------------------------------------- Two Reasons Why Safelists Have Become Absolutely Useless for Advertising. -------------------------------------
When the safelist concept was born, it was touted as the answer to every advertisers dream. Every member became an opt-in subscriber. There was no way anyone could be accused of spam.
At last, here was a system that was designed to guarantee advertisements delivered to all the members.
This caused a mass exodus from other programs like the FFA Free For All pages.
At first there was only a handful of programs to choose from. But when the safelist script writers realized the potential of this new advertising market, it caused an explosion, sprouting hundreds of safelists.
The MAIN reason that made safelists ineffective is the deluge of mail it created.
As in the case of FFA programs, having a "junk mail" throw-away address to store millions of emails, became a major priority. It was openly advocated by the list owners.
The enormous flood of mail created was accelerated by the arrival of automatic submission software. This in turn created another industry of large email storage providers. Some of them even offer automatic deletion.
If everyone is selling, where are the all the buyers?!
Let's be perfectly frank - safelist subscribers are all sellers - well at least 99% of them are. It's a big joke the way everyone is shoving their ads into each others face, trying to make a sale.
Who then is buying from a safelist?
Newbies. Anyone who has not been online long enough to know the ropes, are the only ones who even see the safelist ads. Professionals dump them. They never see the ads.
Safelist members are mostly free riders. If they don't spend on memberships the chances of them being buying anything online is remote.
This leads to the second most important reason why safelists have become extremely useless for advertising.
It is because many have become an excuse for running an MLM type of business.
What do you mean?! How?!
If this sounds controversial, then check out the facts. Owners of safelists entice paid memberships with instant commission and residual rewards when introducing new members.
Many paid members are even privileged with not having to receive ANY mail from other members.
So - the question is - who is responding to the advertisements?
The purpose of this article is not to question the business structure of a safelist, but to show why safelists are no longer the ideal way to advertise.
The less experienced marketer in particular, should take note about the tools that are available and the level of effectiveness to be expected.
To determine with any degree of accuracy if your ads are noticed, it is absolutely essential that you track your ads.The conclusions revealed here was thoroughly tested using an adtracking program.
It is important to understand that online advertising is only effective if it generates significant response.
If you have a lot of time on your hands and enjoy using a computer to waste that time, then you can play a game at posting to safelists. Otherwise you should seriously consider doing something far more rewarding.
Ezine advertising is still by far one of the most effective ways to reach your target market. Free ads and bottom sponsor ads are not very good, while middle sponsor and top sponsor ads are better. The best of all are of course solo ads.
Pay Per Click search engine advertising is probably one of the most direct ways of getting target customers to your site. This is when the customer is in fact using a search engine to find your advert. This is the highest quality of advertising available to the average online entrepreneur.
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Peter van Emmenis publishes his own free and friendly newsletter at http://www.ezebizz.com
He shares his experience with other online marketers and writes articles to help and educate his readers to profit from his own experience. Contact him anytime for a personal reply at: a href="mailto:hi_peter@midweekdigest.com AOL access /a