Welcome to March and a whole new month of safelist marketing.  Lots of good stuff to talk about this month so let’s jump right in…

First, the big news last month was all about the rise in popularity of safelist cheat software and the safelists owners efforts to fight it.  Well, I am happy to report that the war is over… and WE WON!  Mostly.  Andrew Baxter, the creator of the most popular software made an appearance at Net Marketing Forum and agreed to stop selling and supporting his software.  You can read the whole thread here.

Andrew also states that the developers of several other safelist cheat programs had sent him very angry emails because he had made his software so public resulting in the safelists adding anti-cheat devices.  I guess that confirms that there are still other cheaters out there but at least the anti-cheat stuff is working.

Also I want to remind everyone that while there are people using bots to click your safelist credit links this doesn’t hurt the effectiveness of safelist advertising.  When you spend your safelist credits your credits are used whether or not someone opens your email.  The bots just allow people to earn credits they don’t deserve.  This could result in more emails in your inbox but that also means more credits for you to earn.

There was a pretty huge launch last month.  List Effects is the new viral list builder from two of the biggest names in the safelist and text ad exchange industry.  To be honest, the site isn’t really pretty.  In fact, it looks a little too much like the inside of a text ad exchange… but it’s the results that matter.  And WOW is List Effects kicking butt.  Check the stats below and you will see why I am so excited about this new program.

A not so new program that I finally joined last month is List Building Maximizer.  I don’t know why I waited so long to join this one.  I guess I figure that newer sites aren’t going to have enough members until they have been around for awhile.  Obviously I was wrong.  Based on the stats below List Building Maximizer is crushing it!  If there are other great safelists like this out there that I am missing out on please let me know.

Ok.  Here are my safelist stats from last month.  These stats come from advertising my video splash page for Safelist Marketing Tactics.

“Clicks” is how many people viewed my splash page.  “Action” is how many people clicked the link on my splash page to go to the main site.  “Sales” is how many people joined my site.  CTA and CTS are “clicks to action” and “clicks to sale”.  I ranked these safelists by sales but it is also important to look at the other numbers to determine how responsive each safelist really is.

Not counting the two new sites it looks like I had a slight drop in my overall results from last month.  That could be a result of me playing around with my subject lines.  I am surprised that List Auction continues to drop.  This could be a result of how few emails they are sending out which means less credits for me to earn for my own ads.  It’s nice to see Got Safelist and Elite Safelist doing really well again.

Obviously the biggest winners this month are List Effects and List Building Maximizer. If you are not a member of these two programs yet you are missing out on some seriously good traffic.

I guess that’s about it for this month.  As usual my stats are a result of my efforts and the pages I am promoting.  Your results may not be the same but you can use my stats as a guide for deciding where you should be promoting this month.  How do I know which safelists work best for me?  I track my results.  If you aren’t tracking you are wasting a big chunk of your time.  You can get a free link tracker from TEToolbox.

It just occurred to me that putting the name of the previous month in the title of these posts make them appear outdated the second I post them.  So from now on I will be using last month’s stats to look forward at all the safelists I will be focusing on in the current month.

And it couldn’t have come at a better time because frankly last month sucked.  Not so much for the safelists but for my own productivity.  You can tell just by looking at how many times I updated my blog last month.  I spent yesterday doing absolutely nothing in preparation for being extra productive today.  Considering this is my second post of the day I guess that good but I had also planned on having this done at least 6 hours ago so maybe not so good.

Safelist news!  Oh boy we had finally had some excitement around here.  Usually not much usually happens in this industry but a few months ago some scum bag named Andrew Baxter thought it was be a good idea to create a software product that allows people to cheat credit based safelists.  Basically this software downloads all your safelist emails and clicks all the credit links for you meaning you never need to actually view the ads of other members.

This is exactly the type of software that nearly killed the safelist industry a few years ago.  If everyone started using this software then nobody would be viewing your ads which would make posting to safelists useless.

I happy to announce that last month many of the larger safelists began fighting back by implementing “cheat protection” in their emails in the form of captcha codes that must be entered before you can earn credits.  This and some other techniques appear to be working so far.  It’s also a great a way to find out who the cheaters are so their accounts can be removed from the safelist.

This change couldn’t have come soon enough.  It’s got to be assumed that there are always going to be a small percentage of people cheating but nobody has ever been stupid enough to do it so publicly.  These new security changes should hopefully make safelists even more responsive while cutting down on the number of emails being sent by the cheaters.

Here is the list I have so far of the safelists that have added some form of cheat protection last month for their members:

AdTactics
Elite Safelist
FreeSafelistMailer
Smart Safelist
Target Safelist

If you know of any others please let me know.

Update: Feb 2, 2010
Supreme List, List Building Maximizer, and Global Safelist have also added cheat protection.  Global Safelist is actually using a number matching test like you would see on a traffic exchange.  That’s awesome!

