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Add You - The Marketing of Affiliate Success: eBay - Ezine Advertising Coops
"The single biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place." - George Bernard ShawIn business (family and other), it is not uncommon for a communication gap to go on for a very long time without being addressed. People are often reluctant to face a communication problem head-on, and often may not even be aware that poor communications are the hidden root cause of some other business problem. If we are out of sync with our business partners or colleagues, and we choose not to discuss our differences, the business can, and usually will, suffer.When complacency sets in or when we try to ignore a problem, hoping it will go away on its own, no matter how well we try to camouflage the issue and keep things looking "normal" on the surface, we stop maximizing our potential, and the potential of the business.If the ongoing challenge of business is to figure out how to compete in a constantly changing landscape, the solution requires a commitment to a continuous dialogue between the key parties to determine how to leverage strengths and maximize opportunities - and to cope with individual communication styles.Successful organizations are willing to ask tough questions (and to hear tough answers) and foster collaboration to determine optimal solutions. No matter how smart and independent we are, it is pretty much impossible to succeed over a sustained timeframe by ourselves. The art of strategically combining resources, skills and thinking enables us to stand out in a competitive marketplace.Planning for effective successionCo
Worse though was the quality of many of the ezines. The only original authorship in some of these ezines was the editorial and by the time I made it two or three sentences into that it became obvious why! If you believe we live in the age of universal literacy you are wrong. It wasn’t all bad though. Several of the newsletters actually provided some decent content but more often than not content came in the form of articles culled from the article sites. I don’t have a problem with article sites but I expect a newsletter to provide significant original value.
Lessons Learned
I did learn some things though. I know that a HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) is a really cool way to turn $10 into $20. I found that I really needed an e-gold account if I wanted to achieve financial freedom. I learned that the government *doesn’t* want me to know about the secret banking system, that my money was not at risk even though they didn't have FDIC insurance, and that I could truly take part in a risk-free investment that would double my money and pay me interest every single hour of the day. I learned that people apparently fall for this crap.
I learned that I could buy "make money at home" leads by the thousands, import them into my autoresponder, and then SPAM these leads. Apparently it's okay though because the nice folks on the list I have purchased
For some people, a cover letter is something that though is truly worth doing, is actually quite stressful and even daunting.Usually, a cover letter is something one would attach to a resume. A cover letter could make or break your opportunity to score an interview. It makes sense therefore to devote serious effort and time in writing a cover letter that is good and effective.Basically, cover letters should always complement but never duplicate a resume. The purpose of cover letters is interpret the resume – which is usually factual and focused solely on data – and give it a very personal and soft touch.Cover letters are basically an employer’s first impression of you.Cover letter typesThere are basically three types of cover letters. The application letter is a type of cover letter which is made in order to respond to a particular job opening.Another type of cover letter is a prospecting letter. The purpose of this cover letter is to inquire on possible job positions available.A networking cover letter meanwhile has the purpose of requesting assistance and information in one’s search for a job.Cover letter designThe cover letter must be created and designed particularly for your specific purpose. It is not advisable to design and write a uniform cover letter and sending it out to all your preferred employers. This is how junk mail works, remember?A cover letter to be effective needs to explain your specific reasons for getting interested in a particular job and an organization.It is also best that you i
What does it take to successfully market a software product using only the Internet? This is the question I was faced with in January 2005. I had just completed development of my first software product and I was ready to conquer the world. I quickly realized that developing my software was just the first step.
As I began researching various marketing avenues I made the decision to share my marketing trials and tribulations with the world. This decision was driven in no small part by a discussion I had with a certain super-affiliate. There are tons of books about emarketing and some even provide real-world examples but wouldn't it be fun to actually come along for the ride? To learn as I learn? To see the real deal, blemishes and all? And so, this series was born.
Each installment is this series will be posted on my website as well as on several of the more popular article directories, and will also be available via newsletter subscription. Each installment will focus on a specific marketing channel or approach. A few examples: marketing using ezine ad coops, marketing using Adwords, joint ventures, forum marketing, and website advertising, and niche newsletter advertising.
