Marshal: Spam sells

Over 150 billion spam messages hit inboxes every single day, accounting for around 85% of email. That figure continues to rise, despite more awareness of the problems associated with the senders, products and security.

Why? Because people really are buying from spam emails. Over 29% of respondents to a Marshal survey confessed to having made a purchase from a spam email. Four years ago, Forrester Research conducted a similar poll and discovered that 20% had made purchases from spam, so the number appears to be rising.

“The poll highlights an inconvenient truth,” said Michael Whitehurst, Marshal’s Vice-President of Global Support. “Many of us often question ourselves, why is there so much spam? The answer is enough people are purchasing products from spam to make it a worthwhile and profitable endeavor for spammers.”

Profitable, indeed. It is estimated that it costs a spammer as little as $5 per million email addresses making even a few sales worth their while, in most cases.

Tags: email marketing, spam