Like many Web marketers, I’m on a ton of mailing lists. While I’m not too fond of receiving 10 or 12 emails a day for pet nail trimmers and I have all the ink and toner I need, thank you, I like to see what email marketers are up to.

Every once in a while, though, I try and unsubscribe from an email list. Sometimes it’s because the list owner is just relentless and others it’s to see how smoothly the unsubscribe process goes. The last couple of times I did this, I wound up with error pages like the one you see above.

Which means one of two things. Either the list owners are terribly bad at maintaining those Web pages that help manage their lists or they’ve stumbled onto the great secret of email list deniability.

Think about it: You never have to take anyone off your email list because the unsubscribe function doesn’t work. (But hey: The unsubscribe link is there in the email, so at least it’s CAN-SPAM compliant.) Then if anyone manages to go through the effort of actually identifying who you are and complains? Oops! The page broke — don’t worry, we’ll fix it.

Meanwhile, your list never shrinks.

Sounds far-fetched? Maybe. But given the relative popularity of black hat SEO tactics, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that a significant number of people handle their lists this way.

Takeaway for marketers: If your unsubscribe page is broken, fix it. If you’re playing games, stop it.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 22nd, 2008 at 6:00 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways, Rants 'n' Such.