Can I use Third Party Mailing Lists for B2B Marketing?

This article is written by Steve Henderson, Head of Deliverability at Emarsys, who is part of the Email Council and its Legal & Deliverability Hub.

Email marketing is the most preferred and most trusted channel for consumers, as shown every year in the DMA Consumer Tracker report, you can veiw the 2023 report here. Why is this? Email has always been the home of trusted, permission-based marketing. Before GDPR, before ePrivacy, before any regulation enforced opt-in for email, the email industry implemented self-regulation and standards for effective email sending and deliverability.

For over 15 years the guidelines for effective email marketing have been quite simple:

1. Grow your list using first-party opt-in
2. Maintain your list quality
3. Segment and personalise so that you send email content relevant to what the recipients want, need, value and expect.

However, while these may be the simple generic standards that apply, the organic list growth that is obtained from first-party opt-in doesn’t meet every need.

Some jurisdictions, such as the UK, allow some forms of B2B marketing as an opt-out, rather than an opt-in. This is a very tricky area for guidance because the legal issues are quite poorly explained, and what is permitted in law may not be in line with the guidance that makes email both trusted and effective.

The DMA B2B Council has a wealth of resources already, which you can find here.

The DMA also has an extensive guide to third-party data use in direct marketing, which you can find here.

This article is written to bring an email deliverability perspective to the topic of third-party data in B2B email marketing, in an attempt to clarify some areas of ambiguity and give practical ideas for those considering a third-party B2B email marketing programme.

For background information and deeper explanations of how GDPR and ePrivacy apply, please refer to the resources above.

Why is third-party data considered for B2B Email Marketing?

A one-off third-party B2B email campaign can provide new lead generation quickly, and in a cost-effective way:

• Speed: It takes a long time to organically grow your own list, whereas a list can be acquired for your use from a reputable provider within days.
• Reach: Your organic list is based on the reach of your existing marketing. A list from another source can help reach new companies.
• Cost: A new strategy to acquire more first party data may be difficult to cost over time, and is likely to require people to manage it. A one-off third-party data campaign will have a known cost up-front.

So in the B2B world you can see why this method of email marketing, where permitted, can seem quite compelling. However there are risks to understand and avoid.

Issues and risks using third-party data for B2B Email Marketing

Email communication is about people (not mailing lists and percentages), and the email channel has developed increasingly sophisticated and effective ways to keep inboxes clear of spam and malicious email. Because of this a sender must consider more than just what may be permitted by law.

• Trust: You have to consider the people you are mailing. What is the likely reaction to emails that are unexpected, untimely, irrelevant, from an unrecognised sender and which raise privacy concerns regarding how someone obtained their details. As well as marking emails as spam, or raising legal questions, the people you contact will either be your critics or advocates. Good and bad experiences are shared with colleagues and on social media platforms. Relevancy, transparency and trust are the immediate challenges to address.
• Deliverability: Recipients who mark emails as spam contribute to your Sender Reputation; your “score” with the inbox filters. This determines whether subsequent emails will be delivered to the inbox, the junk folder, or blocked entirely. B2C senders are used to this concept, but for B2B senders this is a fairly recent change powered by the shift towards B2B cloud email (GSuite, Google Workspace, Office365).
• Legal: In my experience it is quite common for marketers to attempt to cherry-pick laws when looking for justification for a proposed campaign. However it’s important to understand both data protection and marketing laws together (In the UK we have to look at both GDPR and PECR).
  • GDPR - for data protection: B2B data will be classed as personal data if the email address identifies an individual, so GDPR will apply to how data is acquired, used, stored and shared.
  • PECR - for email marketing: It is a common misconception that PECR allows B2B marketing without permission (on an opt-out basis, rather than opt-in).While this is true for “corporate subscribers” sole traders and partnerships must be treated as “individual subscribers” and consent would therefore usually be needed.

So, while PECR may permit email without permission to corporate subscribers, PLCs and other legal entities, permission must be obtained to email other types of company and B2B mailing lists must still comply with GDPR requirements and have a lawful basis for processing.

How to balance the benefits with the risks?

B2B email outreach using third-party data requires careful consideration of privacy and marketing laws, empathy and understanding of the people you’re emailing, and a clear understanding of how data quality and recipient engagement impact your deliverability:

1. Use a trusted data vendor: Speak to your network, your peers and speak to your DMA representative. When choosing a vendor, don’t accept generic statements regarding the email list. Instead, ask for detailed information about how the list is collated, tested, how permission is acquired and kept up to date, how do people on the list update their preferences, details and how do people unsubscribe?
2. Responsibility for the data: Don’t assume the list you have acquired is valid and the contacts are relevant to your needs. Manually spot-check: Are the companies relevant to you? Are the contacts in the roles relevant to your campaign?
3. Email content. Be transparent about who you are, where the data was acquired and make it clear why you can be trusted. Explain how recipients can be removed from your list AND the data vendor’s list. Make sure you include an “unsubscribe” facility in every email marketing communication.
4. Test. Even when you have checked the list, and your content you should test in small batches. Look at your responses - and not just the opens and clicks, but also your replies, the bounces and unsubscribes. And be willing to stop and rethink your approach if anything looks wrong.

Ultimately, for email marketing and communication to be consistent and effective, it needs to be based on your own, organically-grown data. Building your own list should be your priority.

A third-party B2B email campaign may be helpful to periodically expand reach and acquire new prospects if performed well, but you must understand and take ownership of the risks outlined above.

For more information

DMA B2B Council resources: link

DMA guide to third-party data use in direct marketing: link

ICO Email Marketing guidelines: link

If you’re interested in the work the DMA’s Email Council does and would like to get involved, drop us a line at councils@dma.org.uk – we’d love to hear from you!