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.

Well that was fun.

As you may or may not know I have been working my butt off rewriting my first ebook which is all about advertising with free traffic exchange programs.  It’s been going slow but I really got into it again a few weeks ago and was hoping to do a huge relaunch at the end of the month… and then Tony Tezak released Traffic Exchange Solutions a few days ago.  D’oh!

Tony is sort of a legend in the TE world so there is no way I could realistically release my ebook right on his heels and expect any amount of excitement for it.  I guess that just gives me a little more time to work on my book to make it even bigger and badder than ever!  You’ll just have to wait a few weeks longer before you get a chance to behold it’s brilliance.  lol.

In the meantime I figure I should keep this writing thing going and post some new content.  I decided to write a short info series for the people who are still struggling to make money online.

Before we get started I should probably point out that while there are a whole lot of good free traffic sources and free services out there that you can use to build your business…  from my personal experience it is almost impossible to start a successful online business with absolutely no money.

Not exactly what you wanted to hear, right?

The good news is that it doesn’t take much money to start and most of the tools you will be using include affiliate programs that can eventually earn you a tidy profit every month.

So here is your first assignment…

Follow this link and download a free copy of a book written by my good friend Jon Olson called “The Pizza Plan”.  Inside you will find the exact budget that Jon used when he quit his job and started working online full-time.  It includes the “must have” tools that every Internet marketer needs.

Click here to get The Pizza Plan:
http://getrichwithjerry.com/downloads/pizzaplan.htm

Think about how much you are willing to set aside each month for your own online business.  You don’t need to spend as much as Jon did but if think you can build a successful online business with zero out of pocket expenses you are going to have a very long struggle ahead of you.

We’ll start getting into the good stuff next time so keep checking back here or subscribe to this blog at the top of the page so you don’t miss an another action packed update.

Enjoy the book!

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