Porn: The Best Spam Bait In Town

There's a reason why porn, as a percentage of spam, has dropped off. According to CipherTrust, the response rate of various types of spam, well, varies, as one would expect. Spam touting Viagra should, just on a demographic level, be more likely than spam hyping, say, canned food for pet marmosets. Just so we're all on the same page, "response rate" is the percentage of users who received a spam message, clicked on the link embedded in the e-mail, and then purchased a product or service. Response rate for porn sites: 5% Response rate for online pharmacy drugs: 0.02% Response rate for Rolex watches: 0.0075% In other words, for every 100 spams sent out tooting porn horns, 5 people -- okay, I'm guessing here, but I'd say 4.9999 of those 5 are guys -- sign up. Compare that with drugs, which are, I suppose, more gender neutral: For every 10,000 messages, 2 people buy. 100 message, 5 buyers versus 10,000 messages, 2 buyers.

» techsearch - 4/20/2006