AirDNA/Follow up in poor taste?

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I recently went to AirDNA to see if rates & occupancy rates had dropped. This used to be free, but it appears they eliminated my specific area after logging in. It is now a paid section. What I found disturbing was the follow up email that I received after visiting the site. The email content is listed below. Personally, I feel this type of follow up is stalker-esque. It felt one step short of a ransom email. “I know you were on my website, now pay me”. I understand that I’m sure I gave this permission in one of the clicks to join, but I feel it’s in very poor taste. Other companies do it, with a suggested email with relevant content, but this crossed that line. Thoughts?

I hope you are well.
I have seen that you have been looking at some content on our website and I wanted to reach out. Is there anything I can help with?
Feel free to book a time in my [calendar]

Best wishes,

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Doesn’t bother me as it’s standard in the industry. This is why all kinds of products exist to prevent this.

It seems to me that I’ve gotten emails from companies I didn’t even give my email to. That is bothersome.

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I would think that attempting to get paid information for free and then complaining that you were graciously solicited would be in poor taste…

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@Rolf , I was looking for the information that had previously been free. I don’t care that they charge for it now. My response to the cold call might be in the minority.

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Stalkeresque? It’s standard modern marketing practice. And I don’t know what you mean by “cold call”. I thought cold call referred to telemarketers you have never contacted actually calling your phone number. People get all kinds of spam in their email- some automatic AI message isn’t anything I’d waste an ounce of energy thinking about- just hit Delete.

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Maybe go into Settings and turn down the sensitivity on your Spidey Senses

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And it has been for a very long time. I’m surprised that the OP hasn’t come across this before - I have, thousands of times during the last few years.

Me too. I’d say that for every genuine email I receive, I get dozens (or more) from companies I have never contacted and that have never had my email address legitimately.

In ‘the olden days’ there were programmes that (legally) trawled the internet looking to capture email addresses. People might have innocently put their email address on a classified ad or a genealogy website or whatever because this was before the days when people became privacy-conscious.

Then, we web developers had to learn how to encrypt email addresses in a website’s code to fool the address-collecting bots.

But by the time this became standard practice, I imagine that millions of email addresses had been collected and then sold on and sold on and sold on…

Then the technology became even more clever and, thanks to cookies, can contact people who have visited websites.

Unfortunately, many of us have agreed to this when we hurriedly scroll through those terms and conditions without reading them and click ‘I agree’ at the end.

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Coincidentally, 'imself was recently looking for Airbnb accommodation for us for next year in San Miguel, Mexico.

(Note that his account is a guest account - my hosting is altogether separate. So yes, they have his number from previous stays.)

And Airbnb obviously knows what he was searching the site for.

I had just finished writing the above message and he said “that’s interesting. I’ve just had a text from Airbnb suggesting some places in a town near San Miguel and they look really good…”

He is now studying them.

They are in a place we hadn’t seen before but it does look interesting and the rentals are great. They seem to be specifically chosen to be the sort of place we want - 2 people, free parking, within our price range etc. and neither of us see this as being in the least bit poor taste of intrusive.

In fact, we see it as helpful.

Yes, my hosting email account could get pretty bombarded with emails from Airbnb had I not opted out when I first joined. (I don’t know if that’s still an option or if it’s a setting that can be changed).

But in this case, the text really was helpful.

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I especially love the unsolicited emails I get offering me hot Ukrainian women or penis enhancement :rofl:. I have no idea where they get my email address- it’s not like I’ve ever clicked on anything like that to have it register as some sort of interest.

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It shows how uninformed they are - and I must be a very strange person because I get emails offering me penis enhancement and breast enlargement. :crazy_face:

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