The Marketing of Affiliate Success: eBay - ezine Advertising Coops
This first installment of this series is concerned with ezine advertising coops. At some point while searching for advertising opportunities I ran across a website that offered advertising within an ezine ad coop. The focus of the ad coop was home business related – a perfect fit for my product. My original plan was to do some focused ezine advertising but when I discovered I could have my ad placed in dozens of ezines I figured this would be a great deal. I must admit I was slightly suspicious when I noticed that they required me to subscribe to each newsletter but after another hour of research it was clear that all ezine ad coops had this requirement. Well, I thought, it does make sense that I should be a subscriber since then I will be able to verify that they actually run my ad.
The Concept Behind the Ezine Advertising Coop
The general idea behind an ezine advertising cooperative depends on your perspective. For ezine publishers, membership in an advertising cooperative is a great way to build their newsletter membership. Remember, in order to run the ad I had to become a subscriber to a bunch of ezines. The more subscribers a newsletter has, the larger the potential financial return on marketing activity and these guys are all about marketing.
From the advertiser's perspective, the value proposition is that for a minimal cost the advertiser can get his message in front of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Ideally, the coop will be focused on a niche that the advertiser's product fits into but this doesn't always have to be the case. Bottom line - the cost per pair of eyeballs appears to be very, very low.
My Campaign Begins
The sum required was minor - around $30. Not a big deal considering my ad would run in dozens of ezines with a total combined readership of well over one million people. So, although I was suspicious of the subscribing requirement, I figured I couldn't lose on the deal. Look, I thought, if only one person purchases my software I have paid for the ad and put $70 in the bank (before taxes.) It seemed to be a very favorable value proposition.
So, in a great flurry of activity I created an ad, revised it, threw it out, and created another! I worked feverishly to perfect my ad. Night became day, day became night and finally, I was done. Here is what I ran -
----------------> AD BEGINS
I Made $29,000 Last Year On Just One Of My Websites. So Can You! I will show you how you can make thousands of dollars on your website using my software and one of the leading affiliate programs on the net today. One guy calls my software "Adsense on Steroids!" without the Adsense! No website? Build a 27,000 page website instantly. http://www.shrubsoft.com/ase-ez1.php
----------------> AD ENDS
I will grant that it's a little cheesy but those $$ titles really pull clicks. My thinking was that since the ad cost was limited to my initial outlay, I could afford to pull all potential traffic - even unqualified traffic. My reasoning behind such a generic ad approach was that I felt it would be very challenging to pull any traffic if my ad referenced eBay Web Services and PHP. These words and concepts are alien to many people. I planned to use my sales letter to convert people with little technical sophistication. My approach and my ad copy was different when I entered the world of pay-per-click but that is the topic of another installment.
Next, I went to the website that offered the ezine ad coop service, filled out the form, and PayPal transferred the cash to the owner of the coop. I quickly received a response from my new ad agency and it had some very interesting information contained within it. I had to subscribe myself to over a dozen of the ezines. But it wasn't simple. Yahoo Groups hosted one ezine, several required I send emails to listserv machines, and in several cases I had to go to websites and fill out a form.
Ezine Ad Coop Campaigns Are Hard Work
One hour later I was regretting my decision to forego the slightly more expensive option of advertising without the need to become a subscriber to all those newsletters, but that was only the beginning of my regrets. I next had to confirm my subscription to various newsletters - double opt-in and all that. One of the ezines actually had me wade through 15 pages of surveys and "would you be interested in this offer" pages before finally confirming my subscription. I then found that the ezine had been dormant for seven months!
Finally, after confirming that I was successfully subscribed to all the ezines, I sat back and let out a sigh of relief. In the coming days about half of the ezine owners sent me notes informing me when my ad would run. The ad runs were spread across the next six weeks.
Am I The Advertiser?
With the ezine ad coop business behind me, I returned to my marketing research with the revised thought that if only two sales resulted from the goat rodeo I had experienced I would be satisfied. Within a few days the newsletters started arriving, and not just newsletters but plenty of highly valued and very important solo ads that were filled with text like this:
F.ree mo.ney for you. No effort required. Easiest MLM pro.gram ever!
