I’ve been a bit hesitant to publish this post b/c I’m about to talk about a dirty little secret of the email marketing industry.

Use a list broker to streamline your acquisition email campaigns.

Using a list broker isn’t for every business. Nor is it for every agency. But – I can tell you this much – almost every single B2B or Technology company in the US & int’lly) are using email for acquisition purposes.

When large companies begin to utilize multiple publishers for different business units, offers, etc. – things start to get both tedious and complicated. Each publisher uses their own email delivery platform. They all have different creative standards and timeframes for turnaround. And let’s not forgetting about the joys of testing email. 1 Text, 1 HTML test per publisher per creative offer. An A/B creative split when renting 10 email lists can mean @ least 40 tests in your inbox … on top of all the other email you have to check.

Sorting through the data to determine the right publisher, the right links and everything else can be incredibly time consuming.

Using a good list broker can make the process as painless as possible for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, using a list broker is FREE. Yep – that’s right. List brokers get paid from the publishers 90% of the time. All that research, coordination, testing, approval, compiling of tracking results, etc. are @ no cost to you.

Additionally, brokers provide a singular point of contact for all RFP’s, data sourcing, testing, approvals and reporting. They do the all the dirty work so things shine for the client on the front-end.

I’ve helped B2B, B2C & Agency clients rent tons of email (and direct mail and/or newsletters) for acquisition purposes over the years. I even currently help 3 clients w/ annual revenues in excess of $3.8 billion, $4.5 billion, & $16 billion respectively. Sure they have money to spend – but they also have the intelligence on how to spend both their money & time wisely.

If any business ever needs help w/ these sort of services, definitely let me know. Having someone do dirty work for free while making a process better is usually a good thing!

PS: Never use a list broker or any email publisher for that matter that ‘sells’ email data. Good email data is always rented & kept w/in an arm’s distance of the publisher. Selling data leads to misuse, abuse & data fatigue.