Have you rented 3rd party email lists for acquisition and lead generation?  If so, you are aware that costs are dropping. Foliomag.com reported that the downturn in the economy has resulted in a slump in CPM rates for both B2B and B2C lists:

“Permission-based e-mail b-to-b, which is the highest priced category, saw a decrease of $12 per thousand to a straight average price of $293 per thousand. The second largest price decrease occurred in the permission-based email b-to-c lists, which saw a decrease of $11 per thousand.

“The findings are extraordinary, yet not surprising, considering this is a mirror of the U.S. economic conditions,” Worldata senior vice president Ray Tesi said in a statement. “It is likely this trend will continue, at least for the next quarter or two until the U.S. economy is stabilized. We are seeing strong usage in the Technology, Small/Medium Business, and HR channels of the business-to-business category, as b-to-b marketers take advantage of this attractive pricing.”

Email list rental campaigns can produce wildly different results. Success typically comes down to list targeting and concept execution. If one step of the process is off, you can lose the conversion and waste your funds.

If you are contemplating renting an email list, request references and average metrics. If the list broker will not provide these, keep looking.