
The Cost of an Email Unsubscribe - pospischil
https://www.custora.com/cost_of_email_unsubscribe
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davidjgraph
I love when you get things like "unsubscribing costs U.S. retailers about $5.8
billion per year.

So if you stopped people unsubscribing $5.8 billion more would be spent on
retail? No, people have, roughly, a fixed amount to spend, stopping them
unsubscribing isn't going to give them more money.

If that figure were true, 5.8 bil less would be spent in other areas. But
let's face it, this figure is pulled from someone's arse.

OK, there's a bubble of apps claiming to do this at the moment, but the
marketing just gets more and more cheesy. And if we find it cheesy, are we
going to trust these folks with our marketing?

~~~
aes256
> So if you stopped people unsubscribing $5.8 billion more would be spent on
> retail? No, people have, roughly, a fixed amount to spend, stopping them
> unsubscribing isn't going to give them more money.

Yep. One retailer's loss is another retailer's gain.

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X-Istence
I thought it was going to tell me the cost of clicking unsubscribe, followed
by the forgot my password dance to log in to my "subscription preferences" to
turn off the emails being sent to me.

Or having to fill out the email address that received the email (change back
to my email client, check the headers), something that they could fill in for
me.

Or having to figure out that the unsubscribe link is two shades of grey darker
than the rest of the email and is almost unnoticeable...

Or even worse, the unsubscribe link is only in the HTML portion of the email,
but not in the text portion of the email.

Other times the unsubscribe button is an image ... and if you don't download
images willy-nilly from random servers when you get email you can't see it,
and thus have no idea there is a way to unsubscribe.

I could go on, email is starting to get more and more frustrating and I have
gotten to a point that I simply don't care anymore. I will press the junk
button in Google Mail or in my mail client, and in the future I will not
receive messages from that company. Does stuff get caught because of that,
which shouldn't get caught? Sure, stuff like password reset emails, or billing
renewal reminders, but overall I am sick and tired of every little thing I do
online causing me to receive an email.

~~~
stevewillows
I miss the days when email was plain text.

I've started to filter off any email that has the word 'unsubscribe' in the
body to my spam folder.

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mikestew
First, the page is cut off on Safari on an iPad. But I can get the gist of it.

More to the point, it's the piracy argument all over again. If I unsubscribe
from a retailer's list, I wasn't going to buy anything from their mailings
anyway. It's apparent that I had no intention of reading them. They're missing
out on nothing.

But maybe I'll buy something in the future, who knows? If it was an otherwise
pleasant experience I'll keep them in mind. When I unsubscribe, I hold no ill
will toward the sender if they make it a one-click, easy unsubscribe. Make it
a pain to unsubscribe, however, and get nothing in the future.

Take Musician's Friend as a prime example. My first and only purchase from
them was a Fender Greta amp (highly recommended, BTW). I gave them (my gmail
alias)+musiciansfriend@gmail.com. They took it. They also spam me every other
day. Fine, I'll unsubscribe. But the unsubscribe form's regex rejects "+" and
tells me the address is invalid. Too bad for you, MF, as I'll just filter your
mail, the paper catalog that I didn't ask for will go straight to recycling
without ever entering the house, and I'll bad-mouth you to anyone that asks.
That's because post-sale MF came across as obnoxious.

~~~
michaelhoffman
I've come to expect being added to marketing lists after having a transaction
with any business. (That doesn't mean I like it though, and it's one
additional hassle that keeps me from shopping at new enterprises.) I agree, if
you make it easy to unsubscribe, no ill will.

What is most irritating is those businesses that I have already unsubscribed
from, or clicked a box saying I didn't want to be contacted, who, months
later, start a new list and make the default subscribers everyone who has ever
had any business with the company. Saying I don't want to get your marketing
emails doesn't mean I don't want them until you invent a new category of
marketing; it means I don't want them ever.

It's a lack of respect and it pisses me off.

~~~
rogerbinns
The master at that is Logitech. Every six months or so they decide to start
new irrelevant lists adding in every customer they have ever had for any
product.

My other pet peeve is that unsubscribe is one click. Anything more is hostile,
especially those that want you to login or perform similar tricks.

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TallGuyShort
I found the interface annoying. Here's a rough copy of the text:

— CUSTORA PRESENTS — Clive AND THE Unsubscribe (OR, WHAT'S COSTING RETAILERS
$5.8 BILLION EACH YEAR)

Clive loves shopping online From soaps to socks to jellyfish food, if he can
think of it, it's only a few clicks away from his doorstep. It's miraculous,
if you think about it. Along with 77% of shoppers, Clive actually prefers to
receive emails from online retailers more than any other medium. It's an easy
way for him to stay in touch with his favorite brands, discover new things,
and take advantage of some great deals. Unfortunately, Clive is also one of
those people who barely reads marketing emails.

