How to Buy an Email List for Affiliate Marketing

If you’re interested in making money through affiliate marketing, you know that an extensive email list is a top priority. Since affiliate marketing aims to earn commissions from individual sales, a higher number of subscribers means you can make more overall.

While email lists are essential for this type of marketing, they can take a long time to build from scratch. One alternative is to buy an email list for affiliate marketing, but that option comes with a few catches to consider. So, before pulling the trigger and purchasing a list, it helps to know how to buy an email list for affiliate marketing.

Top Reasons to Buy an Email List for Affiliate Marketing

While you could build an email list from scratch, there are several compelling reasons why buying one might be a better option, such as:

Convenience

Building an email list takes time and resources that you could use to convert leads into customers. If you purchase a list, that work has already been done for you so that you can focus your attention on customer service, not lead generation.

The convenience of a pre-purchased list is also necessary if you’re trying to build traction right out of the gate. One essential component of affiliate marketing is showing how many people you can market to, so having a list ready to go can help you close more deals with affiliate clients.

Targeted Demographics

While some companies will cultivate email lists without vetting each address, high-quality list vendors will segment their audience based on specific categories.

For example, if you’re trying to sell affiliate products to single women in their 30s, you could buy a list of those individuals. Otherwise, if you’re trying to market to married men, your messages won’t have any impact.

The details provided by the vendors depend on the company. But, some common elements they segment users by include:

• Age Range
• Gender/Sex
• Marital Status
• Location (i.e., City and State)
• Income Level
• Likes and Interests

An email list vendor may cultivate data from social media or search engine history to access a user’s likes and interests. If you can access this information, you can get much more traction with your affiliate marketing emails.

Cost Savings

As you may know, selling to an existing customer is often much cheaper than converting a new one. While users on a pre-purchased list won’t know you immediately, you have a golden opportunity to convert these leads into fans of your brand.

Typically, list vendors will charge per 100 email addresses, and the costs are far less than what you’d spend capturing those addresses yourself.

Overall, you can potentially get a better ROI with a pre-purchased list. However, as we’ll go into later, there are some caveats to consider, so don’t assume you can rake in the dough as soon as you have a list in hand.

Buying vs. Building a List – Which One is Better?

Buying an email list for affiliate marketing from a third-party entity makes sense if you’re trying to get a list quickly. Businesses that sell email lists usually collect addresses from various sources, such as social media accounts, landing pages, search engine results, and more. In many cases, you can buy a list of qualified candidates who may be interested in what you’re trying to sell.

On the other hand, building an email list takes longer, but it does come with some advantages, such as:

Personalized Attention

If you’re creating a list from scratch, you’re establishing contact with your email subscribers. This way, you can learn more about them and their interests. From there, it’s easier to market specific affiliate products that appeal to their preferences.

Higher Click-Through Rates

A click-through rate reflects the number of people who clicked on a link in your email and went to the landing page. When building a list, you create trust between you and your subscribers.

That trust motivates them to click your links and purchase your products; getting that from a third-party list is harder. In many cases, your affiliate offers will go straight to the spam box.

Easier Segmentation

Although pre-purchased email lists can be targeted based on various demographic data, you’ll still need to segment your audience as you go. This way, you can ensure subscribers get customized content they’re more likely to enjoy.

Segmenting a list after the fact is difficult because you need to gather more information upfront before you can do anything. When building a list, you can segment subscribers as you go and even automate the process to make it more streamlined.

Overall, pre-purchased email lists are good for getting the ball rolling on your affiliate program. However, you shouldn’t rely on them completely to get your email marketing campaign off the ground. Realistically, even if you buy an email list at first, you’ll want to build from there organically to ensure better returns on your investment.

How to Buy an Email List for Affiliate Email Marketing

Fortunately, many companies are selling email lists to potential marketers like you. A quick online search can yield tons of results. However, before you make a final purchase, you must know how to choose the best third-party supplier. Here are some factors to pay attention to when comparing different companies:

User Reviews

Look at what previous customers are saying about the business. Look at sites like Google, Yelp, and the Better Business Bureau. Also, pay attention to whether the company responds to and addresses complaints. Finally, see if multiple users complain about the same things (i.e., lack of customer service).

Customization

The trick to buying an effective email marketing list is ensuring it’s full of potential customers who want to buy what you’re selling. For example, there’s no use in purchasing a list of one million addresses if only a few users will even click your first link. High-quality sellers let you customize your lists to be compelling to your target audience.

Validation

Email addresses are easy to make and even easier to ignore. If you’re buying outdated lists, most of your responses will be bounce-backs of addresses that no longer exist. Pay attention to how often the supplier validates their list for accuracy and activity.

The supplier should also be transparent about capturing email addresses to validate them.

