New "report subscriber" button launches
Latest posts | Feed | By Mark Brownlow on April 01, 2008
Marketers cursing the overzealous use of report spam buttons will enjoy a new email list management tool due to be launched today by Bluegill Mail.The "report subscriber" button is a browser add-on that lets marketers report those email recipients who never open or respond to email messages.
If a subscriber attracts enough complaints, then the email address appears on the Bluegill public subscriber blacklist. Any marketer can then use the blacklist to block that address from ever joining their email lists.
According to a spokesman for the add-on's developers, the aim is to boost campaign results by preventing unresponsive subscribers from getting on a list in the first place.
While an interesting concept, I foresee various problems:
1. There is currently no procedure for subscribers to get their address removed from the blacklist.
2. Marketers may hit the "report subscriber" button as a proxy for deleting that user from their list, which would lead to unfair blacklisting.
3. Who decides how long a subscriber must be inactive before a valid complaint can be made? Will my address get blacklisted simply because I took a long vacation and ignored emails for a month?
What do you think?
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6 Comments:
Ha!
Word on the grapevine is, they're also working on a supplementary blacklist of anyone who has ever used the "Mark as Spam" button to get off a list rather than the unsubscribe link provided by the marketer.
(The funny and/or sad part is that if a "complainers" blacklist were compiled I bet a lot of people would blindly sign on for access to it.)
By 
Justin Premick, on
01 April, 2008
But I'm serious ;-)
I like Laura's take on complainers.
I also just discovered that a Blue Gill is a kind of fish (as well as an anagram of gullible). I originally tried to find a name of the form "[Greek letter] Mail" but all the good sounding ones were already real names somewhere!
By 
Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on
01 April, 2008
Funny how Laura's post references "Gary." I am "Gary."
oops.
dj at bronto
By DJ Waldow, on
01 April, 2008
Henceforth you shall be known as Gary.
But generalizing the debate on feedback loops etc., we are always going to have a gap between sender best practices and sender actual practices.
Take my example. I have a small list, it's not a big part of my business, and I'm a resource-limited one-man operation. Reality is, I'm often just relieved to get an email out with decent content in it.
If I was reviewing myself, I'd find plenty of room for improvement. But the reality of working life gets in the way of doing them.
The important thing is to at least keep on trying to raise the quality bar. So many don't, so every improvement you do make puts you one up on the competition.
Anyway, I digress :-)
By Mark Brownlow - Email Marketing Reports, on
01 April, 2008
oops.
Sorry dj.
laura
By laura, on
01 April, 2008
I also just discovered that a Blue Gill is a kind of fish (as well as an anagram of gullible)
By ps2003, on
01 April, 2008
