Client Review on Infogroup

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We had Infogroup send an email on our behalf (in order to ensure all CAN-SPAM laws were abided by) for a grand total of $1,500. The reach was 5,000 business email addresses. The greatest part of their scheme is the criminally fraudulent “demographic targeting” they offer on their website. It is designed to make you think you will reach a very segmented audience, but do not be fooled. THIS IS ALL A BLATANT A LIE. Our results were so poor, I can only suspect that these contacts were fake or non-human. Furthermore, I have made an effort to reach them for comment on this issue and they have nor responded. They took the money and ran. Simple as that. Our first email was created by the info group “designers” for an additional fee of $150. After all, these are professional email designers, right? Wrong. Trust me when I say, it was horrid. The email looked generic and did not have any designed assets other than what was provided by me.They did not follow simple instructions that were given on their. This email cost us $1,000 to send. Infogroup was involved in the design, timing, demographic targeting, and contact list (all the items they say in their contract “affect the performance of the email” it received (drumroll please…) 2 clicks. Out of 5,000 recipients or .04%. We were stunned at how poorly this performed. I couldn’t get a click rate that low if I TRIED.Of course, they blamed it on the creative assets that we provided, and our demographic that we selected, on the phase of the moon, the tidal forces, everything except their crappy email system for the poor performance.The second email blast was carefully designed by me personally. I used a template that had historically performed very well and usually received 2-3% click through rates when sent to a 10,000 contact email list. We added tons of creatives and action buttons to maximize clicks. Keep in mind, this is the SECOND email sent to their list, which (according to Infogroup) usually does better than the first email sent. This email only received 6 clicks. Do that math… a click rate of 0.08% on an email that historically gets 3.14%. Essentially, we paid $187.50 PER CLICK. Tell that to whoever manages your budget and see what they think.This company sells you on the fact that they get good open and click rates and that they can target such a narrow audience. If you are looking into Infogroup (which you absolutely should NOT), I encourage you to read their contract thoroughly. They protect themselves from providing any kind of value from their product. Here is a quote from the contract:"*The Performance: Infogroup will not be responsible for the performance of the email campaign. We concentrate on delivery to the ISP’s. Several factors could come into play with the ‘success rate’ of the email – Creative, Audience, Timing, etc. The range of how email campaigns typically performis listed below:Consumer: Open – 0 – 8%, Clicks 0 – 2 % Average: Open 3% – 4%, Clicks – .25% – 1%Business: Open – 0 – 20% Clicks 0 – 5 % Average: Open 6% – 12% Clicks – .25% – 2%"I trust you can see how this would bite you in the rear. This means you can get no clicks and no opens and they are not liable for anything. Even if they are responsible for the "creative, audience, timing, etc." factors (ALL OF WHICH they are more than happy to provide for an additional fee). STAY AWAY. EVERYONE.