Summary
Paying for email engagement metrics, such as opens, clicks, or spam removals, is widely considered an ineffective and highly risky strategy within the email marketing community. Experts and industry documentation consistently affirm that these deceptive practices are readily identified by sophisticated systems at Internet Service Providers and anti-spam organizations. Rather than improving deliverability, artificially inflated metrics actively harm sender reputation, leading to emails being blocked or routed directly to spam folders, and provide no genuine business or marketing value.
Key findings
- Easy Detection: Email providers and anti-spam systems have sophisticated algorithms designed to detect and thwart unnatural or manipulated engagement patterns, rendering paid efforts ineffective.
- Reputation Damage: Artificial engagement severely degrades sender reputation, leading to lower inbox placement, increased spam classifications, and potential blacklisting by organizations like Spamhaus.
- No Real Value: Paying for engagement provides false data, offers no genuine subscriber interaction or business value, and ultimately results in wasted marketing resources.
- Violates Terms of Service: Such practices often violate the terms of service of mail providers, which can lead to severe penalties, including account suspension or outright blocking.
Key considerations
- Prioritize Authenticity: Long-term email deliverability is built on cultivating genuine, organic subscriber engagement, as this is what email providers truly value.
- Avoid Artificial Fixes: Services that promise artificial engagement are ineffective and can be considered 'snake oil,' ultimately undermining legitimate marketing efforts and wasting resources.
- Understand ISP Logic: Email deliverability systems, including those from major ISPs like Google and Microsoft, prioritize authentic user interaction as a primary signal for sender trustworthiness, making manipulated engagement counterproductive.
- Assess Risk vs. Reward: The substantial risks of damaged sender reputation, deliverability issues, potential blacklisting, and wasted budget far outweigh any perceived, short-term benefits from artificial engagement.
What email marketers say
14 marketer opinions
Experts in email marketing overwhelmingly advise against paying to artificially inflate engagement metrics like opens or clicks. This approach is not only ineffective but also carries significant risks for deliverability and sender reputation. Email service providers and anti-spam systems are highly adept at identifying such unnatural patterns, nullifying any intended benefits and instead triggering negative consequences for senders.
Key opinions
- Futile Endeavor: Services that pay individuals to manipulate email engagement are largely useless, as mail providers have advanced systems to detect and counteract "unusual mail patterns," rendering these efforts ineffective.
- Misleading Metrics: Artificially inflated engagement metrics yield inaccurate and false data, providing no genuine insight into subscriber interest or true campaign success, thus wasting resources on misleading statistics.
- Severe Deliverability Harm: Engaging in artificial engagement significantly damages a sender's reputation, causing emails to be flagged as spam, blocked, or suffer drastically reduced inbox placement by ISPs.
- Provider Terms Violation: Manipulating engagement metrics through paid services almost certainly violates the terms of service of major email providers, risking account suspension and other severe penalties.
Key considerations
- Ethical Concerns: Paying for email interactions is viewed as unethical by many experts, as it attempts to game the system and provides no true value, likened to "wrong on so many levels."
- Counterproductive Warmup: Such methods, even when applied to large lists, do not constitute a genuine email warmup, as ISPs prioritize authentic engagement and easily discern artificial interactions.
- Absence of Business Value: Despite perceived short-term gains, artificially inflated metrics provide no genuine business value, as they fail to connect with real subscribers or drive actual marketing objectives.
- Market Deceptions: The existence of unsolicited offers to "buy" traffic or pre-warm IPs for sale highlights a deceptive segment of the market that preys on marketers seeking quick fixes for deliverability.
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that while paying people to manipulate email engagement metrics is likely not illegal, it almost certainly violates mail providers' terms of service. They also add that this method won't actually work well because ISPs have long-standing code to identify and thwart "recipients with unusual mail patterns" and similar attempts to game the system.
6 Jan 2023 - Email Geeks
Marketer view
Email marketer from Email Geeks explains that paying people to open, click, and remove from spam is an attempt to game engagement metrics for providers like Google and Microsoft, and that people who have tried this in the past have not had much luck.
20 Dec 2023 - Email Geeks
What the experts say
3 expert opinions
Paying for email engagement, such as artificial opens or clicks, is a counterproductive and harmful practice that significantly undermines email deliverability. Industry experts consistently highlight that these efforts are easily detected by sophisticated spam filters and automated systems, failing to provide any legitimate benefit. Instead, such manipulative tactics lead to severe damage to sender reputation, render performance metrics useless, and ultimately result in wasted resources.
