State of the Art Mailer and CFC ads

[Darren Olander]

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?

[Matt Koshko]

My one concern is (assuming correct) placing a specific value on clicking an email. Are all emails valued the same in this case? I haven't looked at it myself (yet) but as long as there is a way to decipher clicks you get (to your email ad) between members on CFC vs Credits, it would help distinguish to the advertiser of the particular action - this is important because I'd value CFC actions as less, as an advertiser.

[Sean Supplee]

eehhh to me bad, all its doing is inflating clicks and honestly he should just remove the dead beat accounts i'm sure at 25k almost 30k now its time to delete some inactive accounts to get CTR's back up. The amount of emails you have to click to earn enough credits or cash you have to pay to email every one at least to me is getting a bit out of hand.

All I see the paid email section doing is increasing CTR but for the wrong reasons. 

[Paul Coonan]

15 months later I shall give an update and clear up a couple of assumptions here. In fact, the CFC ads have been quite a success being that Brad and I have been able to attract an additional audience that the vast majority have not been able to attract. From people who have actually been participating, we quite honestly have not had one singe complaint.

To assume that SOTAM does not clean up it's member's is exactly that, an assumption. SOTAM is regularly scrubbed several times per day. SOTAM would not be around, as successful as it is for 5+ years, by artificially inflating the number of members. I am offended that anyone would assume that, apparently based upon the actual number of members. Mailer sites get criticized for not showing the member count and others get demonized for showing too many members? As a programmer, yes I understand the assumption and I am totally offended because I wrote the programming to keep the mailings clean at SOTAM, and Brad and I have far more integrity than to play such deceptive games. SOTAM does not need to do that. In fact, the algorithms and systems in place at SOTAM, I would wager are the most complex systems put in place compared to the vast majority of any mailer sites out there. Whom emails are being sent to from SOTAM are far from random. The click rates publicly displayed are the average of clicks received within 10 days. Pure randomness could not display such numbers.

http://state-of-the-art-mailer.com/compare.php

"Value" is relative. Brad and I, at SOTAM, have delved into another niche of potential prospects. Everyone always wants someone from another niche that nobody else is getting into their site. A member who sends to the Viralist Level at SOTAM is rewarded with a BONUS CFC, Click For Cash, ad. There is nothing to hide. If a member is using a tracking link for their ad, that member can clearly see how many people came through CFC ads. That link will show as being from

http://state-of-the-art-mailer.com/members/gridviewx.php


Now, clicks given through Cash For Clicks ads are given to members who send their email to the Viralist level, currently 30,000 members.

Anyone who send to 30,000 members, at this time, gets extra bonus traffic, absolutely free. So now comes the question of, 'Value.'

If you have been paying for a service and all of a sudden the site admin/owner decides he is going to give you something more, something extra and at no extra cost, does that devalue your original purchase?

SOTAM members who send to the Viralist level get free bonus traffic from an additional audience that the majority of mailing sites do not offer.

So the question is this... "Does the extra bonus traffic that is given at no cost from another audience that most sites do not offer equate to no or less value?

Something else to keep in mind in this ADDED VALUE is the fact that clicks from members clicking the CFC ads are 100% unique. What does that mean? On a typical paid-to click site, if you purchase an ad, your ad is available to be clicked every 24 hours, which means that your ad can be viewed, and it costs you money, every 24 hours by the same people. Not at SOTAM. Once a member sees your site though a CFC ad, they will not see your ad again, not even when clicking for credits. And it didn't cost you any extra money because SOTAM paid for that visit out of SOTAM's pocket, not yours!

At SOTAM, we make sure you ad gets seen by as many unique people as possible, not seen be a handful of people several times.

So since a member does NOT pay extra to have their ad seen by an expanded audience, does that devalue or give extra value to their sent email?

If a SOTAM member sends out an email and that email happens to be at the Viralist level (30,000), is their email now devalued because SOTAM decided to give something extra, something that cost absolute nothing and is over and above what they expected?

SOTAM members can send to whatever button level they want. If they happen to send to the Viralist Level (30,000) then they get something extra, a CFC ad, at absolutely no additional cost.

 

[Joel]

Paul, that's an excellent post.  I've been using SOTAM for a few months now, and it's good to get some clarification of things straight from the source.

 

As much as I like SOTAM, and now have an even better understanding/respect for what you're doing, I still have to agree with the part of Sean's post above regarding the amount of emails one has to click through to earn enough credits. I have no idea how list owners determine the number of credits per email, but I find that SOTAM is amongst the lowest.  With the number of safelists and TE's I must surf each day, I tend to use those with the higher credits, and am starting to weed out the lower ones.  And I can't afford to upgrade or purchase credits and such at this time.  Rock <=me=> Hard Place.

[Paul Coonan]

I can't speak for other mailer owners but I can say this. Unfortunately there is a such thing as too many credits, just as there is a such thing as too little. Finding that right balance of how many credits to give out has multiple affects. Giving more credits out eventually reduces click rates and increases the number of daily emails each member receives. Getting too many emails is the number 1 reason given by people who delete their accounts. I am a member of many mailers and I have deleted accounts with sites that have less than 1000 members because I was getting 150 to 200 emails per day from those sites. Imagine how many emails I would get per day if those sites had 10 times as many members? A site like that cannot grow in membership if it has a problem with too many members abandoning ship.

SOTAM gives 10 to 15 credits per email to free members when I see many other sites that require payment to get at least 10 credits. There are many balancing acts required as a mailer owner. There is no exact science, just trial and error. Too much of one thing, not enough of another, tipping the scales in either direction can cause a mailer to fail, especially giving too many credits away which is a trend that has been seen over and over as more 'viral mailers' come online. We all see sites come and go, some disappear faster than others. There is a reason that SOTAM has been open for 5+ years now, we don't give away the farm!
 
Most of these 'viral mailers' have lifetime memberships. I have bought a few when the price was ridiculously low. Then I spent a week or two at each of these sites and gained enough credits to mail for at least 1 year without ever having to read an email again. How many members do that? What happens when enough members get credit-rich, are already at the highest level for life and never have to click another email again? As time goes by, click rates get lower and lower at these places that have ridiculous lifetime memberships because more and more people don't have to click an email.

I believe that most people who open a new mailer have the highest expectations of their site doing well and facing the test of time. I believe many new site owners believe that by giving away more, their site will attract more members. This scenario is known as the 'race to the bottom' where all competitors are trying to give away more than the other guys. Classifed ad sites used to be very popular and profitable over a decage ago, until Craigslist was created and now no more classified ad sites because Craigslist gives it all away for free. Little do those owners realize that what they are doing is actually the exact opposite of what they wish, slowly killing their sites.

I'm not here to say anyone should use one site over another. I'm just sharing my experience. One should always use what is working for them. One thing SOTAM will never do is get into the race to the bottom. SOTAM will always be here.
 
 

[Joel]

Thanks again for such detailed info. I'm currently weighing my current memberships in many lists against time-cost and other criteria, to get the most out of them.  There are a few low-credit lists I'm staying with, because they do offer value in other areas besides simple credit mail. Of course SOTAM is packed with value as well.

[calgary]

Yes, i have been using SOTAM for a while...I also noticed you need to click on quite a few ads to get to the magic number of Credits...for me that magic number is 3000..Iwish thet would increase the credit value for each email or reduce the requirements..