Oh, and if you one of the people who bought the cheat software from Andrew Baxter feel free to ask him for a refund.  I am sure he will be happy to assist you.  If not, I bet paypal will.

Ok, now the fun part.  Here are my safelist advertising stats from last month.  These stats come from advertising my video splash page for Safelist Marketing Tactics.

“Clicks” is how many people viewed my splash page.  “Action” is how many people clicked the link on my splash page to go to the main site.  “Sales” is how many people joined my site.  CTA and CTS are “clicks to action” and “clicks to sale”.  I ranked these safelists by sales but it is also important to look at the other numbers to determine how responsive each safelist really is.

It seems like I received a drop in sign-ups from the big 3 list builders.  It should be noted that these sites are also sending out far fewer emails than they had been a few months ago.  It’s rare now that I am ever able to earn enough credits to send to the maximum number of members.  That means my ads are reaching less people but at least I don’t have to spend all day clicking for credits any more.

Everything else looks pretty normal though it will be interesting to see if the new cheat protection scripts will have much of an effect when I check my stats again next month.

As usual, these are my own personal stats and depending on what you are advertising your results may vary.  This information is simply intended to be a guide for trying out new safelists that you might not already be a member of.  Also, don’t forget to track your ads to find out which safelists work best for you.  You can get a professional link tracker from TEToolbox.

Just in case you haven’t already heard… Happy New Year!

Is it really 2010?  I was just getting used to the 00’s.

2009 was a great year for me and safelists.  I guess because of the success of my ebook some people have actually started referring to me as “the safelist guy”.  I don’t think I deserve that title yet but I do have some big plans for 2010.

Let’s get to the news..

It appears AdSolutionline upgraded their surf bar.  It now features a cool graphic spinny thing.  Unfortunately my sign-ups there started to go down around the same time.  Not sure if it’s related but I just put in a support email to make sure everything is working ok.

Elite Safelist had some problems last month too.  Seems there was a hard drive crash which took the mailer down for about a week.  Luckily the problem got solved and everything there is running smoothly again.  Unfortunately, the missed week did bring down my numbers down for last month.  Here’s hoping this month puts Elite Safelist back up where it belongs.

Probably the biggest news last month was the launch of Viral Mail Profits.  This thing is really sweet as it manages all your safelist accounts from one location.  I am told they will be adding a mailer to the program very soon and I expect it to really blow up after that.  If you haven’t joined Viral Mail Profits yet, do it now!

Ok, let’s get to the stats:

“Clicks” is how many people viewed my splash page.  “Action” is how many people clicked the link on my splash page to go to the main site.  “Sales” is how many people joined my site.  CTA and CTS are “clicks to action” and “clicks to sale”.

I should probably mention that these stats came from promoting my SMT splash page.  So depending on what you are promoting, your results may vary.

Are you tracking your ads?  Don’t just rely on my numbers.  When you use a link tracker to track your ads you will always know which sites get the best results for you.  To get you own free link tracker… CLICK HERE.

Hello and welcome to my safelist stats.

Are we really one month away from 2010?  I still haven’t figured out what this decade is called.  The Oh’s?  Oh well.

After the dismal results I had last month I decided to make a new splash page for my Safelist Marketing Tactics site.  I went with a “video splash page” because everybody keeps telling me how effective they are.  I wasn’t real crazy about the idea of sitting in front of the camera doing a boring pitch so I decided to something a little different.  Here’s what I came up with:  http://www.safelisttactics.com/splash/index.htm

That’s the general one.  I made some specific pages for each of the safelists I use as well as for a few traffic exchanges.  They seem to be working great so far.

No big industry news to report, so let’s get on with the stats…

“Clicks” is how many people views the splash page.  “Action” is how many people click the link on my splash page to go to the main site.  “Sales” is how many people joined my site.  CTA and CTS are I think “clicks to action” and “clicks to sale” or something like that.

Happy to see a nice jump in my number of sign-ups compared to last month.  The rankings are about the same as usual except Got Safelist seems to be working better again.  Yay!

As usual the viral list builders dominate the list.  Maybe I shoulda wrote a book about them instead.  Or maybe I will?  Hmm…

Speaking of viral list builders… a new site launched today which automates all of your mailings on the top viral list builder sites.  I’ve been playing with it for the last few days and it’s really cool.  It will actually login to all of your accounts, tell you how many credits you have left, tell you when your next mailing is, and let you send an email all with one click.

It’s free to join.  Check it out here: http://trafficzipper.com/index.php?af=457

That’s all for now.  I’ll probably try out a few more viral list builders this month so hopefully I will have some more numbers for you next month.  As always, my stats may be different than yours so make sure you are tracking all of your ads so you can know what works best for YOU.

For those of you who are still not tracking your ads (shame on you) I am going to recommend a new tracker for you this month.  It’s called TE Toolbox.  It was created for the traffic exchange industry but works perfectly fine for safelists, viral list builders, and any other traffic sites you want to use.  It’s free to join and it’s got a ton of killer features beyond just a link tracker.  Click the image below to join.

