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(full disclosure we, and most scaled Enterprise SaaS organizations, use these tools) This is probably NOT marketing automation (Marketo, Eloqua, or HubSpot) yo

(full disclosure we, and most scaled Enterprise SaaS organizations, use these tools) This is probably NOT marketing automation (Marketo, Eloqua, or HubSpot) you're coming up against, it's a new class of tools that run "playbooks" via moderately sophisticated mail merged email campaigns. It's an effort to automate and/or optimize what junior sales staff (often called Sales or Business Development Representatives) do. Some of those tools include Outreach.io, Salesloft, and Toutapp. It could also be a home brewed app firing these emails. These are designed to seem like a person wrote those emails to you, but really they are running on a schedule and logic, listening for pixel loads, link clicks, and/or your response. If you don't respond, they can respond to themselves after X business days/hours, etc. They are being optimized for conversion, and some even have A/B testing built in. Coupled with outsourced labor or scrapers focused on picking up on signals and populating a specific field to be mail merged (in OP's case, a title from a job posting), some of these things literally run themselves. Generally, you get a human when you respond back -- as the algorithms aren't smart enough [yet] to respond back appropriately. Hope this clears it up. I hate being on the other side of these things too. If you get one and want it to stop, either click the CAN-SPAM opt out or briskly respond accordingly.

peteretep 10y ago
That surprised me about the article: I regularly see stuff like this from recruiters but there's almost always a give-away unsubscribe link.
justzisguyuknow 10y ago
I work for a sales team that uses one of these tools. I think one part of the picture that you've left out is that (at least in our case, and I suspect in many other companies) it's actually the junior sales reps (SDR/BDR/etc) themselves who are using the tool to scale their own prospecting communication. So I don't think it's necessarily quite as malicious as OP believes; these are emails that the rep would be sending personally, but the tool allows them to automate parts of the process and scale up their volume by an order of magnitude. Much of a BDR's job is to find an email template that works for a certain type of prospect, and then to find as many of that type of prospect as possible and send them that email. You can expand this to a 'cadence' of emails. But whether or not they are automating their work with this kind of tool, the prospect's experience wouldn't change much. Edit: I should also add that (again – in our case) we push our BDRs to send one-off, personalized emails and get on the phone as much as possible. They're ultimately judged by the amount of business they generate, not how many prospects they blast emails to.
snowwrestler 10y ago
> If you get one and want it to stop, either click the CAN-SPAM opt out or briskly respond accordingly I think a major point of annoyance is that these emails often do not have opt-out links, to preserve the illusion that they are personal emails.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- AdamSC1 10y ago
  In that case you can report them to the FTC. Under CAN-SPAM they must: -[Have] A visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism is present in all emails. -Honor all opt-out requests within 10 days. Failure to provide either of those on any automated business email is a violation of the act. A number of these startups (and tools) are in violation of the act with this 'illusion'.
wcummings 10y ago
>This is probably NOT marketing automation (Marketo, Eloqua, or HubSpot) you're coming up against Not sure why you say this when all three (Marketo, Eloqua & HubSpot) have features to do exactly this kind of email automation.
lgleason 10y ago
Please don't get me started about Sales Loft.
trynewideas 10y ago
Having worked for HubSpot, I know for a fact that it's used for exactly this. It's not explicitly designed or optimized for it, but it can do the job, and it has all of the features in your third paragraph.
- drharby 10y ago
  Why'd you leave if you mind me asking? (Potential new hire, considering bc convenience of location)
mjevans 10y ago
Nice factual information. I just outright disagree that this is a productive use of resources for society.

peteretep 10y ago

That surprised me about the article: I regularly see stuff like this from recruiters but there's almost always a give-away unsubscribe link.

justzisguyuknow 10y ago

I work for a sales team that uses one of these tools. I think one part of the picture that you've left out is that (at least in our case, and I suspect in many other companies) it's actually the junior sales reps (SDR/BDR/etc) themselves who are using the tool to scale their own prospecting communication. So I don't think it's necessarily quite as malicious as OP believes; these are emails that the rep would be sending personally, but the tool allows them to automate parts of the process and scale up their volume by an order of magnitude. Much of a BDR's job is to find an email template that works for a certain type of prospect, and then to find as many of that type of prospect as possible and send them that email. You can expand this to a 'cadence' of emails. But whether or not they are automating their work with this kind of tool, the prospect's experience wouldn't change much. Edit: I should also add that (again – in our case) we push our BDRs to send one-off, personalized emails and get on the phone as much as possible. They're ultimately judged by the amount of business they generate, not how many prospects they blast emails to.

snowwrestler 10y ago

> If you get one and want it to stop, either click the CAN-SPAM opt out or briskly respond accordingly I think a major point of annoyance is that these emails often do not have opt-out links, to preserve the illusion that they are personal emails.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
AdamSC1 10y ago
In that case you can report them to the FTC. Under CAN-SPAM they must: -[Have] A visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism is present in all emails. -Honor all opt-out requests within 10 days. Failure to provide either of those on any automated business email is a violation of the act. A number of these startups (and tools) are in violation of the act with this 'illusion'.

wcummings 10y ago

>This is probably NOT marketing automation (Marketo, Eloqua, or HubSpot) you're coming up against Not sure why you say this when all three (Marketo, Eloqua & HubSpot) have features to do exactly this kind of email automation.

lgleason 10y ago

Please don't get me started about Sales Loft.

trynewideas 10y ago

Having worked for HubSpot, I know for a fact that it's used for exactly this. It's not explicitly designed or optimized for it, but it can do the job, and it has all of the features in your third paragraph.

drharby 10y ago
Why'd you leave if you mind me asking? (Potential new hire, considering bc convenience of location)

mjevans 10y ago

Nice factual information. I just outright disagree that this is a productive use of resources for society.