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For those who work in companies that subscribe users to emails, when users unsubscribe, what portion of them say they "never signed up for this"? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by snek@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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Obviously not looking for hyperaccurate answers, just in general, how many people tend to unsubscribe from promotional emails and how many tick the option "I never signed up for this"?

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[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You're braver than me... Most of the time "unsubscribe" is actually a signal that the spam was received by a mailbox with a live human reading it, and they automatically sign you up for several other mailing lists.

[–] DogMuffins@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't think this is really true.

The vast majority of mailing lists these days are run by mailchimp or whoever who have an active interest in avoiding spamming people who have opted out.

Also, what's the point of sending spam emails to the type of person who unsubscribes from mailing lists? It costs nothing to send an email. Spammers don't care whether there's a live human at a specific address. I think if you trimmed your list to only people who had unsubscribed, you'd get a lower hit ratio than just sending to any address you can get your hands on.

[–] Shdwdrgn@mander.xyz 5 points 1 year ago

The typical benefit to spammers for someone clicking the links within an email is to find out if a live person is watching them, or if the email address is still active. The people who sell address lists to spammers can actually charge more if their list is "confirmed" good active mailboxes. What good is a million email addresses if 50% or more of them go to abandoned mailboxes? But if you can pay the same price for 100,000 confirmed addresses and you get even a 1% response rate, it was money well-spent (and the seller passes your confirmed email on to a couple dozen other unscrupulous spammers).