It’s November 1st and that means it’s time to check my stats to find the best places to advertise.  I decided to change the title this month to focus on safelists because let’s face it, that’s mostly where I am advertising.

As usual, I am advertising my splash pages from Safelist Marketing Tactics.

I’ve been looking forward to checking out last month’s stats for awhile.  Partially because I have been testing out some new safelists and I wanted to see how they stack up against the competition.

I just pulled up my stats a little while ago and I have to say that the results were very poor.  Looks like i’ve had a huge drop in the number of sign-ups i’ve been receiving from safelists all across the board.  I think this means it’s time to get off my butt and start testing out some new splash pages.

I did find a new safelist that is producing better than expected results for me.  Smart Safelist currently has less than 2000 members but is giving me excellent results even as a free member.  They seem to have a good grasp of just giving out just enough credits to keep people coming back and reading their emails every day.  Worth checking out.

Last month I mentioned that I had started seeing a drop in the response from AdTactics since they changed to a 3-day mailer (send 1 email every 3 days) for free members.  I spoke with the owner about it and he said I was the only person who was having a problem with it and that others had seen increased response.  They are trying it out now as a 2-day mailer.  My sign-ups went up last month but only slightly.  We’ll have to see how it works after I get my new splash page up and running.

That’s all the news.  Let’s see who’s on top this month.

ViralAdStore – Hits: 1,811  Clicks: 89  Sign-ups: 20
List Auction – Hits: 1,354  Clicks: 90  Sign-ups: 17
List Joe – Hits: 1,766  Clicks: 111  Sign-ups: 15
Got Safelist? – Hits: 2,942 Clicks: 47  Sign-ups: 7
Elite Safelist – Hits: 1,746  Clicks: 32  Sign-ups: 7

It’s nice to see Elite Safelist back on top again.  Very surprised to see Got Safelist? only got me 7 sign-ups though when I had 17 last month.  That’s with an upgraded membership too.  Not very good.

I guess that’s about it for this month.  Hopefully I will find the time to make some new splash pages after my new website launches on Wednesday.  Oh, did I mention I am launching a new website on Wednesday?  I don’t want to “give away” too much info yet.  You’ll just have to wait and see for yourself.

And don’t forget to track your ads cuz tracking is half the battle.  If you need a link tracker you can get one for free by clicking the link below.

Click Here to Track Your Ads with HitsConnect

Welcome to October!  This month I will be posting my regular stats report from my death bed.  At least that’s how I feel after having caught my first major cold of the season.  If this post seems to stop mid-sentence it’s probably because I passed out and I will finish it later.

Like last month I am mostly going to be focusing on safelists as that is where most of my sign-ups have been coming from lately.  I am still promoting the same splash page for my Safelist Marketing Tactics site though I do have a new splash page in the works that I will be split testing very soon.

Lots of interesting stuff going on in the safelist world right now.  For one, AdTactics has decided to only allow free members to send credit ads once every 3 days instead of once every 24 hours.  As a result i’ve gone from getting 1,300 hits per month down to about 300 with only 1 new sign-up last month.  They say they are just testing this new format and can decide to change it back.  Let’s hope so.

On the flip side AdSolutiOnline has increased the number of credits you can earn from clicking their emails.  It used to be almost impossible to click enough credits to email your ads to the entire membership every 24 hours.  Now it’s not a problem.  Clicks and sign-ups went down slightly but not enough to make a big difference.  AdSolutiOnline didn’t make it into the top 5 but I did manage to get 8 new sign-ups in September.

Let’s see who’s on top for last month…

ViralAdStore – Hits: 2,170  Clicks: 110  Sign-ups: 29
List Joe – Hits: 2,366  Clicks: 175  Sign-ups: 26
Global Safelist – Hits: 2,383  Clicks: 84  Sign-ups: 20
List Auction – Hits: 1,263  Clicks: 83  Sign-ups: 20
Got Safelist? – Hits: 2,550 Clicks: 54  Sign-ups: 17

Not much change there.  ViralAdStore still manages to blow me away every time I check my stats.  I guess I expected it to be on par with List Auction but I never expected to find something that would compete with List Joe.

I’d like to welcome Got Safelist? back to the top safelists for me.  I actually broke down and upgraded to a paid membership at Got Safelist? and what a difference it made!  With a free membership I was getting about 450 hits a month and an average of 4 or 5 sign-ups.  I’d say jumping up to 17 sign-ups in a little less than a month is worth the upgrade.

That’s all for this month.  I’m gonna go curl up on the couch and watch some scary movies (they always make me feel better).  Remember, if you’re not tracking your ads you have no way of knowing where to advertise.  These are just my results.  What works for me might not work as well for you.

If you need a link tracker you can get one for free by clicking the link below.

Click Here to Track Your Ads with HitsConnect

What the?!  Is it really September already?

