Over the past few years I have become increasingly irritated by the spam email I get, and I decided to challenge the ones advertising "targeted" email campaigns. I decided that if they really were legitimate, the entrepreneurs behind them would be willing to accept a challenge that wouldn't cost them a thing to prove. I told every one of them to go ahead and launch an email campaign targeting customers of products similar to mine, with a promise from me that if I saw both an increase in my sales and website traffic, I would pay them for their campaign and use their service for future campaigns as well. Not one of them stepped up to the challenge or even bothered to reply to my email. They all "guarantee" increased website traffic and sales; some even offer money-back guarantees, but getting a refund can be a lot harder than paying after they have demonstrated legitimacy. When was the last time you paid for your car to be serviced in advance? Are you expected to pay your utilities in advance? How about your doctor, dentist, or bank loan? The point is, any legitimate service company, particularly one with no real monetary investment like the holder of a list of email addresses, should be willing to prove their claims without you providing a credit card number for them to charge to.

A few years ago, I actually paid to have a "targeted" email campaign run, and emails were sent to 3,000,000 recipients. I had no idea that 1% of the entire U.S. population was interested in this particular product, but I was assured they were opt-in customers that requested to be sent information about products of this nature. In retrospect and after having been conned, I realize that statistically, there is absolutely no way they could have "targeted" anything but a list of email addresses of unsuspecting customers. I did get an increase in website traffic, but not in sales. In fact, I got about 20 more visitors than normal over a one-week period, which is statistically just noise and cannot be attributed to the email campaign at all.