The Obama campaign's rigorous scientific analysis of what happens when it spams your inbox for a couple years straight has revealed some troubling conclusions. First, guilt works. Second, people love swearing. Third, there are no negative consequences for flooding inboxes. Bloomberg Businessweek's Joshua Green reports that President Obama raised $690 million online, and most of that came from the campaign's famously incessant emails. The campaign analyzed which subject lines were most likely to get people to donate, and the top three were guilt-trippers. 

• No. 1: "I will be outspent" brought in $2,540,866. 
• No. 2: "Some scary numbers" got $1,941,379 in donations.
• No. 3: "If you believe in what we're doing…" pulled in $911,806.

Another revelation? People love cussing. "Hell yeah, I like Obamacare" performed well.

Though the emails were made to sound casual and familiar, they were the product of lots of time and resources. The spam team had 20 writers, and volume paid off. "Most people have a nearly limitless capacity for e-mail and won’t unsubscribe no matter how many they’re sent," Green reports. There were no negative consequences for massive spamming.

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Elspeth Reeve