I guess that means it’s time to dig out the stats and see what happened last month.  Looking at the numbers… apparently not a whole lot.  Commissions were still good but I only personally referred 192 people to my Safelist Marketing Tactics website as opposed to 378 in July.  I suppose it could have something to do with the mythical “summer slowdown” but I suspect it probably had more to do with me spending more time in front of the Playstation instead of on my computer generating traffic.

I think I spent only a few hours total surfing the traffic exchanges last month.  As a result I only received 4 sign-ups from them.  Not even worth mentioning where those sign-ups came from.

Text Ad Exchanges were about the same.  10 sign-ups all together spread out over about a dozen exchanges.  The only one worth mentioning again is Muscle Mail with 4 sign-ups.

It’s not surprising that the majority of my sign-ups last month came from safelists.  Of course it helps that I am promoting a product that directly targets safelist users.  Let’s see how we did.

Safelists

ViralAdStore – Hits: 1,291  Clicks: 89  Sign-ups: 29
List Joe – Hits: 2,752  Clicks: 205  Sign-ups: 19
Global Safelist – Hits: 2,129  Clicks: 76  Sign-ups: 15
List Auction – Hits: 1,045  Clicks: 55  Sign-ups: 10
AdSolutionline – Hits: 1,967 Clicks: 58  Sign-ups: 7

The big news here… ViralAdStore rocks!  I think this is the first month something has outperformed List Joe which is impressive since ViralAdStore didn’t launch until the second week of July.

I decided to purchase an upgraded membership at Global Safelist last month.  I bought a 3-month upgrade and so far it has already paid for itself.  Well worth the 15 bucks.

Ok, that’s all for now.  Hopefully I will be a little more productive this month and get some more updates for you along with a brand new website at the end of the month (knock on wood).

Keep in mind that all the stats above are only from my personal experiences and your results may vary.  The important thing is that you track your own results to find out what works best for you!  If you need a link tracker you can get one for free by clicking the link below.

Click Here to Track Your Ads with HitsConnect

Today this site got a shout-out on Jon Olson’s Hit Exchange News.  So here’s my chance to say hello to all the HEN readers.  “Hey Everybody!”  I guess this also means I need to get my butt into gear and post a new update.

So what’s new?  Well, I have to admit I have been slacking quite a bit lately.  Maybe it’s the summer heat or that I have been staying up all night watching the Big Brother live feeds.  I do have a new project ready to start but as usual starting always seems to be the hardest part.

One thing worth mentioning was the launch of a new viral list builder last week called ViralAdStore.  It was created by the same guys who run List Auction and if you compare the scripts they look pretty similar.

If you have been reading the stats from my monthly advertising updates you will know that List Auction has been one of the best performing advertising sites that I use.  It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that after only a week ViralAdStore is right on track to performing as well if not better than List Auction.

The two sites are pretty similar.  List Auction’s big feature is the ability to buy and sell credits in an open market.  That feature doesn’t exist in ViralAdStore.  Instead, ViralAdStore members have the ability to trade their credits in for other goodies such as ebooks, guaranteed visitors, top sponsor ads, and featured ads that rotate around the website.

ViralAdStore also has a “Jackpot” email that hasn’t been seen in any other viral list builders.  The first member to open the jackpot email wins the prize.  The person who referred that member also wins a matching jackpot prize.  That means the more people you refer the better your chances of winning the jackpot prize from one of your referrals.

Viral list builders are a lot like safelists except there is supposed to be a greater emphasis  on referring.  This usually involves building a downline through a matrix system which allows you to send out more emails.  In reality, it’s a lot harder than it sounds.  I dont think any of my viral list builders have made it passed the 2nd level.

ViralAdStore awards members who refer with special milestone bonuses.  Refer 5 active members and you can contact an additional 100 members each mailing.  Refer 10 active members and you can contact an additional 250 members each mailing.  Refer 20 active members and you can contact an additional 500 members each mailing.  That’s pretty sweet.

The commissions are nice too.  Free members earn 20% commissions and gold members earn 50% commissions on any purchases made by their referrals.  That means as a gold member you can earn up to $98.50 from a single referral.  Don’t think it can’t be done.  The OTOs on the site are converting extremely well for me.

Finally, let’s get to the stats.  I think I have done 3 or 4 mailings so far at ViralAdStore.  I am promoting my splash page for Safelist Marketing Tactics.  Obviously your results may vary but here’s what I have received so far:

Splash Page Hits – 732
Splash Page Clicks – 38
New Sign-ups – 17

Not bad.  In fact so far it is outperforming every other safelist I am using this month even though I think I only started using it a week and a half ago.

Unfortunately I am not real crazy about their banner ads.  I like to end most of my blog posts with a big graphic for a site but the ones for ViralAdStore are kinda small.  So, how about a text link?  If you would like to join the hottest new viral list builder on the planet… Click Here Now!

Wow.  It’s been awhile since I have done one of these.