They have to insert those periods or the SPAM filters will flag the messages every time. Why? Because the message is SPAM! Okay, I understand that SPAM filters are sensitive and sometimes you need to insert a period or two to lower the SPAM Assassin score of your broadcast message but these solo ads had a punctuation density so high that the messages approach being unreadable; I began to think I was reading Morse code.
For the uninitiated, a solo ad is an advertisement that is sent in a single email without other newsletter content to subscribers of a newsletter. Generally this would be considered SPAM but the subscriber agreement you accept for these types of ezines contain language stating that you agree to receive such communications. I like to call it opt-in SPAM.
It continued like that for six long weeks. They were easily six of the most painful weeks I have ever lived. It was interesting to note that many of the ezines were not delivered via email. The list owner would instead simply send a broadcast message informing me that the newsletter could be viewed on their website. Interesting thing though, the solo ads were delivered directly into *my* mailbox.
eZine Advertising Coop Campaign Results
The result of my ezine advertising campaign was 89 referrals from various newsletters in the cooperative to my ezine destination URL. I know because I created a specific URL with redirection code so I could track the click-through performance of the campaign. While I have no way of tracking each individual source since some newsletters were delivered via email, I did know the aggregate results and 89 click-throughs was not the level of success I had expected. More importantly, 89 click-throughs and zero sales.
The campaign was an unmitigated disaster. Of course the deck was stacked against me from the start. I quickly noticed that 95% of the ezine publishers had dozens of ads in each newsletter issue. There was generally a top, middle, and bottom sponsor ad and these ads were generally demarcated very well and they probably received decent response too but they were for "their" advertisers. I generally found my ad near the bottom of their newsletters in a special section for the ad coop. In many cases, the newsletter belonged to multiple ad coops so there might be 40 ads and five coop sections in each issue! The slickest trick I found was the publisher that actually had a special edition of his newsletter filled with ads. Yes, filled with ads. Sure he also threw in a syndicated article that he grabbed from one of the article sites but it was rather clear that his normal readers ignored the "special edition" of his newsletter each week. I know I would. If Adsense has taught us anything it’s that ads are most effective when they are integrated into the text on a page. These guys segregate ads so their subscribers don't need to bother ignoring them within the main body of their newsletters.
Worse though was the quality of many of the ezines. The only original authorship in some of these ezines was the editorial and by the time I made it two or three sentences into that it became obvious why! If you believe we live in the age of universal literacy you are wrong. It wasn’t all bad though. Several of the newsletters actually provided some decent content but more often than not content came in the form of articles culled from the article sites. I don’t have a problem with article sites but I expect a newsletter to provide significant original value.
Lessons Learned
I did learn some things though. I know that a HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) is a really cool way to turn $10 into $20. I found that I really needed an e-gold account if I wanted to achieve financial freedom. I learned that the government *doesn’t* want me to know about the secret banking system, that my money was not at risk even though they didn't have FDIC insurance, and that I could truly take part in a risk-free investment that would double my money and pay me interest every single hour of the day. I learned that people apparently fall for this crap.
I learned that I could buy "make money at home" leads by the thousands, import them into my autoresponder, and then SPAM these leads. Apparently it's okay though because the nice folks on the list I have purchased f
In order to work in an actuarial job, you must need deep analytical skills, as well as an understanding of behavior and control risk programs. Actuarial jobs in the insurance industry include many disciplines and sectors of insurance including: pension, life, property, casualty, liability, health and general insurance. Actuarial jobs for life, health and pension insurance deal with the risk of death, medical services risks and investment risks.Actuarial jobs for general insurance are known as casualty actuaries and deal with non-life risks that occur to property and people. They commonly work with companies specializing in auto insurance, home insurance, commercial insurance, malpractice, product insurance and other types of liability insurance.Insurance is required in nearly every aspect of our lives, and big insurance companies have to calculate the risks associated with each insurance policy in order to properly bill for the service. This risk assessment, done by an actuary, is what helps the insurance companies decide whether the risk of the particular policy is worth it and how much to charge for the policy in order to minimize financial loss of the company.Actuaries specialize in probability and statistics, and use the foundations of mathematics, finance, business and economics to determine risk of events and to create policies that minimize the financial loss of the risk.In the UK, actuarial jobs are common, especially in the Government Actuary’s Department to analyze data and statistics to estimate the likelihood of events and their impact on the cou
From the advertiser's perspective, the value proposition is that for a minimal cost the advertiser can get his message in front of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people. Ideally, the coop will be focused on a niche that the advertiser's product fits into but this doesn't always have to be the case. Bottom line - the cost per pair of eyeballs appears to be very, very low.
