feed UpdatesLeave a Reply Below!
Top Tools & Services
-
Featured Links
Recent Comments
- Godswill Nkanu: I’ll really love to have a website with your help,cos i dont have one and i’m still new...
- Michael renz: this looks very cool
- James S: Hi Everyone, firstly appreciating the comments an dlinks such as Storebrander, I will be doing that when I...
- Sterman: Hey, nice blog, just looking around some blogs, seems a pretty nice platform you are using. I’m...
- noah:
I want to increase the traffic of my blogs.I think thise details wii be usefl. Thanks
Stumbleupon
Twitter
YouTube
LinkedIn
Digg
Social Vibe
Facebook 
[...] self hosted email software where it depends on your web host’s server to ensure the script runs [...]
[...] simply “UNSUBSCRIBE” their email address manually. Be sure to use software like MailWasher Pro to scan your email messages on your server before downloading to your [...]
[...] that email address since the launch of this website way back in 2002. However even with the aid of MailWasherPro to automatically filter out the “crap”, the level of Spam has grown to such ridiculous [...]
Excellent information here. Added your blog to my list of favorites.
[...] Spam, Scams and Autoresponder Nightmares! [...]