In case you are new here… I am an Internet marketer and I track my stats.  Every month I like to go back and look to see where all of my traffic is coming from and see which traffic sources are making me the most money.  Once I have that information I can know where to focus my advertising to make more money next month.  Neat, huh?

At the moment I am focusing on promoting my Safelist Marketing Tactics website.  Since I am mostly using free traffic sources I am promoting this splash page.

Just a quick disclaimer… these are my own personal stats.  I make no guarantees that my results will be the same as yours.  There are probably better places to advertise.  These are just a few sources that are working for me.

Ok, ready?

Safelists

List Joe – Hits: 2,939  Clicks: 237  Sign-ups: 49
List Auction – Hits: 1,233  Clicks: 97  Sign-ups: 22
AdSolutionline – Hits: 2,793 Clicks: 100  Sign-ups: 15
Elite Safelist – Hits: 1,608  Clicks: 58  Sign-ups: 10
European Safelist – Hits: 950  Clicks: 34  Sign-ups: 10

No big surprises here.  My site is geared towards safelists so it makes sense that I would get a lot of sign-ups here.  List Joe has always been my top performer and it continues to get me the most sign-ups every month.

The only real surprise here is European Safelist.  I resisted  joining this site for years.  I decided to give it a shot last month.  The site doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it seems to be working better than a lot of more popular safelists.

Traffic Exchanges

Tezak Traffic Power – Hits: 3,083  Clicks: 87  Sign-ups: 23
Traffic Splash - Hits: 1,967  Clicks: 56  Sign-ups: 8
Dragon Surf - Hits: 3,170  Clicks: 48  Sign-ups: 8
I Love Hits – Hits: 4,137  Clicks: 58  Sign-ups: 6

Wow.  Tezak Traffic Power rocks!  This brand new traffic exchange has been breaking all sorts of records.  Definitely a good place to advertise your splash pages and lead capture pages to reach a large audience.

Text Ad Exchanges

Muscle Mail – Hits: 853  Clicks: 36  Sign-ups: 8

I gave up on text ad exchanges for awhile.  There’s just too many of them giving away too much free stuff to make them worth while.  I decided to try and give them another shot last month.  I joined about 20 text ad exchanges with over 1,000 members each.  The results… meh!  I got a few sign-ups but not enough to make it worth working with them every day.

Muscle Mail is the only text ad exchange that has continuously performed for me month after month.  Not sure why.  I guess it has been around longer than most text ad exchanges and targets a slightly different crowd.

That’s it!  I mean I had plenty of other sign-ups from random places but those are the big ones that you can use to promote your own splash pages and lead capture pages.

Make sure you track your results!  That’s the biggest mistake most new marketers make.  Knowing where your traffic and sign-ups are coming from is the easiest way to tailor your marketing campaigns to get the best results for your efforts.

Click Here to Track Your Ads with HitsConnect

What?  Oh yeah, apparently I still have a blog.  Sorry.  I’ve slacked off pretty hard on updates.  I had a good run for awhile but offline responsiblities have been taking up most of my time.  I want to at least keep these monthly stats coming to you but last month I missed recording them and one of the only major flaws with my tracker is the inability to pull stats from specific date ranges.

As usual, these stats are from my own efforts promoting a lead capture page for my ebook “Traffic Success Formula”.  Obviously, your results may not be the same as mine.

So, here we go…

Traffic Exchanges
Mythology Surf – 15
BootScootin’Traffic – 11
Traffic Splash – 8
ts25 – 8
ILoveHits – 5

Ok, I probably spent less than an hour actually surfing traffic exchanges last month so those results are actually much better than I would have expected.  Nice to know I can take some time off and still get residual traffic and sign-ups from the work I did a few months ago.

Safelists
ListJoe – 35
Elite Safelist – 14
Newage Safelist – 13
AdTactics – 8
List Auction – 8
Global Safelist – 8

I may not have had time to surf the traffic exchanges but I did a good job up keeping up with my daily safelist mailings.  ListJoe is at the top of the list as always but I was surprised to see relatively smaller safelists like Elite Safelist and Newage Safelist performing so well.

Text Ad Echanges
Traffic Swarm – 22
Maximum Profits – 7

I have virtually killed off using all of my text ad exchanges.  Traffic Swarm has always been a winner but if you are looking to try one of the many text ad exchanges out there then Maximum Profits is worth a shot giving me 7 verified sign-ups last month.

JV Giveaways
Daddy’s Birthday Giveaway – 46

There haven’t been many giveaway events lately that have been worth joining.  Obviously Daddy’s Birthday Giveaway was a winner but I think the doors are closing on that one tomorrow and so far I don’t have a replacement.  If you grab a free copy of my ebook top of the page I will be sure to send you an update when the next hot new jv giveaway event launches which, in my opinion, is one of the easiest and fastest ways to get sign-ups while doing the least amount of work.