My Campaign Begins
The sum required was minor - around $30. Not a big deal considering my ad would run in dozens of ezines with a total combined readership of well over one million people. So, although I was suspicious of the subscribing requirement, I figured I couldn't lose on the deal. Look, I thought, if only one person purchases my software I have paid for the ad and put $70 in the bank (before taxes.) It seemed to be a very favorable value proposition.
So, in a great flurry of activity I created an ad, revised it, threw it out, and created another! I worked feverishly to perfect my ad. Night became day, day became night and finally, I was done. Here is what I ran -
----------------> AD BEGINS
I Made $29,000 Last Year On Just One Of My Websites. So Can You! I will show you how you can make thousands of dollars on your website using my software and one of the leading affiliate programs on the net today. One guy calls my software "Adsense on Steroids!" without the Adsense! No website? Build a 27,000 page website instantly. http://www.shrubsoft.com/ase-ez1.php
----------------> AD ENDS
I will grant that it's a little cheesy but those $$ titles really pull clicks. My thinking was that since the ad cost was limited to my initial outlay, I could afford to pull all potential traffic - even unqualified traffic. My reasoning behind such a generic ad approach was that I felt it would be very challenging to pull any traffic if my ad referenced eBay Web Services and PHP. These words and concepts are alien to many people. I planned to use my sales letter to convert people with little technical sophistication. My approach and my ad copy was different when I entered the world of pay-per-click but that is the topic of another installment.
Next, I went to the website that offered the ezine ad coop service, filled out the form, and PayPal transferred the cash to the owner of the coop. I quickly received a response from my new ad agency and it had some very interesting information contained within it. I had to subscribe myself to over a dozen of the ezines. But it wasn't simple. Yahoo Groups hosted one ezine, several required I send emails to listserv machines, and in several cases I had to go to websites and fill out a form.
Ezine Ad Coop Campaigns Are Hard Work
One hour later I was regretting my decision to forego the slightly more expensive option of advertising without the need to become a subscriber to all those newsletters, but that was only the beginning of my regrets. I next had to confirm my subscription to various newsletters - double opt-in and all that. One of the ezines actually had me wade through 15 pages of surveys and "would you be interested in this offer" pages before finally confirming my subscription. I then found that the ezine had been dormant for seven months!
Finally, after confirming that I was successfully subscribed to all the ezines, I sat back and let out a sigh of relief. In the coming days about half of the ezine owners sent me notes informing me when my ad would run. The ad runs were spread across the next six weeks.
Am I The Advertiser?
With the ezine ad coop business behind me, I returned to my marketing research with the revised thought that if only two sales resulted from the goat rodeo I had experienced I would be satisfied. Within a few days the newsletters started arriving, and not just newsletters but plenty of highly valued and very important solo ads that were filled with text like this:
F.ree mo.ney for you. No effort required. Easiest MLM pro.gram ever!
They have to insert those periods or the SPAM filters will flag the messages every time. Why? Because the message is SPAM! Okay, I understand that SPAM filters are sensitive and sometimes you need to insert a period or two to lower the SPAM Assassin score of your broadcast message but these solo ads had a punctuation density so high that the messages approach being unreadable; I began to think I was reading Morse code.
For the uninitiated, a solo ad is an advertisement that is sent in a single email without other newsletter content to subscribers of a newsletter. Generally this would be considered SPAM but the subscriber agreement you accept for these types of ezines contain language stating that you agree to receive such communications. I like to call it opt-in SPAM.