Key opinions
- Ineffective against Filters: Artificial engagement services are too small in scale to bypass or influence the advanced spam detection mechanisms of major email providers, making them ultimately ineffective.
- Corrupts Performance Data: Inflating metrics through paid services distorts campaign data, making it impossible for marketers to accurately gauge the true performance or effectiveness of their email efforts.
- Accelerates Reputation Harm: Utilizing artificial engagement patterns significantly harms a sender's reputation, leading to increased spam classifications, higher bounce rates, and potential blacklisting by anti-spam organizations.
- Lacks Business Value: The engagement generated by these services is not genuine, meaning it provides no real subscriber interaction, conversion potential, or authentic business value.
- Financial Waste: Investing in artificial engagement services is a waste of financial resources, as the practices do not yield positive deliverability outcomes and instead invite negative consequences.
Key considerations
- Prioritize Organic Engagement: Building a strong sender reputation and achieving high deliverability relies entirely on fostering genuine, organic engagement from a truly interested subscriber base.
- Avoid 'Gaming' Systems: Attempts to manipulate or 'game' email system metrics are quickly identified by ISPs and anti-spam services, leading to penalties rather than improvements.
- Long-Term Deliverability Strategy: Effective email marketing demands a long-term strategy centered on list hygiene, relevant content, and authentic subscriber interaction, not artificial boosts.
- Evaluate Service Promises: Be highly skeptical of any service promising artificial engagement metrics, as these are typically scams that will only harm your email program.
Expert view
Expert from Email Geeks states that attempts to game engagement metrics by paying people would "never get enough mass to overrule any automated or manual spam processing," reinforcing that such services are ineffective.
18 Feb 2025 - Email Geeks
Expert view
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that paying for email engagement services, such as those that promise artificial engagement or utilize click farms, is highly ineffective and carries significant risks. These practices can severely damage a sender's reputation, waste financial resources, lead to high bounce rates, and potentially result in blacklisting, as the engagement generated is not genuine and provides no real value.
9 Mar 2024 - Word to the Wise
What the documentation says
6 technical articles
Attempting to pay for artificial email engagement metrics like opens or clicks is consistently deemed ineffective and detrimental by major email providers and anti-spam groups. Their advanced systems are designed to detect such manipulated interactions, which are flagged as untrustworthy behavior, leading to severe negative consequences for sender reputation and deliverability.
Key findings
- Systems Prioritize Genuineness: Email providers, including Google and Microsoft, base sender reputation on authentic user engagement, making artificial metrics counterproductive.
- Sophisticated Pattern Detection: Systems from Validity, Cisco Talos, and SparkPost are adept at identifying and flagging unnatural or manipulated engagement patterns.
- Direct Deliverability Impairment: Artificially inflating metrics directly leads to emails being blocked, quarantined, or routed to spam folders, negating reach.
- Blacklisting Risk: Anti-spam organizations like Spamhaus can blacklist domains or IPs due to patterns indicative of paid engagement, severely impacting future deliverability.
- Zero ROI on Manipulation: Investing in artificial engagement is a wasted financial and strategic effort, yielding no genuine subscriber interaction or valuable marketing insights.
Key considerations
- Genuine Engagement is Paramount: For sustainable deliverability, focus on fostering authentic user interest and interaction rather than seeking shortcuts.
- Reputation is Fragile: Sender reputation, once damaged by manipulative practices, is difficult and time-consuming to rebuild.
- ISP Rules Are Strict: Understand that major Internet Service Providers enforce strict rules favoring organic engagement, making any attempts to game the system highly risky.
- Long-Term Harm Over Short-Term Gain: Any perceived immediate benefit from artificial engagement is far outweighed by the long-term damage to sender credibility and email program effectiveness.
Technical article
Documentation from Google explains that artificially inflating email engagement metrics, such as opens and clicks, is ineffective and harmful because their systems prioritize genuine user interaction for sender reputation. Engagement that appears manipulated will negatively impact deliverability, leading to messages being blocked or routed to spam folders, as it signals untrustworthy sending practices.
22 Nov 2023 - Google Postmaster Tools Help
Technical article
Documentation from Validity, through its Sender Score methodology, clarifies that paying for email engagement metrics is ineffective because authentic, organic interaction is the cornerstone of a strong sender reputation. Manipulated engagement patterns are readily identified by reputation algorithms, resulting in a low Sender Score, increased spam classifications, and ultimately poor deliverability.
26 Nov 2022 - Validity (Sender Score)
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