Ok, that about covers it for this month.  I’ll try to post more often when I have the time and content worth sharing.  If you have any comments or suggestions please feel free to post them below.

Click Here to Track Your Ads with HitsConnect

Sorry, I am late again.

I know this is a pretty popular feature on this blog but unfortunately there isn’t a whole lot to report this month.  I spent a good chunk of December traveling and doing light shows around the midwest so I didn’t have as much time to spend promoting as I normally do.  Still, i’ll give you what I got.

The following stats come from promoting my own “Traffic Success Formula” ebook which was created to show people how to take advantage of free advertising programs to promote their business.  These are just some of the places I used for advertising during the month of December 2008.

Traffic Exchanges
As I said, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to surf in December so I didn’t get much TE traffic in December.  I did purchase a few credit packages and had plenty of residual traffic coming from my downlines and from credits I had left over from previous months.  Still, here’s my top traffic exchanges:

1. Dragon Surf – 8
2. Traffic Splash – 6
3. ILoveHits – 3

Not real impressive, is it?  Don’t worry.  As soon as I get caught up with some other things I am working on I plan to spend the rest of the month surfing my butt off.  Hopefully I will have some better number for you at the end of January.  In the mean time, see how the top 20 traffic exchanges are ranked over at Affiliate Funnel.

Safelists
I did mange to keep up with my safelist advertising in December but I decided to switch gears a little bit and promote my top money making program (OBA) instead so that I would have some extra money this month to spend on advertising.  I earned an extra $100 just from safelists but since I was promoting an affiliate site I didn’t track where all the sales were coming from.  Sorry.

If you want to know which safelists I get the best results from check out the links on the side of my blog.

Text Ad Exchanges
Ok, it’s offical.  Text ad exchanges are dead!  Well, maybe not all of them but over the last few months I have seen my conversions in text ad exchanges skyrocket and now plummet back to the earth like a sack of potatoes.  The problem is that there are now so many new text ad exchanges opening up that nobody is bothering to stick around long enough to actually use them.

For example, earlier today I counted over 300 text ad exchanges that are giving away promo codes for new members.  These promo codes can be exchanged for solo ads, banner ads, or text ads on the exchanges.  The problem is who is going to stick around long enough to actually read your ads for credits when there are that many exchanges giving away ads for free?

And the quality of the exchanges have dropped considerably too.  I saw a site offering to sell people their own text ad exchange for less than $10/month.  That means over the next few months you are going to start seeing hundreds of new cookie cutter text ad exchanges running on servers that make my old trs-80 look like a speed demon.

I just finished putting almost all of my text ad exchange accounts on “vacation mode” to stop receiving emails from them.  Still, there are a few that are worth keeping.  Mainly because they continue to produce good results or I know the owners are working hard to build their exchanges.  Here’s what’s left:

Traffic Swarm
Maximum Profits
Traffic Station
AdExchangers
Muscle Mail

If you want to recommend some to me that are worth joining please post a comment and I will test them out.

JV Giveaway Events
JV Giveaways were once again my top source for getting sign-ups in December mainly because they take so little effort to promote.  The “Merry Christmas” giveaway got me 28 new referrals and so far this month’s “New Year” giveaway has gotten me 57 new sign-ups.

Unfortunately JV giveaways events can be a little tricky when determining which ones to join.  If you want to know which giveaways to join your best bet is to sign-up on my email list at the top of the page (check the free ebook) and I will email you when a good event is launching.

That’s all for now.  If you have any comments or want to recommend other sources of advertising please feel free to leave a comment.

Click Here to Track Your Ads with HitsConnect

Sorry I am late.

Been pretty busy in the real world lately but I wanted to make sure I put up my stats from last month which seems to be one of the more popular features on this blog.

I’ve been doing this “list building” thing for the past few months with my own “Traffic Success Formula” ebook. Results have been very good so far but I am constantly tweaking the splash pages and OTOs trying to make them better.

If you would like to make money building your own list online I highly recommend you get a copy of “Internet Marketing Success Formula” which shows you exactly how to build a profitable email list.

Traffic Exchanges
I have been promoting with traffic exchanges for close to 5 years now and they are also the focus of the “Traffic Success Formula” book I am giving away. Unfortunately I didn’t have as much time as usual to work them this month as I normally do. As a result the numbers are a bit lower than normal but here are the top 3 sites that produced the most sign-ups for me last month:

BootScootin’Traffic – 19
Traffic Roundup - 11
SWAT Traffic – 9

A few surprises here. BootScootin’Traffic is a relatively new exchange but consistently manages to bring me new sign-ups every month.

Absent this month is ts25 and Traffic Splash. Both have been top producers for me in the past but I just haven’t had the time to surf them lately. After the holidays are over I will be sure to get back on these exchanges to get my numbers back up where they should be.

Safelists
Remember when safelists used to suck? Not anymore. The new credit based safelists work as well as if not better than traffic exchanges and don’t require as much effort (just a really large inbox).