It continued like that for six long weeks. They were easily six of the most painful weeks I have ever lived. It was interesting to note that many of the ezines were not delivered via email. The list owner would instead simply send a broadcast message informing me that the newsletter could be viewed on their website. Interesting thing though, the solo ads were delivered directly into *my* mailbox.
eZine Advertising Coop Campaign Results
The result of my ezine advertising campaign was 89 referrals from various newsletters in the cooperative to my ezine destination URL. I know because I created a specific URL with redirection code so I could track the click-through performance of the campaign. While I have no way of tracking each individual source since some newsletters were delivered via email, I did know the aggregate results and 89 click-throughs was not the level of success I had expected. More importantly, 89 click-throughs and zero sales.
The campaign was an unmitigated disaster. Of course the deck was stacked against me from the start. I quickly noticed that 95% of the ezine publishers had dozens of ads in each newsletter issue. There was generally a top, middle, and bottom sponsor ad and these ads were generally demarcated very well and they probably received decent response too but they were for "their" advertisers. I generally found my ad near the bottom of their newsletters in a special section for the ad coop. In many cases, the newsletter belonged to multiple ad coops so there might be 40 ads and five coop sections in each issue! The slickest trick I found was the publisher that actually had a special edition of his newsletter filled with ads. Yes, filled with ads. Sure he also threw in a syndicated article that he grabbed from one of the article sites but it was rather clear that his normal readers ignored the "special edition" of his newsletter each week. I know I would. If Adsense has taught us anything it’s that ads are most effective when they are integrated into the text on a page. These guys segregate ads so their subscribers don't need to bother ignoring them within the main body of their newsletters.
Worse though was the quality of many of the ezines. The only original authorship in some of these ezines was the editorial and by the time I made it two or three sentences into that it became obvious why! If you believe we live in the age of universal literacy you are wrong. It wasn’t all bad though. Several of the newsletters actually provided some decent content but more often than not content came in the form of articles culled from the article sites. I don’t have a problem with article sites but I expect a newsletter to provide significant original value.
Lessons Learned
I did learn some things though. I know that a HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) is a really cool way to turn $10 into $20. I found that I really needed an e-gold account if I wanted to achieve financial freedom. I learned that the government *doesn’t* want me to know about the secret banking system, that my money was not at risk even though they didn't have FDIC insurance, and that I could truly take part in a risk-free investment that would double my money and pay me interest every single hour of the day. I learned that people apparently fall for this crap.
I learned that I could buy "make money at home" leads by the thousands, import them into my autoresponder, and then SPAM these leads. Apparently it's okay though because the nice folks on the list I have purchased
Question: Our company installed our new order management system in the last 30 days. While we spent considerable time educating our users and completing the conversion, I’m concerned that we are learning how to manage our business with the new system too slowly. What should our plan of action be?At F Curtis Barry & Company we often see that, even a year after purchasing and installing a comprehensive system, companies use maybe 25% to 35% of its potential functionality. Obviously, you’d hope that you’d get much higher use, since companies spend significant capital to purchase and install a new system. Historically, management doesn’t look at how to increase the use of installed systems.The Solution Your plan of action should be to do a post-implementation audit of all aspects of the conversion and system use. Well after the system implementation, an audit can help increase use of the system. A post-implementation audit will help you confer with the vendor and your people about how to get more out of the system – and make sure users have a complete understanding of the system in areas that have high personnel turnover.A consultant, an auditor, or a management member can perform the audit objectively. (Keep in mind, there may be some sensitive issues if training or conversion didn’t go as planned.) The audit should include all departments using the system, company management, your IT department, and the vendors. The goal is to consider all aspects of the implementation and obtain answers
Next, I went to the website that offered the ezine ad coop service, filled out the form, and PayPal transferred the cash to the owner of the coop. I quickly received a response from my new ad agency and it had some very interesting information contained within it. I had to subscribe myself to over a dozen of the ezines. But it wasn't simple. Yahoo Groups hosted one ezine, several required I send emails to listserv machines, and in several cases I had to go to websites and fill out a form.
