Email list rental has many of the same attributes as lead generation. For one, most lists are built by using these same paths. However, your offer doesn’t get served up immediately, and most of the "good" lists that I know of are still CPM-based.

The trade-off is segmentation. Generally an email list carries much more data than any other type of online media. This means that you can be reasonably sure your message is getting to the right audience. It also makes a lot of sense to "build email with email." The fact that they are willing to be on one email list is quite a valuable thing to know about them isn’t it?

For help in selecting an email list vendor, read the "Email Marketing Cheat Sheet".