An Advertising List is typically a list of email addresses of a companies customers which is used to advertise specials, current catalogs, or other mailing lists for brick and mortar type businesses that send post cards, catalogs, and the like to. There’s typically two ways to develop an advertising list, one is in-house based on your existing customer lists, or you can buy them from a list broker.

Usually buying an advertising list from a list broker is a bad idea, as they keep reselling the same lists hundreds of times and never retire them. I’ve bought lists from these places, and even gotten some letters back saying the person has gotten over 30 solicitations from similar companies which shows just how bad a quality they are.

Email advertising lists are always a bad idea. They are never opt-in even though they are advertised as such. Even if a company for permission, for example to send to their customers information about something, it doesn’t (in almost all cases) give you permission to email them as well.

The only way to develop a quality advertising list is to offer your customers a bonus for signing up for it, like free shipping or a discount for orders over a certain dollar amount, or even specials that are only sent to the advertising list. Whether it’s email or regular mailings like catalogs, a targeted advertising list can be a powerful tool but only if you develop it yourself. Reputable or quality advertising list brokers are virtually nonexistent, so buyer beware when shopping for an advertising list.