Ezine Ad Coop Campaigns Are Hard Work
One hour later I was regretting my decision to forego the slightly more expensive option of advertising without the need to become a subscriber to all those newsletters, but that was only the beginning of my regrets. I next had to confirm my subscription to various newsletters - double opt-in and all that. One of the ezines actually had me wade through 15 pages of surveys and "would you be interested in this offer" pages before finally confirming my subscription. I then found that the ezine had been dormant for seven months!
Finally, after confirming that I was successfully subscribed to all the ezines, I sat back and let out a sigh of relief. In the coming days about half of the ezine owners sent me notes informing me when my ad would run. The ad runs were spread across the next six weeks.
Am I The Advertiser?
With the ezine ad coop business behind me, I returned to my marketing research with the revised thought that if only two sales resulted from the goat rodeo I had experienced I would be satisfied. Within a few days the newsletters started arriving, and not just newsletters but plenty of highly valued and very important solo ads that were filled with text like this:
F.ree mo.ney for you. No effort required. Easiest MLM pro.gram ever!
They have to insert those periods or the SPAM filters will flag the messages every time. Why? Because the message is SPAM! Okay, I understand that SPAM filters are sensitive and sometimes you need to insert a period or two to lower the SPAM Assassin score of your broadcast message but these solo ads had a punctuation density so high that the messages approach being unreadable; I began to think I was reading Morse code.
For the uninitiated, a solo ad is an advertisement that is sent in a single email without other newsletter content to subscribers of a newsletter. Generally this would be considered SPAM but the subscriber agreement you accept for these types of ezines contain language stating that you agree to receive such communications. I like to call it opt-in SPAM.
It continued like that for six long weeks. They were easily six of the most painful weeks I have ever lived. It was interesting to note that many of the ezines were not delivered via email. The list owner would instead simply send a broadcast message informing me that the newsletter could be viewed on their website. Interesting thing though, the solo ads were delivered directly into *my* mailbox.
eZine Advertising Coop Campaign Results
The result of my ezine advertising campaign was 89 referrals from various newsletters in the cooperative to my ezine destination URL. I know because I created a specific URL with redirection code so I could track the click-through performance of the campaign. While I have no way of tracking each individual source since some newsletters were delivered via email, I did know the aggregate results and 89 click-throughs was not the level of success I had expected. More importantly, 89 click-throughs and zero sales.
The campaign was an unmitigated disaster. Of course the deck was stacked against me from the start. I quickly noticed that 95% of the ezine publishers had dozens of ads in each newsletter issue. There was generally a top, middle, and bottom sponsor ad and these ads were generally demarcated very well and they probably received decent response too but they were for "their" advertisers. I generally found my ad near the bottom of their newsletters in a special section for the ad coop. In many cases, the newsletter belonged to multiple ad coops so there might be 40 ads and five coop sections in each issue! The slickest trick I found was the publisher that actually had a special edition of his newsletter filled with ads. Yes, filled with ads. Sure he also threw in a syndicated article that he grabbed from one of the article sites but it was rather clear that his normal readers ignored the "special edition" of his newsletter each week. I know I would. If Adsense has taught us anything it’s that ads are most effective when they are integrated into the text on a page. These guys segregate ads so their subscribers don't need to bother ignoring them within the main body of their newsletters.
Worse though was the quality of many of the ezines. The only original authorship in some of these ezines was the editorial and by the time I made it two or three sentences into that it became obvious why! If you believe we live in the age of universal literacy you are wrong. It wasn’t all bad though. Several of the newsletters actually provided some decent content but more often than not content came in the form of articles culled from the article sites. I don’t have a problem with article sites but I expect a newsletter to provide significant original value.
Lessons Learned
I did learn some things though. I know that a HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) is a really cool way to turn $10 into $20. I found that I really needed an e-gold account if I wanted to achieve financial freedom. I learned that the government *doesn’t* want me to know about the secret banking system, that my money was not at risk even though they didn't have FDIC insurance, and that I could truly take part in a risk-free investment that would double my money and pay me interest every single hour of the day. I learned that people apparently fall for this crap.
