If you've been shopping to rent or purchase a list for your email or direct-mail campaigns, this slide deck might help. Of course, this is just one test in one industry, but the results may surprise you. To be fair, extrapolating numbers like this does leave for a margin of error — how much could likely only be verified by pulling exactly the same number of names from both vendors, deduping the lists, sending both on the same day, at the same time, with the same subject line, and so on. That would be a true A/B test. This is a small data set, with minimal intervention, and is not intended to decide once and for all which is better: purchase or rent. It's just a deck of our findings that we hope will make you go, "hmmmm...."

1. Spider Trainers
Comparison:
ZoomInfo v. USAdata

2. The campaign

3. The subject lines (ZoomInfo)
Get Your Creative Hell Are You In Creative Hell?
Poster — Totally Free Let's Laugh About It.
 Sent: 470  Sent: 463
 Opened: 105 (22.3%)  Opened: 102 (22.0%)
 Bounced: 8 (1.7%)  Bounced: 10 (2.2%)
 Did not open: 357 (76.0%)  Did not open: 351 (75.8%)
 Clicked: 13 (2.8%)  Clicked: 9 (1.9%)

4. The stats
Get Your Creative Hell Poster — Totally Free
ZoomInfo USAdata
 Sends: 470  Sends: 14,399
 Opens: 105 (22.3%)  Opens: 1,137 (12.66%)
 Clicks: 13 (2.8%)  Clicks: 84 (.5%)

5. The stats, extrapolated
Get Your Creative Hell Poster — Totally Free
ZoomInfo USAdata
 Cost: .60 per name  Cost: .1389 per name
 Sends: 14,400  Sends: 14,399
 Opens: 3,217  Opens: 1,137
 Clicks: 398  Clicks: 84
 Cost per click: $7.80  Cost per click: $11.66

6. Summary
 Using the word free in the subject line has a
negligible effect.
 A ZoomInfo data purchase costs about 4.5 times
more than USAdata rentals
 In extrapolated clicks, ZoomInfo outperformed
USAdata by a 4:1 margin
 Factor in data ownership and the ability to send
to the list unlimited times, and ZoomInfo clearly
presents the better value