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Marketers thrive on information about customers and prospects. It's one of the reasons email is such a powerful marketing channel--the ability to see in real-time exactly which recipients are interacting with your content, and how (opening/clicking/sharing), and to what effect (page hits/conversions).

However, the marketer's desire to collect as much data as possible, when applied to signing up new email subscribers, can have unintended consequences. Aggressive collection of personal information and preferences can backfire. Here are a couple of ways we've seen it go wrong, along with suggestions for avoiding these pitfalls:

1. Asking for too much personal information. Many consumers are concerned about privacy in the digital age, and there is widespread disagreement about how much privacy one should be expected to give up in exchange for the benefits of new technology. Identity theft is a rampant problem, and even reputable brands have been victims of hackers, or otherwise found to have mismanaged personal data provided by their customers.Given these circumstances, it's natural for customers not to want to share any more information than is strictly necessary. Therefore, don't scare them off by requiring them to provide more than is needed to deliver the emails they're signing up for. If your program truly requires responses in seventeen different form fields, then set expectations clearly about how you will and won't use those responses.On the other hand, if you don't expect to use all that information, why overwhelm the user by asking for it? They may decide that subscribing to your email is more trouble than it's worth. Consider asking for minimal information up front, to lower the barriers to subscribing. Then, after building some trust with the subscriber (by sending relevant content that doesn't abuse the opt-in permission you were given), follow up with a request for more details to serve the subscriber better, and give some incentive for them to cooperate.
2. Asking for preferences, but not honoring them. Related to #1 above, subscribers tend to assume that information requested on the signup form is somehow needed to deliver the messages they're subscribing to. If you ask for their preferences about the kind of content they're interested in, it's reasonable for them to think that you intend to honor those preferences.Consider a profile form for a fictional video game retailer that lists all of their product lines with checkboxes next to them. Suppose that a subscriber checks only the boxes indicating interest in "Sony Playstation" and 'Xbox 360", but doesn't tick the box for "Nintendo Wii." If you've recorded these choices, and yet persist in sending the "Wii New Release Deal of the Week" email to your entire mailing list--without regard for subscriber preferences--then the subscriber of our example has reason to feel that you're sending them unsolicited email. And when users feel they're getting more than what they signed up for, unsubscribes and spam complaints are likely to result.

   The rule of thumb here is simple. In the context of an email signup form, don't ask what subscribers want, if you have no intention of delivering it. If you seek preference information for other reasons, like trying to decide how to allocate your marketing budget, then consider sending out a survey instead. But definitely do ask my preferences if your aim is to send me the most relevant and engaging emails possible.

Chris Broshears | Product Development