Surfers bogged down by marketing junk

Consumers that have signed up to receive news and special offers from websites feel let down by an influx of "irrelevant and inappropriate" emails, a report claims. According to the new research, one in six of all spam emails received by UK internet users are messages sent by businesses to people that have signed up to receive updates. The survey, conducted by customer-profiling company NCorp, found that more than half (51.8 per cent) of opt-in marketing emails are deemed useless by consumers and considered "second degree spam". Martin Blackburn, managing director at NCorp, said: "Consumers feel extremely let down when, after giving a company their permission to be emailed, they are consistently sent irrelevant and inappropriate content". Findings from the survey also show that seven out of ten consumers would have little hesitation in giving their business to another company if they were consistently sent so-called second degree spam. While, forty per cent of consumers claim "second degree spam" is as annoying, if not more so, than double glazing sales people. Get Web User magazine every fortnight - subscribe here now