Is spam getting worse? Here's the data for 2023

Hi, there!?? Before we jump in, I have a quick request. We need 686 more content marketers to take?our very short blogger survey . It literally takes about 2 minutes. Every response helps!

Now on with this weeks article...

Spam marketing is any unwanted, unsolicited message that appears in any marketing channel, including email, social media, phone calls and direct mail. These messages are mostly advertising and scams. The recipient did not request them and perceives them as having extremely low value.

This is the problem with Spam:?you gave no permission, implicit or explicit.?They shouldn’t have been able to reach you. You have very few ways to stop it.

But spammers target everyone in every channel. To measure the size of the spam problem for each channel, we’re collaborating with?QuestionPro , repeating a survey from one year ago of 1000+ people from a general population sample in the US.

We will look at the spam trends and ask:

• Which?social networks?have the most spam?
• How do most people respond to?email spam?
• How much?text spam?are we getting?
• What percentage of our calls are?cold calls?

This year, we repeated the survey so we could answer one more question:

• Is spam getting worse?

Email spam

First, let’s define it. Email spam is unsolicited commercial email. It’s regulated by the CAN-SPAM Act, which is a fun backronym for “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003.” It’s not a long piece of legislation. You can read the law?here ?in under five minutes.

We all get junk email. But how much?

56.5% of all email is spam

That’s according to?DataProt’s analysis . But not all of that email spam gets through. Some are caught in filters, sparing the recipient’s inbox.

But according to the survey respondents,?more than a third of our email messages are spam. So plenty of junk emails are making it past the filters. And for a lot of us, the majority of our email is garbage. This hasn’t improved over the last year.

That translates into an average daily volume of 120+ billion spam messages globally per day, costing businesses $20+ billion annually (source ). Will spam email ever stop? Not likely.

“Perhaps spam is the last frontier of unethical marketing. Most other practices that abuse, interrupt, and intercept consumers have been regulated out of existence. Despite the fact that spam is against the law this regulation is widely ignored because it’s almost impossible to monitor. Spam is one of my Top 5 business irritants!“

If survey respondents report less email spam than the email industry reports, maybe our spam filters are working. Let’s take a look:

61% of people use spam filters

A lot of our respondents (48%) use the filter built-in to their inbox provider. Others use free spam filters. 4.1% of our respondents use a paid tool. This is up from 2.7% in 2022.?More people are paying for a spam filter.

But, of course, a lot of junk mail still gets through.

Most consumers simply delete or ignore spam, but the majority of recipients are taking action. We are seeing an uptick in people who mark as spam or block and report.?More people are blocking and reporting email spammers.

Reporting email spam is how we can all join the battle against spam. Reporting both improves your own filter and makes life harder for spammers. A bad report affects the reputation of the servers spammers use to send email.

What should a legitimate marketer do?

I asked email marketing pro Justine Jordan how legit marketers can get around spam filters. Her answer gives hope to all non-spammers.

“If you’re a ‘legit’ marketer, there won’t be any need to ‘get around’ spam filters. The filters are designed to keep out bad actors who try very hard to pretend like they are legit marketers. So what makes you legit in the eyes of spam filters?

You only send email to contacts who have given you permission to contact them, the content in your messages is relevant and valuable to the reader, you make unsubscribing easy and obvious, and you use a reputable sending service that takes accountability for the health of their shared IPs. And if you want bonus points to be an extra legit marketer, you’ve verified that your email authentication methods (like SPF and DKIM) are properly set up.

It’s really that easy. It’s long been a myth that spam filters primarily look at content when deciding who makes it to the inbox. Today’s filters are much smarter than that and look at the holistic reputation of a sender when determining how to deliver their email.”

If you’re wondering why your email marketing is getting caught in a spam filter, Justine recommends this post, which lists 13 possible reasons:?Why are my emails going to spam?

Social media spam

Although the term spam was originally used for email, it is everywhere. Of course, social media is a popular platform for spammers and a battleground for marketers, good and bad.

Some social networks have more spam than others.

Facebook and Instagram are the spammiest social networks. Meta properties have the biggest spam problems. They have improved since last year, but they’re still way ahead. Our respondents were far less likely to report seeing spam on LinkedIn.

Here on LinkedIn, users are less likely to be anonymous, and therefore more likely to be concerned with their own reputation. That may explain the difference.

“A successful social media presence requires consistent levels of activity, including posting, commenting, and responding to comments. As a result, there has been a proliferation of tools designed to meet that need.

However, many such tools promise automation and scaling of activity but do so with little regard for authenticity or appropriateness. These tools make it easy for spammers to leave thoughtless comments or, worse, sales pitches, en masse.

Legitimate marketers must be wary of using tools that do not offer the capability for personalized, relevant activity, and the networks themselves must do better when it comes to policing and banning abusive tools and accounts.”

Spam comments are a problem. Spammers are notorious for leaving self-promotional comments on social media.?31% of our respondents see spam comments every day.

Spam direct messages are another problem. Spammers use DMs to send unwanted marketing messages. Most social users get spam messages, and about?20% of our respondents get spam DMs every day.

What should a legitimate marketer do?

Social spam, either as comments or DMs, is unnecessary. AJ Wilcox points out that the opportunity to be visible is high, especially on LinkedIn where most users never post.

“The beautiful part about LinkedIn is that, when you are posting interesting/valuable content, it’s really easy to go viral. The reason for this is that <5% of LinkedIn members post, but 100% of us need a feed full of content when we log in. So LinkedIn specifically looks for posts with comments to place in the feeds of those who aren’t even following you.

When you put value out into the world, you’re rewarded for it with others outside your network getting to know you. No need to send spammy InMails or connection requests that already have you feeling like a used-car salesman. Just share what’s interesting and helpful and the attention comes to you!“

Text message spam

To stay focused, I do everything possible to minimize distractions. That means turning off almost all the notifications on my phone. But there is one notification I leave on: my text messages. For years, it was strictly for friends and family, and the messages were all personal or important.

But no more. Spam has come to text messages.

Text messaging, also known as SMS (short messaging service), is a standard messaging protocol built into all of our phones. It’s actually the most popular feature of our phones,?used by 80% of phone subscribers in the US . So we’ve all got it. And for most of us, the spammers have our numbers.

So here’s the size of the text messaging spam problem today. We assume this will grow over time.

And because it’s an open standard protocol, there isn’t a tech company standing in between us and the spammers to help filter.

We are defenseless.

So how can you stop text spam? Your only option is to “block unknown senders” from inside your spam message settings, which basically opts you out of all texts from everyone except those in our address book, turning your contacts into a white list.

It’s an extreme response and it could cause big problems. What if someone not in your address book sends an important text??“Hey, I’m your neighbor from across the street. Your garage is on fire.”

Text spam is insidious for at least two reasons: SMS technology makes the sender anonymous (anyone can send a text from any number) and is within a context that is generally trusted (most texts are from close personal relations or businesses we work with).

This dangerous combo makes text spam ripe for fraud, identity theft and financial crime. Many of you will have seen this on your phones.?29% of respondents received texts that ask for personal information or included a phishing link.

Here is an example of text spam that is literally criminal. It is an attempt to impersonate a bank and get me, the recipient, to share personal information. Notice the strange URL and the lack of security certificate in the link (https:// rather than https://)

Next, we'll look at the data around cold calls and we answer the big question Does spam actually work?

And we also have insights from cognitive neuroscience expert, Carmen Simon , on what “unwanted” marketing really means.

Read it all at the original on the Orbit Media blog.