Every day my inbox is inundated with sales that aren’t actually sale prices (hello inflation), reminders that I’ve already been reminded of and opportunities that I don’t want.

When I unsubscribe, the emails keep showing up.

When I ask the company to remove me from their distribution list, the emails keep showing up.

When I flag them as spam, the emails keep showing up.

Why send so many emails? I don’t know.

Email marketing in 2023 is basically a digital dollar store. Companies are ready, willing and able to buy, steal and cheat their way to a distribution list that they can spam seven ways from Sunday about their positively average products and services. Just like the crap from a dollar store that looks cute but isn’t built to last, these emails might look flashy, but they’re really not made for engagement, brand awareness or promotion. They’re made because somewhere along the way someone decided that if it takes seven touch-points to make a consumer purchase, all seven of those touch-points can be in email format, whether they have a purpose for said email or not.

I’m going to call out a company here. A few years back I bought some waterproof shoes from a company called Vessi. I bought them on sale, from their website, and when I did, they collected my email address and have been spamming me ever since.

Their shoes are nice, don’t get me wrong. I thought they were quality enough to buy in the first place. Since making my purchase, though, I’ve been completely turned off from the company, and not just because they’ve raised the price of their shoes exponentially, without adding any quality or improvements.

Vessi sends me marketing emails multiple times per week. I’ve unsubscribed more times than I can count. I’ve kindly emailed their customer service department asking them to forget I exist. I’ve flagged them as spam, hoping their emails would go straight to junk. Somehow, some way, their emails always wind up in my inbox. So much so that I had to create a rule to funnel them into a folder I don’t look at. At one point, I contemplated even making a new email address.

They bombarded me with emails immediately following my purchase of their product. Do you know who doesn’t need to buy more shoes? Someone who just bought a pair of shows. Do you know who isn’t going to buy shoes every single week for the rest of their lives? 99% of the earth’s population.

They’re not alone in the way they operate

Vessi’s marketing department seems to believe that the more emails they send, the more they can sell. They’re not alone in thinking this. It feels like half of the marketing departments on this earth have decided they can spam people’s inboxes as a means to make them make a purchase.

Having an email address in 2023 is the equivalent of having a mailbox from 2000–2015. Flyers, flyers, flyers, deals, and the occasional bill. But mostly, flyers.

NO ONE needs this many promotional emails from a single company

I would like to see companies take a more purposeful approach to the way that they email consumers. As someone who works in marketing, I find it incredibly lazy to send out daily, or even weekly, marketing emails. Companies do it because it’s minimal to low cost. What they fail to ask themselves is this — what value do these emails bring? Someone who’s never used Rakuten before in their life (me) doesn’t need daily emails. Someone who has just purchased a year’s worth of contact lenses (also me) doesn’t need to do that again next week.

Companies are failing to classify their databases and distribute emails accordingly. What a different world we’d live in if any one of these companies decided to organize their distribution list and be purposeful with who got what content and when. What if they stopped and recognized that you cannot sell contact lenses to someone every week, week after week? What if they used the automation tools that we all know they have, to put email addresses into a calendar of when they can next be communicated with?

What if?

What if?

What if?

What are some companies that have spammed you, or are currently spamming you?

Check your inbox. What are the companies that keep showing up in your promotions folder? Companies that you maybe recently purchased from and won’t need to purchase again for a while? (Yes, companies know this and they spam you anyway) What are the companies you’ve never shopped at who more than likely bought your email address from elsewhere?

I want to know them. I want to know I’m not alone.

Companies that spam me, regularly

• Vessi
• Rakuten
• Lululemon
• Dime Beauty (after receiving three emails per day from them for over a week, I had to phone this company to tell them to quit)
• Expedia
• WestJet
• Starbucks
• There are so many more, I’m certain. I just see them so much I forget about them.

Who spams you?

What companies are the worst of the worst for email spamming? What companies have their business model to annoy the crap out of consumers until purchases are made? Let’s share and commiserate about how much of an issue this is, and how many marketing departments around the world need to learn how to do better and be better at their jobs.

Email marketing is lazy. It’s one of the easiest, most simple things a marketer can do. Filling your inbox like it’s a digital dollar store is a waste of your time and an acknowledgement that they don’t care what you think about them, as long as your money is green. They’re like toddlers asking for attention, only toddlers are more tolerable.

The very least they could do is build a strategy around distribution and be open about said strategy.

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