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Safelists – Pure Madness or NOT

If you’re anything like me, you have been or are still trying to figure out, the best way to reach people on the Internet with your affiliate offers. So, I thought I would clue you in as to what I have learnt from my experiences with safelists, also known as optin lists, so you can avoid making the same mistakes as me!

You’ve probably seen or read other articles on this subject before, but maybe my insight might strike a slightly different chord for you, I’m also going to include a little bit on the safelist submitters too as they’re a major player in the safelist game.

So lets crack on with today’s informative blog post entitled….

Safelists – Pure Madness or NOT

The safelist is a great concept and one that catches everyone’s eye when they first start trying to market online.

And why not? After-all we’re all looking for an inexpensive way to get our affiliate offers in front of our prospects. They were actually OK when they first came about, but what about today?

Well firstly, the lists you join usually ask for two different email addresses. One is called the contact e-mail address, (which is where administration can e-mail you). The second address is known as the list address which is where the mail from other members (and of-course their offers aswell) will be sent to YOU as a list member.

Your contact address is used by the administrator to send you updates along with one other little tactic -which I’m sure you know about if you’ve tried safelists already- contact solo ads. For the most part, the list addresses that people use are set up in one of 2 ways.

The first being a free account, where the list mail is delivered to usually without being read! And in fact, based on my own experiences most people set up filters that direct the incoming list e-mail straight into the trash folder.

In other words, your mail isn’t even opened let alone read!

Wonderful eh!

The other is sometimes known as a “potty” e-mail account that automatically dumps all the mail at set intervals which again means, no eyeballs on your ad. The funny thing is that most of these “potty” accounts are offered by the safelist administrators themselves so what does that tell you?

Even contact address email can and do get dumped. But it’s definitely better than having your message delivered to the members list addresses that’s for sure!

Read on, there’s more……

Safelists – Pure Madness or NOT

The other popular safelist scripts are based on credits. You usually get a few credits for signing up which is to lure you onto the list in the first place. Then you earn credits for reading other list members emails.

Sounds like a winner, right? But hold on one second. Lets take a closer look at this type of list and what is actually taking place.

First off, for the most part you have to read a TON of emails to earn enough credits to send a message. Now, you might just read them at first, but believe me, it WILL get old fast! But hang on a minute, you can purchase extra credits to send more e-mails if you like.

Now personally there’s nothing really wrong with that but, if your messages are simply going to the list addresses, then odds are they’re just getting dumped and NOT opened or read.

But wait! There’s more so don’t stop reading yet……….

Most lists offer free memberships which allows a member to mail the list like every 3, 5 or 7 days depending on the setup. Some of them only allow free members to send to a specific number of members per mailing. Of course the lists even have a few paid upgrade options and depending on which level you choose corresponds to how many credits you’ll receive every month to mail with.

Generally it’s one credit equals one mail sent to one list member. Great idea, but again are your messages doing any good? I don’t think so. Who’s making the money here? You tell me.

However, there are a few credit based lists that offer a unique feature that is worthwhile. It’s the ability to actually use credits for placing a solo ad sent to the members contact address. This means that even as a free member you can use this feature.

Now the good thing about this is that once a person receives the e-mail and opens it, there’s a timer that runs which means for them to earn credits they have to stay on the website until it counts down in order to receive the credits, which means great exposure for YOUR affiliate offers.

The cost in credits for a free member to send one of these is pretty hefty, but I think it’s definitely worth it for what you receive in return for you time. At least it’s a solo ad that
has the best odds of getting opened plus it doesn’t cost anything, other than time!

But here’s the real kicker……

Safelists – Pure Madness or NOT

You can sign up with a submitter and have your ad sent to 100’s or 1000’s of safelists with a few simple clicks of your mouse. This means you can reach all kinds of people, right? But lets take a moment to figure it out. Hundreds or even thousands on each list multiplied by 100’s or 1000’s of lists, equals 100,000 or more. Yes you can, but once again think about where your messages are ending up ( in the trash).

What really irritates me is when a list owner offers a submitter, for a monthly fee. Many of them offer potty e-mail accounts too. Isn’t that a slightly double edged sword?

Because basically, you’re paying for your submitter monthly, to send your messages to supposedly reach 1000’s upon 1000’s of eyes, but they’re actually going into the “potty” accounts that members also pay for monthly, so who’s actually reading any mail?

The answer…….NOBODY IS it’s a catch 22.

Hmmmm…..but is there an answer?

Well, hold on a second now. There is a more up to date and much more effective type of list known as a viral safelist. So what’s so different about this you may be asking?

Good question, and here’s your answer.

With this type of list you can sign up free, or of course purchase an upgraded account. When you sign up members, they go into the system under you and any members these people sign up go under you too. This is YOUR personal list, and here’s where the difference lies.

Instead of just having your members and the members that they sign up under you, once a week they do what is called shuffling of the list. What does that mean? Simply that it randomly shuffles all the list members and even if you did or didn’t have any members join under you yet, you could end up with a sizable downline to mail to that week.

So, are Safelists Pure Madness or NOT?

Well, my advice is to stay away from Safelists as an affiliate marketer, because there are much more effective ways to market your affiliate offers, which DON’T require you to be sitting at your computer for hours and hours.

All the best
-Jon L.