Mailers work very well...if not slightly better than traffic exchanges.
It's wise to use both in conjunction with the rest of your marketing, though.
But while safelist mailers work not all are created equal - so how would one know this?
We ought to track our use of mailers so that we know which ones are "hot"
for a particular week (or month for that matter). I always track my safelist
activity over the course of time. This way I can get a good click through rate
average. Then afterwards I focus more on the ones that are giving me
acceptable CTRs, and ease up on the ones that are not.
Tracking is vital for all forms of advertising...
Safelists should be no different.
The NUMBER ONE REASON why I like to use safelist mailers is the
ability for the reader to come back to the email I sent. Not quite the
long term residual traffic like a blog or video, but there is some residual
effect to it.
It's a great feeling knowing you sent out a safelist email ad on the 2nd
of a month and someone reads the ad a week or two later.