There are more and more home businesses and small companies that are competing for customers. Today the advertising market is much different than it has been in the past because of the number of products that are sold through the internet. Today one of the driving forces behind advertising is getting good address lists. These lists have become very sought after and depending on your needs, very expensive.

The expense comes in if you are purchasing address lists with special criteria attached to them. The address lists can contain e-mail addresses, postal addresses or both. The address lists that contain e-mail addresses that are not with Hot Mail or Yahoo tend to be more expensive. The reason for this is that Hot Mail and Yahoo block so many emails coming into their subscribers. The American lists have also gotten more expensive due to the anti-spam laws. The people on the email address lists have in some way opt-ed onto the lists by purchasing something or placing their address on a form.

Address lists have been around for many years, long before the internet was established. The early lists were used by telemarketers as well as door to door sales men. Years ago the door to door sales men would exchange the names and addresses of customers that they had with other salesman. This way they would have a place to start when going into a different territory. Today the development of the address lists is much more sophisticated. The lists are categorized by the person's interests, spending habits, what websites they have visited, what purchases that have been made and many other criteria. There are times when people know that they are adding their names to address lists. Examples would be requesting additional information from a website or about a product. There are other times when you have no idea that you are placing your personal information on a contact list. The most common way of doing this is asking a person to sign up for a raffle. Whether people are signing up on the internet or at a booth at the local fair, no one thinks twice about placing their name, address telephone number and e-mail address on a raffle or sweepstakes entry. This information is then placed on an address list and sold.

If you are in business and are interested in purchasing address lists go with a reputable company. Ask other's in the business where they go for their lists. Remember if you are being offered hundreds of names and addresses the lists are most likely very general. You also have to be careful with the large lists that you do not get accused of spamming people.