There are plenty of free information in the internet in a form of articles, websites, blogs and free reports. I have no problems with exchanging my contact information for any interesting reports. If I’m looking for a particular information and if anyone can share that information with me, I have no problem giving out my email address. Even as I opt into that person’s list, chances are that that person will give me equally interesting information in the future. This is why exchanging my contact information to be opted into someone’s mailing list is mutually beneficial. This person is a responsible commercial emailer as most of them are.

Who I have a problem with is a group of people who harvests our contact information or buys our information in the cheap CD format and bulk emails everyone. I have no interest in many things that these people are offering. Because of their nature of unsolicited commercial email, this is why they passed the law forbidding anyone to send these unsolicited commercial emails, or commonly called spam. While eMerchants commonly sell information, including our contact information legally to others as cleverly hidden in their fine prints, some people are not following a proper email protocol or netiquette as they obtain our contact information and using it to contact us without our permission.

Rather than getting upset and reacting unproductive to their unprofessional practice, consider using my solution to this problem as you will find a way to turn this situation into a mutually beneficial solution for both them and us.

I can just see a few people rolling their eyes saying "because they want to make money off of me!" My answer is more complex, but it explains why they email us repeatedly.

Before I explain how a typical emailing cycle works, I need to explain about the biggest weapon in the history of the internet marketing after the invention of the internet and the website: It’s called autoresponder.

Autoresponder is a computer program that is programmed send any pre-written emails on demand. If the website is like having a salesperson working for you 24/7, then autoresponder is like having a clerk working for you 24/7. Every time when anyone fills out any webform in the internet, then it gets routed to the autoresponder and it emails you with any emails containing messages, links, files or anything else that it is programmed to do.

The important thing here is that you are now placed in the emailing list. It has captured your contact information and your email address where it can send you gauntlets of follow up emails of sales messages. Statistics show that the sale usually takes place on the seventh follow up emails, so we can easily see how valuable this autoresponder is.

Usually, this is the way a person gets opted into a mailing list.

. There is an advertisement for a free report

. I would fill out an electronic form in the website with my contact information

. I would get a confirmation email asking for their permission to send me the free information.

. Mine acceptance of this information puts me in the mailing list.

. I click the confirmation link in the email which triggers autoresponder.

. Autoresponder automatically generates a free report

. Autoresponder sends sales letters in the form of follow up emails into your inbox.

These people would be able to produce on demand, my ip address as well as a date and time that I have opted into their offer. If they cannot produce this, then you are probably being spammed illegally.

Now, a statistic has shown that it takes seven or more emails before a sale is made. This plays a very big hand as to why you get so many emails from the autoresponders.

When people sends permission based email, it’s probably something that I would be interested in and that I would probably open the email and maybe even buy something from them in the future.

ISP or Internet Service Providers that services your email system probably has a spam filters that scans the incoming emails for certain keywords that leads them to identify spam. This results in the spam being routed to your spam email folder or even being deleted entirely before you see them.

Even when unsolicited commercial emails reach your inbox or your spam box, there is a chance that it will get deleted. This leads to their emails being deleted by the recipients.

Since it takes roughly seven (permission based) emails before it produces a sale and assuming that only one out of five emails reach my inbox or spam box in my email account, it would take five times seven or thirty five emails before I would be interested in buying their product. Can you see why spammers has to send so many emails just to get their message to you?