Spamalytics: A Study on Spam Conversion Rate

[Photo via david ॐ]

Spam hardly get to my inbox anymore, but in the early days they were VERY annoying. I still remember having to sort through dozens of emails everyday only to find 2 chain letters (remember those?? I wonder if I could make a chain blog post.. spread this link or you will not get internet connection for one week!!). Anyways, some bright CS students from Berkley actually did a study on spam email’s conversion rates. In conclusion, of the 350 million spams they observed, only 28 resulted in sales, so the conversion rate is under 0.00001%.

[crazy high number of junk mail] x [crazy low conversion rate] = [a few crazy people buying] => [profit]

The result is not really that surprising. The fact that they are still sending out spams means they make money out of it. I am nonetheless very curious who these buyers are..

Interesting read. [Spamalytics: An Empirical Analysis of Spam Marketing Conversion via Karl Long]