There has been a lot has been talk over last couple of years - particularly since August 2000 Distance Selling Directive did not give direct marketing industry sufficiently clear guidelines about opt-in and opt-out status in respect of email usage.

At that point it was left to individual EU Member States to ensure that Unsolicited Commercial Emails (UCE) are only sent where there is no clear objection from consumer. This ambiguity left way clear for dubious spamming practices we have all witnessed over last couple of years.

Following persistent lobbying from pressure groups, MEP's and responsible email marketers, EU Parliament finally moved in mid 2002 to clarify position in favour of gaining explicit consent from email users. Opt-in email marketing will become standard following second reading of EU Directive 2002/58/EC and its subsequent adoption later this year. So in practical terms, what does it mean when Directive is adopted in UK? In a nutshell, it boils down to a couple of points: -

Microtargeting has become a valued strategy. At VIBEdirect, we have seen industry withstand incredible changes based on bandwidth, creative, message perception and fickle marketing factors that affect both open and click through rates with today's campaigns.

Consumers received an average of 3 marketing related emails per month in 1999. This number is expected to jump to over 130 marketing related emails per month by 2005 due to success rate of email marketing and number of companies sending optin email. The problem is that this trend has caused email open rates to drop.

In past, our success had been built on wholesaling opt-in email campaigns to brokers and agencies. But as business conditions changed, we evolved by providing our clients with a microtargeted approach for cost effective results and a positive return on investment. As a result, we have maintained a sustained, strong period of growth.

Our opt-in lists offer marketers a "politically correct" way to reach their target audience on net. While using bulk e-mail lists is cheaper, practice in itself is extremely controversial. You must be very careful when considering using bulk e-mail to market your wares on Internet. This can lead to some unexpected and unwanted results. For example, some of your recipients may decide to "flame" you by clogging up your e-mail system with angry responses to your marketing message. Other recipients will complain to your Internet Service Provider, who may decide to discontinue your account.

We have more than 2,000 opt-in lists with more than 40 million unique names to choose from. All of our email addresses are ALL opt-in from a variety of quality web sites, banner ads, e-surveys & e-zine lists.