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"Security company Marshal reports that their latest survey found 29% of respondents willing to admit that they have purchased something from a spam e-mail."
[readwriteweb.com...]
This blew my mind. I thought the number could be no higher than 5%. No wonder spam is alive and well.
[edited by: caveman at 6:25 pm (utc) on Aug. 25, 2008]
[edit reason] Added quote. [/edit]
There have been a few really good spam emails that were so professional and interesting that I gave the related site a serious look (after cutting and pasting the URL, NOT clicking it) ... but something about the mere fact of them being promoted via spam was enough to stop me.
In fact the rest of the article talks about how dodgy this "poll" looks like: "The study was of just over 600 respondents who visited the Marshal website.". Like who visits their site to buy their stuff, people who buy from spam emails?
[edited by: LifeinAsia at 7:11 pm (utc) on Aug. 25, 2008]
This blew my mind. I thought the number could be no higher than 5%. No wonder spam is alive and well.
Ya, got me too! I don't believe it. I'd like to see that same survey done with a much larger group and with a more controlled environment that isn't influenced by the author in any way. It is really hard to tell in this instance but after reading the About the Author and what they do for a living, I'd say the article is biased.
Marshal's research, which asked ‘What purchases have you made from spam,’ attracted 622 responses with 29.1 percent indicating that they had made purchases.
622 responses? Web based survey? On his own site? Come on now. :)
About the Survey
Marshal's research results are derived from a web-based survey hosted on the Marshal website during June and July 2008. Respondents were asked to select the types of products they had purchased via spam email campaigns from a list of the most commonly spammed products.
Marshal provides customers with a complete portfolio of policy-driven email and Internet solutions that integrate content filtering, compliance, secure messaging and archiving.
<added> I see there were two replies while I was doing mine. We're all on the same track here. In the crapper with this survey! :)
Blame those 29% on all the hassles you have with email, it's all their fault.
This is not surprising because I've always said that spammers wouldn't spam if idiots didn't buy from the spam.
But its a numbers game isn't it? I mean, I thought the return on email spam like this was in the less than 1% range? Its all about sending out email in the millions for that small but lucrative return from that less than 1%. What am I missing? Are the numbers really this high?
We sometimes forget that some of those idiots could be close relatives of ours. You know, like Mom, Dad, Grandmom, Grandpop, etc. :)
You know, like Mom, Dad, Grandmom, Grandpop, etc.
My entire family is anti-spam so I'm not worried about them plus the only way Dad, Grandmom, and Grandpop could buy something is if they can spam the dead.
Even at a lower 1%, that's still a lot of idiots that need to be rounded up and educated.
Maybe when the cops bust spammers they should get the customer lists and force them all to attend a mandatory email school and stop them from buying off spam ;)
Perhaps making it a crime to do business with spammers with a $1K fine per incident (purchase) would stop the nonsense and one customer list would be a nice payday for the agency busting the spammer, which would probably escalate the anti-spam enforcement efforts drastically if there was more in it for the government.
Are the numbers really this high?
29% figure is completely bogus.
A person would only have to buy from a spammer once, ever, to be counted among the 29%.
A person would only have to buy from a spammer once, ever
If you assume this was the case then taking over last 5 years it would mean that 5.8% of users bought each year, this is still a huge number - if response rate was that good then spammers would have billions, which they did not - millions yes, but response rate is nowhere near this figure - no way. I would certainly need something more than totally unscientific poll of 600 people on some site that deals with spam. Stalin would blush when faced with this kind of statistics!
Perhaps they confused spam and legit email marketing newsletters and meant to say whether they bought something as the result of email? Then in this case I'd agree 29% is probably about right, possibly too low - but definatly not when it comes to real spam emails.
There should be a real study on this after seeing this little article.
Re polls, 600 people is easily enough to be projectable, at least within a 5-10% margin of error. Whether it actually is projectable depends on how the people were found, how they were qualified, their alignment with the overall Web user base, etc.
But even if the real number is only half of 29%, or 14.5%, that number is lower than the Forrester research which was said to be similar in nature (I've not seen it) and put the number around 20%.
And you can't look at this like a one-time action. These are aggregated numbers. So as buckworks points out, even if we only assume 5 years of email experience, that is 1,825 days of email, at perhaps average 10 spam messages per day (I receive thousands per day and about 20-30 hit my mailbox after filtering). But at 10/day that's 18,250 exposures. A 1% open rate = 182 opens. A .5% conversion on those opens gets me my purchase.
Combine that with the fact that many of the things being bought are by far most accessible to potential users via email or Web sites ("pirated software, knock-off watches, counterfeit designer goods, cheap drugs and prescription medicines, pornography and other adult material"). That is the kind of stuff that, frankly, lots of people are looking for, and pre-Internet, was harder to find. Helllo email.
Finally add to that the fact that the spam emailers are more experienced in what works and converts, have gotten more more clever, and sometimes now look like real "reputable" companies, and it all starts to seem plausible.
Who knows what the real number is, but when the International mobs have been playing for a long time now, you know that the money is big. Can't be all just low-lifes and degenerates buying the stuff.
I've been running targeted email campaigns for years. That 29% figure just doesn't jive. I won't even go for half that, nor a quarter of that.
I want to see those emails that people purchased from!
I wouldn't be surprised if the porn category alone accounted for a large bit of this. The people who buy porn subs aren't getting them from Ikea or the local, erm, strip mall. ;-)
There should be a real study on this after seeing this little article.
A real study wouldn't work because that would require all those men with E.D. hiding in the closet to admit they bought those little blue pills via spam.
Perhaps they confused spam and legit email marketing newsletters and meant to say whether they bought something as the result of email?
My wife's aunt has fallen for more than one email scams, and I would say she represents the average Internet user over the age of 30.
One thing I'd be curious about is how many people who paid something got scammed after being spammed. :P
One thing I'd be curious about is how many people who paid something got scammed after being spammed.
If the percentage of who purchased is even close to accurate, I'm going to guess that they were valid promotional offers and someone classified them as spam since they were not opt-in recipients maybe? Studies like that leave way to many questions...
