The benefits of buying data

Data is one of the most profitable sources of prospects for marketing campaigns available on the internet; however buying data can be very risky if you do not purchase data from a reliable resource.  In terms of acquisition costs data can lower your cost per acquisition dramatically.

A real example of the success of data can be taken from one of our customers.

Their existing cost per acquisition was R1,119.00. This was the total cost to obtain a successful customer. They purchased 3million records from a data vendor which they used for email and sms marketing. They purchased the data at an expensive R8.40 per entry at a total cost of R25,2mil. Their success ratio on the data was calculated at 9% which equalled more or less 270,000 sales. The estimated cost per acquisition came down to an amazing R93.30 per sale! Email marketing and SMS marketing can be considered to be relatively cheap methods of marketing.

On average the success ratio of using purchased data can vary between as low as 1.5% to much higher and we have recorded success ratios of as high as 29%.

Tips for data buying and use

• Only purchase data that are filtered for your target market.
• Negotiate the purchase price by only purchasing data fields you really need.
• Ensure that the data purchased are washed and guaranteed to be current.
• After purchasing the data ensure that you maintain the database in order to keep it up to date and current, that way you extend the lifetime of the website.
• Ensure that you have a proper automated system in place to ensure that people within the database that wishes to unsubscribe can do so without any hassles.
• The age of data purchased should be as recent as possible.
• Put a proper customer service system in place.
• There are a number of purchase agreements, ensure that you are fully aware of the usage that you have on the data you purchase. You might be limited to number of times you may use the data, duration of use may be limited to monthly 6 monthly or annual. You can also purchase data for lifetime use.

There is no doubt that data for sale can have huge benefits to the purchaser, if the data purchased are purchased at the right terms and utilized correctly.