Adotas

Where media buyers start online

Featured Author

Dave Scott is founder and CEO of Marketfish -- a platform that allows marketers to build and execute lead generation campaigns using 3rd party marketing lists. Using Marketfish’s patented search algorithms the tool enables users to discover targeted customer lists, build and execute list-marketing campaigns, and measure the performance in real time.

Prior to founding Marketfish, Mr. Scott was the Chief Marketing Officer and a senior vice president of a SaaS CRM startup specializing in the needs of the SMB. Previously, Mr. Scott was Vice President of Global Marketing for Intermec Technologies -- a billion dollar RFID and rugged device company. Prior to Intermec, he was Vice President of Marketing & Strategy for PeopleSoft Global Services -- a $2.4B arm of PeopleSoft, Inc. There, he was responsible for the growth strategy of the global professional services business including PeopleSoft Consulting, PeopleSoft Education, and PeopleSoft Hosting. 
Previous to PeopleSoft, Mr. Scott spent 12 years leading the strategic thinking of some of the world's most respected companies, notably as a consultant with The Boston Consulting Group where he helped Fortune 500 companies develop and execute business transformation strategies. Prior to BCG, Mr. Scott was the Head of Technology Strategy and Business Development for AT&T Wireless where he played a key role in growing the data division from its inception to $500 million in revenues. In this role, he led the formation of marketing and distribution partnerships with other Fortune 500 companies.

Mr. Scott has also been an entrepreneur, co-founding a venture capital funded e-commerce company. He started his career at General Electric, first graduating from GE's renowned management training program, and then having the chance to work on technical strategy and planning for GE's twelve business units.

More articles by Dave Scott





Features

List Marketing: In Need of a Scrubbing

Written on
Aug 8, 2011 
Author
Dave Scott  |
Share
List Marketing: In Need of a Scrubbing

ADOTAS – Let’s face it. The list marketing industry could use a good scrubbing. Most of the “dirt,” in fact, lies in list rentals specifically, which is rife with seedy practices and ancient information that ultimately yield an unhealthy environment for everyone involved — whether the advertiser, the recipient, the list owner or even the ISP. These practices promise to drive the industry into the ground unless good data hygiene is adopted industry-wide.

A Vicious Cycle That Sullies the Industry

When advertisers decide on a list rental, they often pay an outside vendor as much as a $500 cpm, or cost per thousand impressions, to reach what they expect to be their target audience.

Depending on how targeted or “clean” the list actually is, this type of campaign could reap great ROI for the advertiser. In many cases, however, list may contain invalid e-mail addresses for people who have moved on from their e-mail addresses or switched jobs. Likewise, some of these addresses may be to a secondary account set up by the user to avoid unwanted e-mails . Worse, some vendors’ lists are comprised of addresses that have been acquired without the recipient’s permission.

As a result, once leveraged, these “bad” lists set in motion a number of undesired results, ranging from hard bounces (in the case of invalid e-mail addresses), e-mails that are never opened (in the case of the secondary account) or abuse allegations from angered recipients (in the case of non-permission-based e-mail. This scenario is especially dangerous, as it may even besmirch the advertiser’s reputation.). Ultimately, the advertiser’s ROI is never realized.

The vicious cycle is perpetuated with every campaign, until the advertiser’s frustration builds to a point that it withdraws from the industry altogether, opting instead to spend marketing dollars on more reputable lead-generation tactics such as search engine marketing or display advertising. As a result, the list marketing industry shrinks and eventually dies. With it goes incredible potential that could have been tapped if only best data hygiene practices had been used.

Clean Data: The ‘Holy Grail’ Is Within Reach

According to Dr. Charles Stryker, longtime industry veteran and founder/CEO of Venture Development Center, the quest for clean data is not new, and the tools for lead generation using clean data are available if advertisers are judicious about who they work with.

“Clean data has been the Holy Grail since the information industry was formed some 40 years ago,” said Dr. Stryker. “It has been an elusive goal, and with the digital revolution, the solutions become even more complex. Data accuracy is more important now, as we do have the ability to reach the right person, at the right time, with the right message. However, for improved marketing performance to be realized, we need clean data. We have faster processors, more storage and better analytics. But without clean data, the power of these available technologies is lost.”

Recent data from Harte-Hanks also supports this. According to its Postfuture Index, overall delivery rates across all industry sectors increased from 93% in 2009 to 95% in 2010, and bounce rates averaged only 5%, compared with 7% in 2009. The company attributes these numbers partly to maintaining clean data.

Advertisers can begin to set new industry standards for clean data by outsourcing to only trustworthy list-rental vendors. Specifically, they should look for list owners that offer permission-based lists, so the recipients will be more likely targets.

Alternately, advertisers can contract with a self-service lead-generation platform like Marketfish. Often, companies like this offer the best data hygiene practices, and their offerings are augmented by partnering with companies like LeadSpend, which removes bad or invalid e-mail addresses; and impressionwise, which removes non-permissioned addresses and spam traps. (Additionally, clients of these companies get the added bonus of more targeted results.) Making sure records are clean before a campaign is executed means a higher level of in-box delivery and increased open-and-click rates.

All is not lost, but to save the list marketing industry, both advertisers and vendors must act now by demanding cleaner lists and by committing to the cleanest data practices possible. Maintaining these practices will perhaps, hopefully, return the list marketing industry to its former luster.





Reader Comments.

Your link for marketfish is wrong “marketfish.om”

Posted by Rebekah | 4:26 pm on August 9, 2011.

Noted and fixed — thanks for the heads up!

Posted by Gavin Dunaway | 5:39 pm on August 9, 2011.

Leave a Comment

Add a comment

Tags: , , , and
Article Sponsor

More Features


  • Once Facebook goes public, what's the most important thing it'll need to do in order to live up the expectations of its real value?

    View Results

    Loading ... Loading ...

Latest News

News Archive

Spotlight

Sponsormob Leads the Way Into RTB for MobileADOTAS – For more than half a decade, Berlin-based tech firm Sponsormob has remained relevant in an industry characterized by [...] more...

Adotas Partnership