I learned that I could buy "make money at home" leads by the thousands, import them into my autoresponder, and then SPAM these leads. Apparently it's okay though because the nice folks on the list I have purchased
When flipping the channels of your TV, you are bound to come across a Public Service Announcement (PSA) endorsed by a celebrity asking children to approach their parents, teachers, or someone they trust when they are at a crossroads. Through these PSAs, children are told that asking for guidance, encouragement, and support is a sign of strength. They don’t have to go through a transition alone—help is just around the corner.As adults, we tend to forget the value of reaching out to others when we are in need of assistance. There is this unwritten rule that we should be able to make decisions without the guidance of others. The reality is, however, that children and adults share a common ground: we are all humans who encounter situations that are challenging from time to time, and it doesn’t make sense to go it alone.Signs You Should Reach Outside Yourself• You find yourself asking the same questions over and over because you can’t find a resolution.• You find yourself in a career transition and aren’t sure which direction you should take.• You need someone who can act as more than just a sounding board, someone who can provide thoughtful and constructive feedback.When reaching out for assistance with your career, you have the following options:• Friend. Friends can be sounding boards, have intimate knowledge of your personal and professional life, and may be able to offer objective and subjective advice.• Career Mentor. Find a mentor within your company who is experienced and willing to guide you in your professional development. Y
They have to insert those periods or the SPAM filters will flag the messages every time. Why? Because the message is SPAM! Okay, I understand that SPAM filters are sensitive and sometimes you need to insert a period or two to lower the SPAM Assassin score of your broadcast message but these solo ads had a punctuation density so high that the messages approach being unreadable; I began to think I was reading Morse code.
For the uninitiated, a solo ad is an advertisement that is sent in a single email without other newsletter content to subscribers of a newsletter. Generally this would be considered SPAM but the subscriber agreement you accept for these types of ezines contain language stating that you agree to receive such communications. I like to call it opt-in SPAM.
It continued like that for six long weeks. They were easily six of the most painful weeks I have ever lived. It was interesting to note that many of the ezines were not delivered via email. The list owner would instead simply send a broadcast message informing me that the newsletter could be viewed on their website. Interesting thing though, the solo ads were delivered directly into *my* mailbox.
eZine Advertising Coop Campaign Results
The result of my ezine advertising campaign was 89 referrals from various newsletters in the cooperative to my ezine destination URL. I know because I created a specific URL with redirection code so I could track the click-through performance of the campaign. While I have no way of tracking each individual source since some newsletters were delivered via email, I did know the aggregate results and 89 click-throughs was not the level of success I had expected. More importantly, 89 click-throughs and zero sales.
The campaign was an unmitigated disaster. Of course the deck was stacked against me from the start. I quickly noticed that 95% of the ezine publishers had dozens of ads in each newsletter issue. There was generally a top, middle, and bottom sponsor ad and these ads were generally demarcated very well and they probably received decent response too but they were for "their" advertisers. I generally found my ad near the bottom of their newsletters in a special section for the ad coop. In many cases, the newsletter belonged to multiple ad coops so there might be 40 ads and five coop sections in each issue! The slickest trick I found was the publisher that actually had a special edition of his newsletter filled with ads. Yes, filled with ads. Sure he also threw in a syndicated article that he grabbed from one of the article sites but it was rather clear that his normal readers ignored the "special edition" of his newsletter each week. I know I would. If Adsense has taught us anything it’s that ads are most effective when they are integrated into the text on a page. These guys segregate ads so their subscribers don't need to bother ignoring them within the main body of their newsletters.
Worse though was the quality of many of the ezines. The only original authorship in some of these ezines was the editorial and by the time I made it two or three sentences into that it became obvious why! If you believe we live in the age of universal literacy you are wrong. It wasn’t all bad though. Several of the newsletters actually provided some decent content but more often than not content came in the form of articles culled from the article sites. I don’t have a problem with article sites but I expect a newsletter to provide significant original value.