Here’s are November’s top producing safelists for me:

List Joe – 56
List Auction – 20
Business World List – 12
Adsolution – 12
Elite Safelist – 9
Adtactics – 9

No surprise that the list builders “List Joe” and “List Auction” are at the top of the list again. The big surprise is “Business World List“. BWL is not a credit based safelist. It’s an old-school blast your ad to a few hundred thousand people and hope for the best. I decided to revisit this site on a whim and it is actually producing results. Guess you never know how well a site is going to convert until you actually try it.

Text Ad Exchanges
Wow. The number of text ad exchanges has totally exploded over the last few months. It is getting hard to find any new exchanges that offer something other than the typical cookie cutter site. Fortunately, they still produce sign-ups but it is starting to get tricky trying to figure out which new text ad exchanges are worth joining.

Here’s what has worked best for me last month:

Traffic Swarm – 22
Maximum Profits – 9
Traffic Station – 7
AdExchangers – 5
Muscle Mail – 4

No surprise that Traffic Swarm is at the top of the list again. However I believe Maximum Profits and Traffic Station are new to the list. Not phenomenal numbers but still pretty good.

JV Giveaway Events
JV Giveaways are my most recent obsession when it comes to list building. Why? Because the results are incredible. One event, which is about to close, produced 85 new sign-ups for me last month. 85 sign-ups for sending out 2 emails to my list! Very impressive.

I am a little bit behind trying to pick out what is going to be the next must-join giveaway event. I will surely post something here when I find it. In the meantime you can get a list of all upcoming JV giveaway events by clicking here.

That’s it for this month. As usual these are all my personal results with these advertising sources. Your results my differ from my own. In fact, they probably will differ but hopefully you will find a few more resources here that you haven’t tried yourself.

All stats are provided to me by HitsConnect. If you aren’t tracking your ads, how will you ever know what works? Sign-up for your own HitsConnect tracker by clicking the image below.

Click Here to Start Tracking Your Ads Now

Welcome to November!

Is 2008 really almost over?

Sorry I haven’t updated for a bit. I spent the last few days riding around Missouri in the back of a van doing light shows for one of my favorite bands. Halloween shows are always lots of fun but to be honest I am just happy to be home working again.

For the past few months I have been using many of the techniques that Soren Jordansen has laid out in his Internet Marketing Success Formula to build a profitable email list using free information products.  If you want to know one of the best ways to make money on the Internet then you should really read his book.

Anyways, I have been sharing some of the best places I have found to advertise lead capture pages that I use to build my list. To see my results from previous months click here.

Unfortunately I was on the road a lot at the end of October and I didn’t get stats for the last few days so this month’s stats might be slightly lower than they should be.

As usual I am using Hits Connect to track how many sign-ups I am getting from my lead capture pages.

Traffic Exchanges
1. ts25 – 16
2. Traffic Splash – 10

I actually spent a lot less time surfing for credits this month than usual so I didn’t bother listing the exchanges that only got me a few sign-ups.  The 26 sign-ups I received from ts25 and Traffic Splash actually came from credits I had left over from previous months.  Isn’t residual traffic great?

Safelists
1. ListJoe – 81
2. FreeSafelistMailer – 13
3. AdSolution – 12
4. List Auction – 9
5. Elite Safelist -7

Wow!  ListJoe continues to perform way above my expectations for a safelist. I did purchase the upgraded membership but with those kinds of stats it is worth every penny!  If you aren’t already a member join ListJoe now!

Text Ad Exchanges
1. Traffic Swarm – 51
2. Muscle Mail – 28
3. Ad Exchangers – 25
4. Maple Ads – 7
4. Elephant Text Ad Exchange – 6

Once again Traffic Swarm dominates the text ad exchanges but there are many newer sites which are proving to be very effect for advertising lead capture pages.  Check them out!

I should also mention that I participated in my very first JV Giveaway to advertise my lead capture page f and I was very happy with the results.  I received 39 sign-ups even though I got in really late.  If you have a free product to give away and want to advertise your lead capture page in the next big give away event then check out IM Dream Team asap!  It’s free to join and is a great way to get a lot of exposure for your lead capture page.

Of course these numbers are all from my own testing and your results may vary.  If you are doing any kind of online advertising you need to track your own stats. That’s why I recommend HitConnect for tracking all of your sign-ups.  Get your own HitConnect trackers by clicking the link below.

Another month down and another month of advertising stats to share with you.

September was actually a pretty rough month.  One of the lights that I use in my light show died and I had to replace it.  People are always shocked to find out how much nice concert lights cost.  I also had to replace the video card in my computer.  Those two purchases completely emptied out my PayPal account which didn’t leave much room for advertising.  Thankfully I made a few good investments at the start of the month so I am working my way back up.

Most of my traffic is still coming from traffic exchanges, text ad exchanges, and safelists which I am using to promote my Traffic Success Formula ebook.  Here’s the splash page I am promoting: http://www.trafficsuccessformula.com/splash01.htm

I am tracking with HitConnect because HitConnect rocks!

