I am one of those guys who understands that while free traffic is neat, and the price is sure right, there are times when it pays to spend real money on advertising.
The problem, of course, is who do you give your money to?
There are ezines, blogs, ADWORDS and a zillion other options, and I find them confusing even after marketing for more than 10 years on the net. Those choices are mind boggling!
I’ve been a TrafficSwarm member for years… haven’t put it to any use, mind you, but I enjoy learning about some of the neat systems they market through their newsletters, so have stayed on just to read them.
Recently they promoted Advertise to Millions, which offers several opportunities for solo ads, classifieds and guaranteed traffic. I spent some time on the site, wondering whether or not I really wanted to drop $149 on a solo ad.
After looking into the system a bit deeper, I learned that it was owned and operated by Joe Iorio, and that Mr. Iorio had been making money offering advertising services to marketers for a decade or more.
(I also found a forum comment from someone who did not like the company’s absolute “no refunds, period” policy, but it made perfect sense to me, since I see their job as that of delivering traffic to my site, while the site’s job is to do the selling.)
Joe offers an affiliate program for his advertising sites. It costs you $98 to become an affiliate, because Joe figures that folks looking for free handouts aren’t the sort of affiliates he’s looking for. I assume that TrafficSwarm, which has a massive opt-in list, bought into Joe’s system and marketed it to that list.
So, folks, I’ve just put a few bucks into TrafficSwarm’s pocket, because I decided I liked Iorio’s attitude. I also liked the fact that when I complained to Joe’s support desk about having received multiple copies of the same email, Joe himself called me (within an hour), explained what had happened, and apologized.
That impressed me.
OK - as anyone who knows me will tell you, I’m a huge fan of Mike Dillard’s Magnetic Sponsoring, which I’ve recommended for years.
Because I’ve recommended Mike’s products for years, I’ve enjoyed spending commissions for years. Mike and his staff are very good at what they do. Their products are top-notch, their guarantee absolute and their success something of legend.
This month, I decided to spend some of Mike’s money on advertising, rather than transferring it to my bank account as I normally do every 2 weeks. (Did I mention that Mike Dillard pays like clockwork?)
You guessed it… I placed an order with Advertise to Millions for their Silver package, which will deliver my solo ad to 157,000 home business subscribers. I could have spent more, and gotten a better deal, but this is my test run, and I wanted to limit my exposure.
I decided to let them write the ad, so all I sent them was my Magnetic Sponsoring affiliate link, since they offer to produce a professional ad as part of the process.
If the ad produces an acceptable number of new prospects, I will sign up as an affiliate and market Advertise for Millions.
Stay tuned, folks!
Update #1: As of January 13th, I have received 213 clicktroughs (CTs) to my Magnetic Sponsoring page… pretty dismal results thus far, with a CT rate of less than 1/10th of 1%. I will be travelling in the States until the 26th of January, so may not be able to post final results until the end of the month. At this point, my advice would be not to use this service - it just isn’t proving to be worth the high cost of admission.
Update #2: I was less than impressed with the CTR (click through ratio) on the 15th, and asked Joe Iorio to honour his guarantee to duplicate the mailing. To his credit, he did so, sending my ad to another 177,000 subscribers. Unfortunately, it did not improve the results.
I will provide full data in another week or so, as it takes time for solo campaigns to run their course, but it seems clear that Advertise to Millions is not something I want to promote. It simply is not good enough.
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