Overwhelmed by email marketing

[MidnightPatrol]

I know Black Friday and pre-Christmas is a bad time for email marketing - but I my personal email is becoming almost completely unusable due to the ridiculous number of marketing emails I receive.

There are some brands I shop from where I like to know if there’s a sale on or similar. That can be useful. But I’m getting daily emails (more!) from some brands. Surely no one wants to hear from retail shops daily?!

I try to keep on top of it unsubscribing (even to brands where I would like occasional updates), but for every one I manage to unsubscribe from I seem to be on another (probably by buying something and not seeing how to opt out, albeit I think I’m quite hot on this!) - or often there are multiple mailing lists for each brand, you need to unsubscribe from individually.

AIBU that personal email has just become completely unusable as a result?

Yanbu. Junk function not as good as it used to be.

Completely agree. Like you I unsubscribe when it's a brand I'm not interested in, but I do like to get sale emails from brands I like... but not every day, even multiple times a day. And at this time of year you're buying presents from companies you don't normally use, and that adds to the deluge.

I've just checked and I've had 22 sales emails since 6am.

My GMail is pretty good at putting them into a separate folder

But yes, daily is ridiculous! I want occasional updates and offers, but I can't get those without constant spam.

Direct everything to a different folder.
or use a separate email for marketing type communications.

Then they won't clog up your inbox but you can look at them, if you have time or inclination.

@redskydarknight Setting up a separate email account for shopping possibly a good idea.

Albeit then I will still have an extra email inbox to monitor!

(probably by buying something and not seeing how to opt out, albeit I think I’m quite hot on this!) It's because often there's nothing and yet they add you to a mailing list anyway. I don't think this is GDPR compliant. I fill out the ICO complaint form when this happens, although I don't think the ICO do much. I had this happen with a local restaurant I got a takeaway from once - they forced you to give your email and phone number to do it online, and then I got marketing messages on both. The food was good, but for this reason I won't be ordering from them again.

Can your email block?

I have two personal emails, one a newer one on Protonmail I use for orders where I use SimpleLogin for pseudonyms when I order things to avoid future marketing and the email being sold on or leaked. However, I have a very long-standing email account from a provider in my home country and over the past year or a couple, they've started putting marketing emails into my inbox from affiliates and there's no way to block these except by switching to a paid account. I don't want to do that because you can get a free service for the same elsewhere, but neither do I want to give up the account completely as I've been using it for so long.

Although I want no marketing emails from brands at all!

There are services which put all your emails into one big digest which you receive daily. I use Mailbrew and I can't function without it. It also allows you to unsubscribe in bulk and alerts you if there are companies whose emails you never open so that you can unsubscribe from them too.

Completely agree with you, it's really annoying. I've unsubscribed to emails from brands I wanted to stay in touch with but really didn't want daily emails from, and the ones who slide through cos of multiple addresses have actually made me change some of my buying habits just so I don't encourage them. I'm starting to think marketing people have totally lost the plot - surely this tactic loses more customers than it gains!

You're BU because you literally subscribed to all of these email lists yourself. It is wild how many come out of the woodwork at this time of year, but you just have to unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe and whenever one gets through during the year UNSUBSCRIBE don't delete.

I had to do a big purge last year for this reason, and I hardly get any now. I use gmail.

You are not alone

I want one to say ‘there is 25% off until 23.59 on Friday’.

But then I don’t want that twice a day until then.

And then all again the next week when it is ‘extended’.

Made worse by the fact it might be thirty companies doing it currently.

I use an old email address I have for any online purchases where i dont mind marketing going to, then another email address for anything else. It keeps my main email beautifully clear of marketing emails/spam!

I also get so many marketing emails from hotels I’ve stayed at, and then they think I want to be email twice a week for eternity.

This year seems to have been worse than normal. Some brands sent me three emails on friday, then another daily ever since! It's making my opinion of them change and I am less likely to buy from them now.

I’ve also noticed a real uptick in brands sending several emails if you’ve looked at the site.

I really hate this. It makes me feel watched.

I looked at one site at the weekend (Xmas shopping) and they sent me six emails.

There are currently 148,060 unread emails in my personal account. The majority are marketing emails.

Lots of companies ask if you don’t want to receive Mother’s Day or Father’s Day emails, but have never had one asking if I want to be excluded from Xmas emails. I don’t celebrate it so they’re wasting their time emailing me!

Completely agree. It's ridiculous.

YABU. Spend 5 minutes every day for a week going through them and unsubscribing and your email will be back to normal again (which in my case is no-one actually emailing me, so the spam makes me feel wanted 😭)

Its outrageous, I unsuscribe as quickly as I can but its pretty much a full time job.

I actually do think some of these brands are using multiple addresses etc so even if you unsubscribe from one list… you are still on others from the same brand!

@ThatIsNotMyNameSoWhyAreYouCallingMeThat I have deleted 17,000 this morning on a rampage while unsubscribing. I think most people probably have email accounts with thousands of unread emails as a result of too many marketing emails!

I have 148 THOUSAND of the buggers.

5 mins a day for a week. 😂

I feel the same... feels like another chore to add to how overwhelming life can be! I can't check my email every day and sometimes there are hundreds of messages there. I do unsubscribe from some but I'm not sure if it's worth the time or not...

One suggestion, could you have a spare email for things you buy and any subsequent junk mails that come?