Here’s where most of my sign-ups came from during the month of September…

Traffic Exchanges
1. ts25 – 14
2. Traffic Splash – 12
3. Dragon Surf – 7
4. BootScootin’Traffic – 7
5. Royal Surf – 5

Not much changed there since last month except BootScootin’Traffic and Royal Surf made it into the top 5.

Safelists
1. ListJoe – 61
2. Got Safelist? – 12
3. Global Safelist – 10
4. AdSolution – 9
5. FreeSafelistMailer – 8

AdSolution dropped a little bit this month and I should also point out that I went with pro memberships at Global Safelist, Got Safelist?, and ListJoe.

Check out ListJoe.  Are you kidding me?  61 sign-ups from a safelist?  Granted the upgrade at ListJoe isn’t cheap but with 61 new sign-ups it was well worth the investment.  If you aren’t a member of ListJoe yet, go join and make sure you take advantage of the special offer you will see when you sign-up.

Text Ad Exchanges
1. Traffic Swarm – 20
2. Muscle Mail – 11
3. Ad Exchangers – 6
4. Elephant Text Ad Exchange – 6

Nothing new here.  Traffic Swarm continues to dominate the text ad exchange world even though it isn’t quite the same as the others.  I have been very pleased with the results I continue to receive from Muscle Mail and Ad Exchangers.  Elephant Text Ad Exchange is new to the list but was just bubbling under last month.

My budget for October is starting out a little light.  I might cancel my ts25 upgrade for a few weeks and live off of the thousands of credits I have earned over the last 2 months.  Will absolutely upgrade at ListJoe again.  61 sign-ups!  Crazy.

As before you should keep in mind that these are my personal stats and the results you receive may not be the same. Also, I am not saying these are the only places worth advertising. These are just some of the places that I tried last month which worked best for me.

Know of some better sites I should be advertising on?  Feel free to submit them in a comment.

All tracking stats were provided by HitConnect. Start tracking your ads today by getting your own HitConnect account. Click the image below for more details.

Happy September!

I started last month by writing a post about all sorts of paid advertising sources I was going to try out during the month of August. To read that post you can click here.  I thought I would review some of those sites today and decide where I want to spend some of my advertising dollars this month.

One of the sites I joined last month was HitConnect which is a popular link tracker service. I have been using free link trackers for years but the big advantage of using HitConnect to track my ads is the ability to track the number of sign-ups I received from each of my ads. As you will see below, that is a huge feature that most other trackers are lacking.

HitConnect was well worth the investment and I plan to keep my subscription going there for quite awhile.

I also bought the List Builder Mega Pack from Advertising Know How for $60.  The list builder adds opt-in subscribers to your autoresponder automatically.  So far I have received 20 new subscribers to my list and I have only used up about 1/3 of my credits.  I cancelled my subscription until all of my credits are used up.  I will report again when they are all used up but it looks like it was a really good value.

I bought 12,000 hits to my squeeze page from TE Blaster.  I have recevied a little more than half of the traffic so far and have received 11 new sign-ups.  Not bad but somewhat expensive.  I will wait until I receive the rest of my hits before I decide if it is worth buying again.

Finally, I bought a Platinum upgrade at TS25 traffic exchange for $25.  That seems to have been the best investment.  Yes, I had to surf a lot to take advantage of it but I generated 22 sign-ups during the month of August and I still have several thousand credits waiting to be used.  Naturally, I just renewed my membership for at least another month.

Here are some of the top sites I used during the month of August along with the number of sign-ups I received from my Traffic Success Formula squeeze page found at: http://www.trafficsuccessformula.com/splash01.htm

Traffic Exchanges
1. ts25 – 22
2. TE Blaster – 11
3. Traffic Splash – 10
4. ILoveHits – 6
5. Dragon Surf – 5

Safelists
1. AdSolution – 20
2. ListJoe – 15
3. FreeSafelistMailer – 8
4. AdTactics – 6
5. Elite Safelist – 5

AdSolution never fails to impress me. If they had a pro option I would buy it in a second. Until then I will be content with all the free sign-ups they are bringing me every month.

Text Ad Exchanges
1. Ad Exchangers – 20
2. Muscle Mail – 16
3. Traffic Swarm – 15
4. Mega-Traffic – 5
5. My Daily List Builder – 5

People are really missing the boat when it comes to trying out these new free text ad exchanges. I should really say those results are just from the first 3 weeks of August because I didn’t post any ads last week.

Traffic Swarm is sort of it’s own thing but I included it here anyways.

Please note that these are my personal results and the results you receive may not be the same.  Also, I am not saying these are the only places worth advertising.  These are just some of the places that I tried last month which worked best for me.

All tracking stats were provided by HitConnect. Start tracking your ads today by getting your own HitConnect account. Click the image below for more details.