Weight Loss Scams Reveal Why Spam Works

Business Week reports that a study by researchers in New York reveals that as many as one in five young, overweight people have been a victim of email spam.

The study revealed some interesting statistics:

• 88% of overweight individuals reported receiving spam pitching weight loss products, compared to 73% of other respondents
• 42% of overweight individuals said they opened the spam, compared to 18% of other respondents
• 18% of overweight individuals said they bought products promoted in the emails, compared to just 5% of other respondents

Firstly why do overweight people receive more weight loss spam?  One theory is that these people are visiting more web sites on that topic than other people, and therefore end up in marketing databases.  This means that the spam is either coming from the website owner, or another party that is given access to the database of email addresses.  This access may be either from selling the list or by using co-registration, which is a legitimate lead-sharing strategy that is often abused by spammers.

For any email marketer a 42% open rate is outstanding.  It means that the subject line for the email was very effective at enticing the recipient to open the email and read more.

For a spammer sending 1,000,000 emails 42% open rates do not mean 420,000 people opened them.  Most of those recipients will never receive the spam due to anti-spam protection on their email server or their computer.  But even a 1% penetration could mean several thousand people open the email.

Finally the conversion rate for overweight people is very good at 18%.  Several hundred conversions of a weight loss product likely to cost $50-$200 is a good day’s pay for the spammer.

So what does this tell us about why spam works?  Well like any form of marketing with more accurate targeting comes higher conversions.  Valentines Day spam converts better in January/February, and Christmas spam converts better in November/December.

Interestingly the statistics above are only for email spam.  This type of spam is the most common and is still quite easy to accomplish (for example by requiring an email address submission before revealing the “25 Amazing Weight Loss Tips for 2010”).  Spam is perceived as a big problem and yet email addresses are perceived as low value and are quickly given up.

But the last few years have seen a strong emergence in other types of spam such as in social networks, where the targeting is much easier for spammers because of how much information we make public about ourselves.

Consider how easily a spammer can send messages to people who post “I want to lose weight” on Twitter as a new year’s resolution, sending them a link to those “25 Amazing Weight Loss Tips for 2010” so as to capture their email address.  Or how easily single women aged 35-45 can be targeting with a Facebook ad for weight loss, leading to a female-focused website, and then female-focused follow up email messages.

More accurate targeting means higher conversions.  So why does spam work?  Because we give spammers everything they need to know to make it work.