> I never said no one wants them; I was very careful to say that I considered it a dark pattern, not that it was a certain dark pattern.
OK fine, perhaps I interpreted your OP incorrectly. That's your prerogative, and you can do whatever you please.
> Also, I don't think any amount of statistics is going to be able to show you if people truly want emails or ads... just because they increase sales doesn't mean people want them. Ads can be both effective and unwanted.
True, but we're not just talking about increased sales.
We, and most companies that are serious about this stuff, track open rates, number of times the same person opened the same email, click rates, text link vs image link clicks, page dwell time after clicking through, session length and bounce rate, which pages they browse, which products they view, were the products related to the email that initiated the session, did they add something to their cart, how frequently this individual engages with our content, how long they were dormant, order frequency, etc.
Basically, we're interested in how "Engaged" you are with the site, brand(s), products and content. People who open every email, click on a bunch of links, hang out on the site for 20 minutes and add stuff to their cart are highly engaged, and are doing actions that indicate they like what they are seeing/receiving.
Remember, the people signing up for marketing emails are the most likely to be engaged with your brand/product/website. They've actively said, yes, please end me content from your company. If they lose interest some day, no problem, either our stats will show this and we'll unsubscribe them automatically, or they'll actively unsubscribe themselves.
Ads might be a different beast - however, you'd be surprised how many people click ads, and then buy products. It's immense. Clearly, the value provided there was getting the right product in front of them, matching what they were looking for, and offering it at a price that's attractive to that customer. In this scenario, I'd say it's wanted too - they got what they were looking for quickly and effectively. Everyone is happy in that scenario.
Everyone else can just run an ad blocker and choose not to subscribe to marketing emails. I do both myself... but I'd never assert these things were unwanted by a lot of people or ineffective.
OK fine, perhaps I interpreted your OP incorrectly. That's your prerogative, and you can do whatever you please.
> Also, I don't think any amount of statistics is going to be able to show you if people truly want emails or ads... just because they increase sales doesn't mean people want them. Ads can be both effective and unwanted.
True, but we're not just talking about increased sales.
We, and most companies that are serious about this stuff, track open rates, number of times the same person opened the same email, click rates, text link vs image link clicks, page dwell time after clicking through, session length and bounce rate, which pages they browse, which products they view, were the products related to the email that initiated the session, did they add something to their cart, how frequently this individual engages with our content, how long they were dormant, order frequency, etc.
Basically, we're interested in how "Engaged" you are with the site, brand(s), products and content. People who open every email, click on a bunch of links, hang out on the site for 20 minutes and add stuff to their cart are highly engaged, and are doing actions that indicate they like what they are seeing/receiving.
Remember, the people signing up for marketing emails are the most likely to be engaged with your brand/product/website. They've actively said, yes, please end me content from your company. If they lose interest some day, no problem, either our stats will show this and we'll unsubscribe them automatically, or they'll actively unsubscribe themselves.
Ads might be a different beast - however, you'd be surprised how many people click ads, and then buy products. It's immense. Clearly, the value provided there was getting the right product in front of them, matching what they were looking for, and offering it at a price that's attractive to that customer. In this scenario, I'd say it's wanted too - they got what they were looking for quickly and effectively. Everyone is happy in that scenario.
Everyone else can just run an ad blocker and choose not to subscribe to marketing emails. I do both myself... but I'd never assert these things were unwanted by a lot of people or ineffective.