In fact, fifty-six percent of consumers consider marketing messages from known senders to be spam if the message is "just not interesting to me" and 50% consider "too frequent e-mails from companies I know" to be spam, according to a new study by Q Interactive conducted in conjunction with marketing research firm MarketingSherpa.

The study, called Spam Complainers Survey, investigated consumer perceptions of what they consider to be spam, why they report e-mails as spam and what they think happens when the "report spam" button is clicked.

According to the report, 31% of respondents said that they consider "e-mails that were once useful but aren't relevant anymore,” to be spam.

Interestingly, respondents said that they hit the “report spam” button for various reasons. Forty-one percent report spam if "the e-mail was not of interest to me,” 25% if "I receive too much e-mail from the sender" and 20% if "I receive too much e-mail from all senders.”

But consumers do not always understand the meaning of hitting this button. More than half of respondents — 56% — think that clicking the button will "filter all e-mail from that sender" while 21% believe it will notify the sender that the recipient did not find that specific e-mail useful so the sender will "do a better job of mailing me" in the future.

Surprisingly, 47% of respondents believe by hitting the “report spam” button, they will be unsubscribed from the list.

The survey also found that 43% of respondents do not use unsubscribe links in e-mail and simply use the ISP's "report spam" button to unsubscribe from an advertiser's list.

To address this miscommunication among consumers, Q Interactive is calling on the industry to better educate consumers and for ISPs to better process this data. From my perspective, you need to make sure that your lists are up-to-date and remain relevant to your readers. In my next post, I'll provide you with helpful email marketing tips that ensure your communications stay off of the SPAM list.