(no subject)

[paperclippy]

Are telemarketing and spam email really profitable? Does anyone actually say yes to telemarketers or click on the links in spam and buy stuff? Are there really that many people who would sign up for a mortgage based on junk email, or try to buy cialis from an illegal online drugstore?

I think the only people who buy stuff from telemarketers must be old folks who are losing their senses. But those people don't usually have email. Who is buying this stuff enough to make it profitable to spend the moeny on advertising like that?

All I can say is I'm glad we have caller ID, because I have already gotten two telemarketing calls (two minutes apart) this morning and it's not even noon yet.

Comments

[thegreatgonz.livejournal.com]

Spam can hardly fail to be profitable, since it costs essentially nothing to send. Even if only one person in ten thousand actually responds to a spam email, it's still a going proposition. I can't recall exactly, but I once came across a statistic that something like 1/3 of internet users had followed up on a spam email.

[kitty-tape.livejournal.com]

Do you know what they counted as spam? It seems like some things might be considered spam to some people and perfectly reasonable to click on by others, skewing the results (e.g., periodic emails from some place you bought something. I hate them, but that is mostly because the places which send me spam are the ones that I shopped at once. Others might find them useful.)

Eitherway, it's still a surprisingly large number, but it would be interesting to know a bit more.

[paperclippy.livejournal.com]

That's definitely a good question . . . I get email ads from Old Navy and Victoria's Secret, but I don't consider them spam because I actually asked for them and I want to see their ads. OTOH, I have zero interest in mortgages, viagra, or lonely housewives.

[zixi.livejournal.com]

have you put your number on the federal no-call list?
that helped a ton with my telemarketinig calls
but any company you have official business with - like your credit card company is still allowed to call you, so it isn't perfect.