J.C. Penney: Phony “Confirmed” Opt-In (Gotcha!)
After previously spamming one of my spamtraps, J.C. Penney (a major U.S.-based department store) is sending phony “opt-in” confirmation emails. These emails have a Subject that reads, “Open To Confirm Your Email! EVERYTHING CHANGES 2.1.12”. In other words, anybody who is careless or curious enough to open this email in any normal email program that does not block images is automatically “confirmed” on the J. C. Penney list whether they intended to confirm or not. (“Gotcha!”) :/ The ESP is Cheetahmail, a division of Experian.
The phony COI confirmation emails were sent to a number of my spamtraps, only one of them the spamtrap that had received the earlier J.C. Penney spam. The other spamtraps had not previously heard from J.C. Penney since coming out of their timeout period and being enabled as spamtraps. In other words, it appears as if J.C. Penney is sending these “gotcha” emails to old email addresses, suppression lists, or perhaps third-party purchased lists. I am SO not impressed with this tactic. It is deceptive and manipulative — everything that a good confirmed opt-in email should never be.
Sending IP: 8.7.42.36
Spam Sample:
Actual Headers:
Received: from mta994.jcpenneyem.com (mta994.jcpenneyem.com [8.7.42.36])
by <xxx> (Postfix) with ESMTP id <xxx>
for <xxx>; Fri, 27 Jan 2012 05:xx:xx -0600 (CST)
DKIM-Signature: <xxx>
DomainKey-Signature: <xxx>
Date: Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:xx:xx -0000
Message-ID: <<xxx>@mta994.jcpenneyem.com>
List-Unsubscribe: <mailto:rm-<xxx>@jcpenneyem.com>
From: "jcpenney" <jcpenney-support@jcpenneyem.com>
To: <xxx>
Subject: Open To Confirm Your Email! EVERYTHING CHANGES 2.1.12
MIME-Version: 1.0
Reply-To: "jcpenney" <support-<xxx>@jcpenneyem.com>
Content-type: multipart/alternative; boundary="<xxx>"
Readable Email:
From: jcpenney <jcpenney-support@jcpenneyem.com>
To: <spamtrap>
Subject: Last Day! 1000s Of Deals, Up To $20 Off + Free Ship To Store
Reply-To: jcpenney <support-<xxx>@jcpenneyem.com>
Thanks for confirming your email. You will continue receiving info on the latest and greatest at jcp.
Shop now.
http://jcpenneyem.com/<xxx>
<xxx> subscribed to promotional emails from jcpenney. To keep these emails coming, add jcpenney-support@jcpenneyem.com to your address book now. To unsubscribe from such emails or update your email preference, click below:
http://jcpenneyem.com/<xxx>
Please allow 7-10 days for your request to be processed.
(C) 2012 J.C. Penney Company, Inc. and/or JCP Media Inc., 6501 Legacy Drive, Plano, Texas, United States of America.
All rights reserved. To contact customer service, please call 1-800-222-6161.
I can’t speak for this client (although I am investigating), but would like to comment on the general point here.
The primary goal of marketers who run these campaigns is to understand whether the many thousands (and perhaps hundreds or even millions) of those who don’t regularly open or click on emails are worth emailing anymore. These efforts are not designed to find the ‘spamtrap in the haystack’, or ‘list wash’.
For arguments sake; what is a confirmation but an affirmative click associated with an email?
Method 1; Click through to a specific email request to confirm with no other content
Method 2; Click through to a specific email request to confirm with incentives provided
Method 3; Click on any link in an opt-out welcome (or other) email
Method 4; Click ‘display images’ (or the like feature) to render the pixel tag in an email
[Granted, there may be some (but likely few) email users or software that still render pixels by default.]
I completely agree that methods 1 & 2 are optimal and are a true ‘confirmation’. However, in the marketing world; the goal is to gauge interest, relevance, and determine whether to continue sending emails to otherwise inactive or possibly mistaken emails. There is a good argument that a click-through or user who goes through the trouble of opening images in what should be a very clear commercial email (even with images off) indicates interest and activity.
Since most senders still operate in the world of single opt-in, then efforts to mix the Methods and find the creative happy-medium to confirm recipients should be encouraged for all senders, and not ridiculed or considered ‘deceptive’. Some marketers may start with Method 4 and move thereafter to a true confirmation before suppression (which I expect to be the case here). The fact that this very large sender is making an effort, as opposed to most who make no effort, should be considered as a positive trend. If you read the email marketing industry content these days, you’ll quickly find that such re-engagement, relevancy , and suppression efforts are praised, which I hope translates to these readers too. We have to start somewhere, right?
Yes, you do have to start somewhere. “Confirming” suppression lists or outright purchased lists, however, is not it. Neither is considering a message that counts as an “opt-in” a simple opening of the message. Both of those aspects of the J.C. Penney “confirmation” email above place it squarely in the category, not of an attempt to do the right thing, but an attempt to have their cake and eat it too.
As people say on Twitter, #FAIL.