My experience has been that notifying the moderators gets a VERY prompt response.
So think of that button as your way to personally kill spam.
(There are many other boards that desperately need that feature.)
Agreed. I hit "Notify" on 2 threads yesterday (whoever did that 3-fer of identical posts). Someone beat me to #3.
But, yeah, the mods are on spam accounts "like white on rice." Kudos.