Lessons Learned
I did learn some things though. I know that a HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) is a really cool way to turn $10 into $20. I found that I really needed an e-gold account if I wanted to achieve financial freedom. I learned that the government *doesn’t* want me to know about the secret banking system, that my money was not at risk even though they didn't have FDIC insurance, and that I could truly take part in a risk-free investment that would double my money and pay me interest every single hour of the day. I learned that people apparently fall for this crap.
I learned that I could buy "make money at home" leads by the thousands, import them into my autoresponder, and then SPAM these leads. Apparently it's okay though because the nice folks on the list I have purchased
Every company has a strict corporate travel policy and at The Travel Team Inc. we excel in finding the best possible deals within the parameters governing business travel for your executives and employees. Our comprehensive corporate travel services are what first earned us a solid reputation and their quality has only improved with time. The Travel Team’s mission is enabling corporate travel at the lowest possible cost, yet with maximum efficiency and comfort.A corporate travel policy clearly outlines the limit of expenditure a corporation is willing to allow for legitimate business trips undertaken by its management and staff. Companies generally tread the middle ground, not permitting luxury but also not making travelers suffer sub-standard facilities and services for the sake of cutting costs. The twin objective of striking this balance is to control corporate travel expenses while ensuring that the business traveler is comfortable and gets quality service.At The Travel Team we understand the demands of your corporate travel policy, which is why we go the extra mile to get you the lowest possible airfares, cheapest possible and affordable quality accommodation and discounted car rentals. Trained and experienced managers who know you need flexible and economical travel arrangements handle your account when you bring your corporate travel business to us. Our partnerships with WorldTravel Affiliates and Virtuoso also mean that you get access to facilities most other business travelers do not enjoy. Our corporate travel services include:Comprehensive low fare searc
Worse though was the quality of many of the ezines. The only original authorship in some of these ezines was the editorial and by the time I made it two or three sentences into that it became obvious why! If you believe we live in the age of universal literacy you are wrong. It wasn’t all bad though. Several of the newsletters actually provided some decent content but more often than not content came in the form of articles culled from the article sites. I don’t have a problem with article sites but I expect a newsletter to provide significant original value.
Lessons Learned
I did learn some things though. I know that a HYIP (High Yield Investment Program) is a really cool way to turn $10 into $20. I found that I really needed an e-gold account if I wanted to achieve financial freedom. I learned that the government *doesn’t* want me to know about the secret banking system, that my money was not at risk even though they didn't have FDIC insurance, and that I could truly take part in a risk-free investment that would double my money and pay me interest every single hour of the day. I learned that people apparently fall for this crap.
I learned that I could buy "make money at home" leads by the thousands, import them into my autoresponder, and then SPAM these leads. Apparently it's okay though because the nice folks on the list I have purchased filled out a survey and expressed an interest in making money from home. I learned that people just don't understand what double opt-in means.
But most important of all, I learned that ezine ad coops exist for one reason only - to dupe people into joining a bunch of marginal ezines so they can market their crap to you. I discovered that the insult is that much more powerful because I gave them $30 for the privilege of being assaulted day after day with SPAM in the form of solo ads and substandard newsletter content. I suppose if you need to market your new HYIP, sell some red hot “work at home” leads, or push your latest get-rich-quick scheme you will find kindred souls in some of the ezine ad cooperatives operating today but if you need to market a legitimate, quality product you should look elsewhere.
Final Conclusion
If you want to advertise in ezines, locate ezines in your niche, subscribe, and once you are sure that they publish to high standards, toss them a couple of bucks. Ask the publisher what his subscriber count is. Inquire as to click-through rates on previous ads. You also need to insure you know where your ad will be published within the newsletter and when it will be published.
Don't bother with ezine ad coops especially when their home page feels like a trip back to 1999.
Rest assured, most installments in this article series will be informative *and* upbeat. This ezine ad coop episode represents an ugly departure from what is generally proving to be an exciting, profitable, and informative learning experience. And please don’t misunderstand my message. I obviously did not work with *every* ezine ad coop so I can’t with conviction say that they all operate in this way or that they are all comprised of solo ad slinging, no original content newsletters.
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