Darren Olander

So, Amazon announced Amazon Payments today, a new competitor to PayPal. (https://payments.amazon.com) This is huge news, so my questions for you... Will you use this as a customer, or would you still always prefer PayPal? If you own a site, do you plan to integrate this anytime soon as a payment option?

Adfly is definitely annoying, it is probably one of the largest problems when it comes to framebreakers.

Yea, I noticed that today, suspended means it is something with his host - so as soon/if he gets that sorted it will be back.

Great point Jerry. I'm not a fan of solos personally - which is why I don't sell them at my sites - I mean if you want to reach the whole membership just have enough credits or upgrade.. BUT if you are to sell solos I feel the credits people earn for reading them should be the same as regular credit mails (unless you send like only one or two solos per day, then it's probably ok) so users won't feel a need to completely ignore regular credit mails. For example, I've seen sites where I received dozens of solo ads per day and they offered 10 times the credits as the regular credit mails - so in that case why would I ever read the regular credit mails when I can just read all the solos and earn way more credits?

I'd have to agree that standard emails are pretty useless now. I think some sites have them or keep them because either they've had them forever already, or it just comes with the script so it is a feature they've kept. Telling such owners that you only want credit mails may get them to change up how they are running their site.

Thanks for the update. Jerry is a very good owner

It seems to be the same owner as Twice Confirmed Traffic, which means it is a scam. I've heard many people say it does not work.

Great, thanks for sharing.

What bad conditions are you referring to?

I see no problem with letting members turn mails off (not receive) if they choose, otherwise you are sending to members who never open or read the mail anyway, they just let it go to their mailbox and then delete all without opening them. In the case of spending credits, that would be a total waste of credits to send to people who will not read the message anyway. The problem with herculist is they have never cleaned up their list, so you are sending to tens of thousands of users who have probably not opened any mail for years, this makes it look good before you mail to it, and then you realize it once you receive few clicks from that amount of members. The other problem is their lack of cheat protection.. I suspect their site is abused heavily by cheaters, and obviously bots have no intention of joining what you are promoting and only hurt your results further. With these combined factors, the value of actually clicking for mails there is very low.. so they likely have trouble keeping users active.

I can speak for my sites that you do NOT have to even receive mail if you don't want it, and you can still send mail. As long as you upgrade you can send mails without having to earn any credits. You are not required to read anything. Most other safelists do not require you to read either, but will make you receive mails somewhere, and a few make you read before you can send.

It only helps a little, but make sure to click "Leave this page" and not "stay on this page". The purpose of those exit prompts is to try to keep you on the page, and in that case they just keep hitting you with additional exit prompts.

As I said, I own safelists now, but I was full time online (quit my day job) before I ever owned one myself. I have safelists and other free traffic sources to thank for that, because that is where I was advertising. LFMVM is probably the best software, but I don't use it because my sites are custom built. If I had to go with one that is what I would choose to run a safelist. My list of favorite safelists is on my blog. Usually it is a combination of popularity (alexa rank), active members, and how many clicks I receive on my mailings there. I have a question for you, when you tested safelists where you testing Credit Based safelists (those that require either credits or an upgrade to send) or the old-school ones that don't require credits?

I own my own safelists now, but I didn't always used to.. so I'll tell you what happened that made me want to own my own safelists :-) I promoted a training program, and in fact made a full time income doing so. To do this day I still promote a training program, my Prosperity Marketing System using safelists and it does extremely well. Not only did advertising on safelists make me money, but it outperformed EVERYTHING else I've tried in over 12 years of marketing online. Safelists have had the best ROI period. I've also learned over the years that many people call out certain advertising methods as useless, but then I look at other people and they are using it successfully.. how does one explain this? It means it works, just the person not being successful hasn't learned how to use it effectively. Just using any source won't magically make you money, more important is your STRATEGY. I use dozens of safelists, and guess what, they do scale! How? I'm upgraded in ALL of them! Being a happy customer in many safelists made me want to own my own because they created success for me, and believe me, I wouldn't stay upgraded in them if they weren't making me more money - and I would guess my customers feel the same way about my sites and is why I put as much effort as I can to make sure they deliver results. Safelist marketing is simply email marketing.. you do list build right? Well these are lists, and they react and pay for things they like. The difference here is.. you can get your message in front of thousands of people for dirt cheap - so the ROI is crazy good. You aren't buying a one time send, you're buying perhaps a year of mailings over and over again to a list that is growing as well.

Hmm.. I'd say a lot of terms have changed meanings over the years and a co-op is one of them. I would agree with you that the traditional meaning is everyone is purchasing a share into an overall advertising campaign. Also you made a good point, these traditional Co-ops are done in bulk which means the advertising is usually obtained at a cheaper price which benefits everyone in the co-op. As for these credit based co-ops I don't think there is any price benefit except being able to earn the traffic for free? I think they are a brilliant idea though, and I have no problem with them, but if co-op is not the right word for them, what is?

Welcome! The forum itself is no place for advertising, but there are a few things you can do... When you post you can have a forum signature which is automatically attached, and have a banner or ad in there, you can set that up under "My Settings" and signature. As you post and contribute, you are earning points. These points can be used to send an email ad under the mail section on the top menu. If you read mails from other members who have posted email ads, you can earn even more points.

I think there are very few who use standard mails anymore, but I would agree, it would not encourage me to use their site.

I agree with Don, for the ability to always follow-up .. it is important to be building your own list.

Many list sizes are inflated. For example, if a site claims 100k list you can mail to, I would bet that 90% of that list is inactive and will never even look at the email. I can speak for myself that my sites are constantly scrubbed, so you ONLY send to a list that has a RECENT history of reading and clicking on mails. Anyone who is not reading we stop sending them mails, so as an advertiser you get the most value. Some other lists clean up their member sizes as well so you aren't sending to "dead" prospects, but there are quite a few that will claim the higher numbers just to look good and as a result you will receive a very low CTR because those people just aren't reading the email.

Sorry to hear of what happened to you. Unfortunately even when scammers like that are caught, there are always more of them.. the best way to defeat them is to stay educated and careful on such things and try to let others know. Thanks for sharing.

How many of those mailers are any good now though? The ones without some cheat protection are worthless to even use.

State of the art mailer has just released a new section on their site for CFC ads (Click for Cash), basically anyone sending out to their viral list - the highest button escalation or upgrade get included in the CFC section for free. Members can earn 0.001 for each email they click on, if they are clicking for cash they are not earning any mailing credits and vice versa. What do you think, is this good or bad?

Well some type of anti-cheat protection is important I believe, otherwise you can have a site full of bots that just earn credits on their own. However, you do make a point... how often should that verification be needed? Maybe every email is unnecessary.

Yes.

Of course! This forum is about voicing opinions One thing I don't like? Sites that force upgraded members to read mail each day before they are allowed to send their ad.