E-mail List Testing: Tactics to Try

First, a quick background of the e-mail list industry: At the height of the e-mail craze three years ago, there were many compiled and category-driven lists (i.e., consumers who chose specific categories of interest) on the market. There were no merge/purge or direct-response files on the market.

At first glance it would appear that very little has changed since then. While compiled e-mail files have grown, very few direct response files have come to market. In fact, a recent informal review done by Marketing Information Network found there are now more than 1,900 e-mail lists and a total non-deduped universe of more than 4 billion names. But out of all these names, only 10 lists were true direct-response e-mail files such as Rodale or Time Inc. The rest were compiled or category-driven opt-in files.