Blurb About MyPoints in Forbes
It's not much we didn't already know, but there was a mention of MyPoints in Forbes online a few days ago. The gist of it was that junk snailmail ain't going anywhere since sites that pay people to read email (using MyPoints as an example) used to be huge business but there's not much left anymore. (Obviously they're not aware of the humongous "PTR" industry. But I doubt that "Big Business" would want to finance paid emails from fly-by-night PTRs like we have everywhere now.)
What was interesting were the stats they shared on MyPoints: 5 million members, 2 billion emails a year, and only about 13% of them get clicked on. (!?!)
The full article is here...FWIW.
Date: July 7, 2005 7:28 PM
I read the Forbes article. Assuming I'm holding out for a Barnes & Noble $25 Gift Card, which can be gotten at 3000 points, a 5 point email is worth 4.167 cents, very close to what Forbes says. If I got a $5 B&N GC, the 5 point email is worth 3.33 cents.
2 billion emails sent each year, but only 13% click through rate - 260 million emails clicked on annually.
Worth of those 260mil:
$5 B&N GC: $8,580,000
$25 B&N GC: $10,834,200
So that's a liability for MyPoints.com of between $8 and $10 million a year. How much money do you think they actually make, and how many employees do you think they have? Is this a sustainable business model?
Date: July 10, 2005 10:41 AM
13% of my points ads clicked on. that sounds about right. i know a lot of people who are members but just dump the emails. perhaps they don't realize what they can get, or don't want to take the 1 minute involved in letting the wondow open and clicking out.it must be substainable or my points would not still bei n business. how many people have just a few points and never collected. that is money in the bank for my points.