50%* of people admit to never or almost never reading emails from retailers.

It's understandable, given people receive an average of 147 emails* per day.
That's a lot to sort through. And sometimes, if he gets a bad vibe, Clive will
unsubscribe.

And here's what happens: In fact, each year, "unsubscribes" cost U.S.
retailers an estimated $ 5.8 Billion*. Yikes. That's $111 Million per week. We
looked into when and why people unsubscribe, and discovered some interesting
things.

5% of people unsubscribe within the first week of subscribing

6.5% within the first month

And 8.5% within the first three months

We also asked people to list their most common reasons for unsubscribing.

"Too frequent" Listed by 67% of people

"Too generic, not personalized" Listed by 63% of people

"Not relevant" Listed by 60% of people

"I hardly buy anything from them" Listed by 55% of people

So, back to Clive. How do you keep him "subscribed"?

Email works. Just keep it classy. Email's a really great way for retailers to
stay in touch with millions of people, and customers actually prefer it over
other direct mediums. The more tailored, the better.

First impressions matter. Those first few emails can make or break a
relationship with a new customer, so make them count.

Timing + relevancy = happier customers It's all about delivering the right
message to the right person at the right time. Not too much, and not so little
that they forget why they love you.

We believe online marketing can be a whole lot better, and we're getting
started with email.

EVERY CUSTOMER HAS A STORY. MAKE THE MOST OF IT.

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dsr_
You'd better hope that I unsubscribe. Because that's just a signal to you that
I don't want what you're sending.

If I get really pissed off, I will go look up what else you've sent. Who else
is complaining. Where you're hosted. How you got my address.

And then I start complaining. Not to you. To your webhosting company. To your
email hoster. To your upstream network vendors. All of them have AUPs that say
"you won't use our service to send spam".

And on a bad day for you, they listen. They see the complaint from me. They
actually investigate. And maybe my complaint is the one that suggests to them
that you aren't paying enough to be worth this aggravation.

Don't send spam. If you're going to send me email, we had better have an
existing relationship where I actually handed you my email address and
positively clicked on "Please send me email about stuff you think is going to
interest me", or you had best be sending me a personal email written by a
person expressly to me about a specific subject.

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squarecat
The _only_ opt-in email marketing I've ever been glad to receive, and not soon
unsubscribed from, are those that presented an exceptional offer in the _very
first mailing_.

It seems like such an obvious engagement tactic, I'm surprised so many
companies don't employ it.

(That said, those same emails will piss me off more than anything else if I've
JUST purchased the product for full price. Another seemingly obvious fail.)

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pfortuny
From where does the cost come? Magic? Because it is nowhere to be seen.

~~~
aaronjg
For sources of the numbers, click on the link in the lower left of the page,
and a methodologies window will appear.

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gilrain
Well, for retailers specifically, the only one I actually read is Newegg.
That's because, not infrequently, I've gotten a really good deal on one of
their limited-time "Shellshockers". Just got a 180GB Intel 330 SSD for $100,
for instance.

Why would I bother reading an email, and thus engaging your brand when _you_
want me to, if you're not going to offer me something I can't get by visiting
your website when _I_ want to?

I bet the most successful retailer email campaigns are those that actually
throw a bone, even if it's a little one like my new SSD, to their customers
every once in a while.

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thematt
I couldn't care less what unsubscribes are costing retailers. Obviously it's
not enough. The better question is what are _subscribes costing consumers_?
How much of _our_ time is wasted sifting through spam marketing emails?

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dewiz
OT: the site is hardly readable on ipad

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bcRIPster
Ok, so overlooking the horrible mobile-hostile design of this site, the logic
here is delusional. An unsubscribe==better value to the business because at
the end of the day you have a mailing list of customers interests in your
messaging, and these are the people likely to be buying anyways. Plus, that's
one less e-mail you have to pay for distribution on. wtf?!?

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lucb1e
People receive on average 147 emails a day? 77% wants a newsletter?

Somebody gotta get his facts right.

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aviswanathan
Is it bad that I'm as interested in the facts on this page as the graphic
design? I had no idea Custora had killer designers onboard.

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somethingnew
I like the presentation. Very cool js slideshow.

