I just got an iPhone (thanks to our Marketing Manager Patricia who texted me to tell me SF had them in stock finally, funny story) so I decided it was time to delete the uber-illions
of messages I have received over the course of a long time. For those of you who don't know, I've had my "retro" phone (see pic on right) now for years. No camera, no email, nuthin' fancy. But the iPhone has pushed me over to the evil PDA side. So now that I'm going PDA, I
had to clean up my act. I had over 8000 messages sitting in my inbox...yikes. I also decided to go through the hundreds of newsletters I've subscribed to over the years (or have BEEN subscribed to over the years :-() and unsubscribe from those I don't read or never signed up for.
A huge undertaking? More than I thought it would be. In total there were over 200 newsletter subscriptions, no lie. Of around 200 I was AMAZED at how many I didn't sign up for. Roughly 140 of them. Even the DMA had wh0#*d my email address out. I was even more amazed at which Email Service Providers housed these emailers. There were a few GLARING ESPs that stood out as massive harborers of spammers, I'm happy to say that of the 200, VerticalResponse only had one that I didn't sign up for. There was one serious ESP offender, I won't say their name (email me if you want it) then a host of smaller offenders. THEN there were many that, well, just went to an error page. OUCH.
Here are some bad unsubscribe practices I uncovered:
Whoever this ESP is, they house a number of companies and sent me to
the unsubscribe page and having me check a box again, to unsubscribe. -->
Many made me "sign in" to my account to unsubscribe - Ouch. I don't remember a password I set 4 years ago! Just unsubscribe me!
At least 20 companies had the only option be - "Please reply to this email with the word Remove in the subject line". Even worse, they made me then type Remove. It should already be there. 
Over 30 companies directed me to a page that read: "Please fill in this information, including your email address to unsubscribe." Yeah right! This came from an email not a static web page. They should know who I am and pre-fill my info. -->
One company tried to be tricky and send me to a page that has a "Yes, send me email" or "No I don't want to receive email" with the "Yes" radio button checked!
Also can someone tell Doubleclick that yes, even though I am a customer, it would be really nice to have an unsub link in the email? You'd think they know better. I get about 3 emails a week from them.
OK, I'm fired UP! ARE YOU?? At least my new iPhone will have a shiny new inbox!
Comments