When you are trying to find new clients for your b2b business or your b2c business, you often have to deploy different ways to market your products or services. One of the most widely-used and direct marketing tools that show instant results is email marketing using email lists. However, it takes a long time to generate a targeted email list; it can be difficult and require much effort and resources.
So would it be a good idea to find email lists for sale and buy them instead of generating your own? As a business owner and decision-maker, you have to think about every business decision’s legal aspects. One common question business owners and decision-makers ask about buying email lists is whether it is legal or not. The short answer is yes, you can purchase email lists in the US, and in this article, we will discuss this answer in detail, so read on.
Buying email marketing lists vs. Renting email lists, what’s the difference?
You can use already generated email marketing lists by purchasing them or by renting them. While renting email address lists, you pay the email address owner a certain amount to use the email marketing list once or twice. So, in short, renting an email list is ideal if you are only planning on using it once.
On the other hand, buying an email list gives you the advantage of owning the email list you have purchased. So you can use the email list as many times as needed and make changes to the list whenever you want.
As far as legal aspects of renting versus buying email lists are concerned, you can make sure that the list you have purchased doesn’t have any addresses that have opted out of the list. On the other hand, when you rent an email list, you can’t check if the email list has addresses that willingly opted in or not. While buying an email list increases your control over the list, it also increases your responsibility to make sure that you are not sending emails to addresses that have previously opted out of the list.
Is it legal to buy email lists in the US?
As far as the legality of buying email lists is concerned, it varies from country to country. In the US, it is legal to buy email lists as long as you are not sending bulk spam emails and as long as the email data is collected with the consent of the individuals to whom the email addresses belong. That is why the best place to buy email lists is from reputed companies such as List Giant because shady data companies and list sellers often have email addresses collected without user consent.
As long as the data list you have bought has been collected with individuals’ consent and you are offering the email owners a clear option to unsubscribe to receiving the future email, it is legal to buy email lists in the USA.
When sending emails to leads in the email list, make sure the email follows the following rules:
- The email shouldn’t contain misleading text in the header section.
- The email shouldn’t contain a deceiving subject.
- The email should have a straightforward and easy method for the recipient to opt-out.
- The email should contain your business’s address.
- The email should be clearly labeled as an advertisement.