While maintaining email advertising lists and creating a strategy during a down economy, don't overlook co-registration.
Co-registration is an arrangements between companies to collect user information for purposes of email advertising. Usually this would be a separate check-box on a Web signup form where the user can opt-in to receive messages from a third-party.
Such potential partners are hard to come by because it's expensive and time consuming to set up partnerships on an individual basis. Because of this, most organizations work through a third party that makes the arrangements, processes the leads, and sells them.
Whenever money is involved, there will always be unscrupulous people involved. Marketers looking for a quick way to grow their email advertising list combined with suppliers looking to sell as many addresses as possible usually leads to significant problems that people must be aware of. These are the problems that people must defend against if they are going to enter co-registration for their email advertising campaign.
Before contracting with a co-registration provider, find out:
Even if all these things look good, take some more defensive measures.
Try Before You Buy
You must verify that you're getting what you expect. In the most egregious cases, vendors have been known to forge email advertising co-registration addresses. Ensure that the economics don't give incentives to the unscrupulous. To that end, you should pay for addresses only after you've sent to them.
Monitor Your Sources
If a particular vendor or site goes rogue, or even if the site is scammed and starts providing poor quality data, you must be able to identify it quickly and immediately segregate those addresses to prevent damage to your reputation.
Follow the Money
Track ROI for your email advertising co-registration addresses and sources. Keep the ones that work; drop the ones that don't. List size is far less important than the ROI you get from it.
Despite claims to the contrary, email advertising co-registration isn't a quick fix or shortcut for list growth. It requires significant planning and maintenance to keep the program running well. However, if your partners and vendors are well chosen and monitored, it can be a solid way to grow your list beyond what you can achieve through more traditional means.
Co-registration is an arrangements between companies to collect user information for purposes of email advertising. Usually this would be a separate check-box on a Web signup form where the user can opt-in to receive messages from a third-party.
Such potential partners are hard to come by because it's expensive and time consuming to set up partnerships on an individual basis. Because of this, most organizations work through a third party that makes the arrangements, processes the leads, and sells them.
Whenever money is involved, there will always be unscrupulous people involved. Marketers looking for a quick way to grow their email advertising list combined with suppliers looking to sell as many addresses as possible usually leads to significant problems that people must be aware of. These are the problems that people must defend against if they are going to enter co-registration for their email advertising campaign.
Before contracting with a co-registration provider, find out:
- Is this really co-registration or is it just a list purchase or rental? Some vendors have a hard time separating the two concepts. Co-registration is where individuals opted-in to your list on someone else's site. A vendor can't have thousands of addresses for you immediately; if they do, you know that something is wrong.
- How does the sign-up process work? You should try it out with a fake address and see what happens. Can you choose lists individually? Does the vendor honor those choices or do they sell your address elsewhere as well?
- How signups validated? Do they use double opt-in or will they be selling you potentially invalid addresses?
- What other data comes with the addresses?
- Will you receive any other demographic information? Will the data include where and when the subscriber opted in?
- Who else will receive the same addresses? The point of co-registration is that the subscriber signs up for multiple lists. Will you have any control over, or visibility of, which other organizations are receiving the same address?
- What happens in the event of complaints and non-deliveries? Will you be compensated for recipients who complain? What about for non-deliveries?
Even if all these things look good, take some more defensive measures.
Try Before You Buy
You must verify that you're getting what you expect. In the most egregious cases, vendors have been known to forge email advertising co-registration addresses. Ensure that the economics don't give incentives to the unscrupulous. To that end, you should pay for addresses only after you've sent to them.
Monitor Your Sources
If a particular vendor or site goes rogue, or even if the site is scammed and starts providing poor quality data, you must be able to identify it quickly and immediately segregate those addresses to prevent damage to your reputation.
Follow the Money
Track ROI for your email advertising co-registration addresses and sources. Keep the ones that work; drop the ones that don't. List size is far less important than the ROI you get from it.
Despite claims to the contrary, email advertising co-registration isn't a quick fix or shortcut for list growth. It requires significant planning and maintenance to keep the program running well. However, if your partners and vendors are well chosen and monitored, it can be a solid way to grow your list beyond what you can achieve through more traditional means.
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