Email to millions? How credible?

How credible are safe email lists and how effective for email marketing?

[vik_c]

Several sites offer safe email lists for as little as $12, they say we can send mail to a million people for $10-15 a year without being charged with spam.

Does anyone have any experience with any such program which really works?

Thanks!

[creative craig]

I would steer clear of any such advertising as that.

If the person didnt ask for the email then it is seen as unwanted email and that is spam. Of course IMO :)

Craig

[gsx]

An apparent cost of a valid email address is around $30 per address. That should make your $12 bargain worth about $30,000,000 to be a safe list. I can see a slight discrepancy within that list.

The only way to create a 100% safe list is to do it from your own site with double-opt-in.

[SmallTime]

In recent court judgement a fellow in my state got a bill for $100,000, so that $12 could be rather expensive. (for advertising his book on how to profit from the internet :)

[conquer7]

I agreed upon unwanted emails are spam but if email topic is reciever's interest then will it be beneficial?
I meant targeted email list.

[emailtools]

Lists advertised as safe lists generally fall into 2 categories:

1. Harvested: the opt-in part is a lie.
2. The email equivalent of FFA link farms.

Typically you have to subscribe to be able to send offers to a "safe" list. Since everyone is only interested in just sending their offer to everyone else (not receiving them), subscribers use throw-away email addresses. So, yes your offer may get sent to lots of email addresses, but it will probably not be read!

"Safe" lists are not really worth the effort.

Also remember that it's your link/domain that will be in the emails, so it's YOU that will end up getting the bulk of any spam complaints/added to blacklists, etc.