Stupid Quiz Watch: The Results are in!

More than half of Magilla Marketing readers think it’s fun to watch a no-talent, bitter, fat, loudmouthed trade-hack reporter fall into an alcoholic tailspin and ruin his career.

That was just one of the standout results of last week’s Magilla Marketing pop quiz as 54% of readers who took the quiz chose that answer in response to the super duper, bonus extra-credit question.

Thanks guys.

Overall, Magilla Marketing readers generally scored in the 90% range on the admittedly flawed quiz.

First the flaws: For one thing, we forgot to include question 8.

Do’h!

And by the time we were able to spot the mistake and fix it, most of those who were going to take the quiz already did and weren’t coming back.

Also, deliverability consultant Laura Atkins pointed out that one of the choices for the question asking about double opt-in—the e-mail signup process where new registrants must respond to a confirmation e-mail to be added to the list—was wrong. I had written that it was one foolproof way to make sure incoming data is clean.

She politely explained that I was dead wrong and nothing, including double opt-in, is foolproof.

I asked her in an e-mail to clarify how bad data could get into a file whose owner uses double opt-in.

Here is her answer:

“There are a couple ways it could happen. There are some spam traps (I even have a few) where it's not a real e-mail address (ie, the owner doesn't sign up for any mail or publish the address anywhere) but they still get mail.

“These traps are, sometimes, put into communal mailboxes where different people read the mail. If the trap owner isn't careful, one of those people reading the mail can confirm the mail.”

Another pitfall, she wrote, is where people are allowed to post full e-mails to public lists or Web sites without any editing. A marketer’s confirmation e-mail can easily be publically posted with its links intact, she pointed out.

“All it takes is a Web crawler to follow that link and *boom* it's confirmed,” she wrote.

“Also, if you set up ‘reply-to-confirm’ badly, things like autoresponders and vacation messages can end up accidently confirming the subscription.

“Finally, there are some anti-spammers that have set up ‘click-on-any-link’ schemes on their trap addresses. They're looking for redirects and clickthroughs, but it can result in accidental confirmations.

“Some of these are malicious acts by people, some are just people letting others have access to their mailbox, and some are just poor programming. In any case, it can happen that traps get on COI [confirmed or double opt-in] lists.

“Oh, the last one is traps that have been valid mailboxes in the past and are converted to traps. If the sender isn't doing good list hygiene, then that's another way traps show up.”

So Magilla stands corrected on that one. Double opt-in is decidedly not a foolproof way for keeping bad data from entering a file.

Meanwhile, not surprisingly, the quiz question that gave people the most trouble was the one asking whether harvesting addresses is illegal or not. While 62% of respondents got it right—harvesting addresses is not illegal, but it’s an aggravating factor that could lead to stiffer penalties for someone who gets busted violating the Can Spam Act—38% got it wrong.

People also struggled with the question asking what it is imperative for retailers who are building an e-mail list to get to be successful. Sixty eight percent answered correctly that it’s store-manager buy-in.

Thirteen percent incorrectly answered: “As many e-mail addresses as possible any way any how, even if they have to scrape them off Web sites.” Let’s hope they were joking.

And speaking of joking, 7% selected the wiseass answer: “Drunk.”

Likewise, 7% of the quiz takers said getting store-manager buy-in on an e-mail program entails: “Axel grease, duct tape, feathers and an engine hoist.”

To everyone who took the quiz, congratulations and thanks.