According to our new Email Marketing Benchmark Report, the large majority of subscription sites find little use in buying third-party list of email addresses.As we’ve discussed before, email marketing is the #1 subscriber acquisition tactic, but that’s only when you build your own in-house email lists. According to our survey of more than 70 subscription site executives, nearly 50% found that email marketing lists to be very ineffective and another 27.5% found them to be somewhat ineffective. Less than a quarter of respondents said third-party lists were somewhat effective, and NOT ONE respondent claimed that third-party lists were very effective. (65% of respondents were from B2B sites.)

That’s compelling evidence for what we’ve been saying for a while now — there’s little ROI on purchasing lists of email addresses, and subscription and paid content sites should be wary of any marketer or sales person who says otherwise.Email list buying is also a curious practice in our industry since it seems that consumers really do want to interact and engage with our original content, as our previous chart showed that email newsletters for paid content sites get an average open rate of 24% – way higher than other industry averages of 15%. In short, if you can get audiences to your site and to sign-up for your email newsletter, they’re going to open them.What leads to buying lists, in my opinion, is the desperation to grow a list fast. But marketing and conversion for subscription sales is a daily activity, not a one-time sale. This is not the business for get-rich-quick types, and smart subscription sites avoid hiring such personalities to their sales and marketing divisions. Instead, look for professionals with patience and diligence. Pushing for quarterly goals is fine, but don’t expect big wins. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and neither will your email marketing program.