Pricing

Most email list suppliers charge by the lead, with most email addresses going for a few cents on the dollar. However, the price can increase quickly if you buy tens of thousands of subscribers.

One way to verify a seller and save money is to buy a small list of about 100 or 200 names. Then, if those leads are valuable, you can purchase more from the same company.

Considerations to Make Before Buying a List for Affiliate Marketing

While buying affiliate marketing email lists is fast and easy, there are some downsides to this practice, which could affect your affiliate program. Some common issues include:

Privacy and Consent Laws

These days, more people want to be able to manage their privacy online. Laws like the GDPR in Europe and California’s Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) expressly prohibit this practice. Because users don’t necessarily consent to be on one of these lists, you could violate multiple regulations. In a worst-case scenario, you might have to pay a hefty fine or get your business shut down.

Email Service Provider Restrictions

If you’re sending emails to thousands of subscribers, it’s impossible to do so manually. Instead, you’ll need an email provider like MailChimp or Constant Contact. Unfortunately, these providers prohibit you from using purchased email lists because of regulations like the CCPA.

So, when trying to import your contacts onto one of these sites, you may get flagged and be unable to send a single message. If that happens, you must either find a workaround or start over from scratch.

Lack of Trust

One of the affiliate marketers’ best friends is the opt-in form. These forms are perfect for getting new subscribers to sign up for your affiliate content. If you buy a list, you don’t know how those email addresses were acquired. In some cases, users may have signed up through an opt-in form, so they know what to expect.

In other instances, though, they might not be expecting messages from strange companies, so they’re more likely to flag your messages as spam.

Tarnished Brand Reputation

If you buy an affiliate email marketing list from a top-quality supplier, you shouldn’t worry too much about this problem. However, you might get burned, at least with a few of your new subscribers.

Sending unsolicited messages can come off the wrong way, and rebuilding that trust after the fact is challenging. Here is another reason why it makes sense to start with a relatively small list and build from there.

Top Email List Vendor Brands

Now that you know both the benefits and downsides of buying an email list for affiliate marketing let’s look at some of the top companies offering this service. Be sure to conduct further research to verify if one of these brands suits your needs. Most of these programs are designed for B2B marketing, but most affiliate marketers can make these lists work for personal use.

Uplead

If you’re looking to market to other businesses, Uplead is one of the best B2B marketing tools. The site boasts over 54 million email addresses, and you can browse through them as much as possible before downloading the information.

Uplead verifies each email address to ensure it’s active, and you get access to tons of demographic data. Overall, Uplead gives you total control over your list, so you can populate it with leads more likely to convert into customers.

Lusha

This program uses AI to help generate lists based on user data you provide. For example, you can search for males ages 18 to 25 with an average annual income of $35,000. Simply enter those details into the system and get a list in minutes. This process is so easy to use and customize that you’ll wonder how you lived without it before.

Lead411

If you’re unfamiliar with lead scoring, it’s when you rank each lead to determine how likely they are to convert to a customer. Again, buying an email list is tricky because individuals don’t know your brand yet. However, based on target demographic data, you can score your leads and generate your list accordingly.

The great thing about lead scoring is that you can integrate your list into your current marketing tools. For example, if you use automated email software, you can sort email addresses by rank and send auto-emails to each one based on that data.

Skrapp

Skrapp can help augment your current lead-generation strategies if you want more control over your list. This tool helps you find email addresses and contact information for people you find on sites like LinkedIn. This process is a bit more time-consuming, but you can qualify your leads before sending them anything. Overall, Skrapp is there to make lead generation easier, not necessarily to provide you with a comprehensive email list.

The Bottom Line: Should You Buy an Email List for Affiliate Marketing?

Overall, buying an email list can be a quick and effective way to get the ball rolling on your affiliate marketing business. However, you also need to be aware of the potential side effects. This way, you can address any issues before they become significant and get more traction out of your pre-purchased list.

FAQs About How to Buy an Email List for Affiliate Marketing

Is it illegal to buy email lists?

No, it’s not illegal to buy email lists. However, you could run into legal troubles when sending unsolicited messages to specific groups. For example, you could get sued by someone from Europe or California, putting your business in hot water.

How much does a good email list cost?

Email list suppliers either charge by individual addresses (i.e., .06 cents per email) or per one-thousand emails. For example, the average cost per thousand (CPM) for business leads can be between $600 and $1,000, depending on the supplier.

Is it illegal to send unsolicited emails?

In most states, like California, yes, it is. Users need to consent via signup forms for you to send anything to them.

Can I put links to affiliate products in Google Ads?

Yes, you can add affiliate links in Google Ads, but the practice is controversial and frowned upon. As with email marketing, it’s better to bring website visitors to a landing page with your affiliate link.