FC: Spam-o-nomics: Do 30 percent of people buy from spammers?

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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From: "Thomas Leavitt" <thomasleavitt () hotmail com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
Subject: Spam survey on NPDOR - 30% of respondents buy from spammers
Date: Thu, 1 May 2003 16:11:54 -0700
Organization: B40

http://www.npdor.com/

>From the home page:

Have you ever purchased a product/service pitched to you in an unsolicited
e-mail?

Yes, sometimes the unsolicited message catches my interest - 7%

Yes, but very rarely. Usually, I disregard unsolicited messages - 23%

No, I always disregard all unsoliticited messages - 68%

I don't receive unsolicited messages - 2%

***

Note: this is a self-selected survey, and thus is not citeable as a valid
statistic - but... these are compelling figures for any spammer. If they hit
2 million people, and 1 million email addresses are valid, and they have a
chance of reaching 300,000 people...

Even if the hit rate is only 5% for the 70,000 people who "sometimes" look
at spam, that still amounts to 3,500 strong sales candidates. And, if you
add in a 1% hit rate for the 230,000 people, that adds up to 6,000 leads at
almost no cost. If the profit margin on the product is $25.00, and 10%
convert, you're looking at $15,000 in profit per spam.

Even if you dial those numbers down by a factor of 10, $1,500 per spam, done
a dozen times a day, is an awful lot of cash.

Thomas


--
Thomas Leavitt, Sr. Systems Admin For Hire
Resume at http://www.thomasleavitt.org/personal/resume/
Phone: 408-591-3342 / Email: thomas () thomasleavitt org / Fax: 815-371-2804

Wired since 1981. Internet-enabled since 1990. Web-enabled since 1993.
Older, wiser, and poorer, post-crash. :)

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