If you are using Aweber for your mailing list you need to read this

So I have been a customer of Aweber since what feels like forever (2005 to be exact) and I love their system and a big chunk of my income comes via my mailing lists.

Away from Aweber I have had a lot of spam coming through to my spam folder. I have a lot of websites and they all get their emails forwarded to the same place.

Anyway I have noticed a huge climb in spam messages from Dr Oz Newsletter and when hitting Google with it I found that there was a lot of people complaining about them and that they cant get rid of them.

In the meantime I was having problems with Aweber. I would send a test email to myself and it would never arrive and then when I joined one of my new lists to check it out I never got the verification email to double opt in.

I contacted Aweber and they told me it was my spam filters (yes the usual its your fault message you expect to get) so I then looked into it closer.

Since 2009 I have not been collecting the name of new subscribers as I find just an email address gets me a much better sign up rate.

So anyway I had just set up a new list and noticed that there were 30 new signups for the person by the name of Dr oz (or similar) and when I unsubscribed from one of their spam messages that they had sent me it then changed their status on my Aweber list to unsubscribe.

So in a nutshell they were using my Aweber mailing list to create unsubscribe links for their spam.

And its the first time I have seen something like this before. So what I did was remove them from my mailing list (minus the non-confirmed ones that will automatically go off the system in 30 days) and changed my mailing list email address that is associated with it and deleted the old email address.

This has stopped all the dodgy signups from this spammer and now my test emails and confirmation messages have no problem getting in.

And the spammers all signed up by with the following source:

Added by emailing your AWeber List Address.

And since then I have also noticed an increase in my CTR so it had obviously alerted the system that my email address was associated with spam.

The reason I am sharing is because I cant be the only one so if you are a list builder check out your list for something similar and if it happens regularly change the email address on your list settings to keep it fresh and up to date.

Thanks for reading

Sam
X

 

Thanks for the heads up, Sam. Haven't seen anything like this on my lists, so here's to hoping it stays that way. Kudos for posting your solution.

 

Definitely a well-documented tutorial. I haven't toyed with lists yet, since I took a break from internet marketing to focus on making a few mobile apps here and there. I think simply collecting emails might be a good way to handle signups and allowing an option to unsubscribe if a person so chooses is a great way to build reputation since it can show that you can about your clientele.

 

You're welcome - I have never seen this happen before either. I think these spammers are getting better at what they do. So hopefully now I have changed things it wont happen again!

 

Thanks for sharing this information. I will be aware of these hackers because they can really mess up your marketing by hacking your information and getting to your subscribers.

Thanks again!