It’s often said that if you want to use safelist to build your list, you need to get your lead capture page onto those safelist login ads. So, last week, I decided to buy a State-of-the-Art-Mailer (SOTAM) login ad and use it to promote my 100% Commission Funnel lead capture page and see if I could get anybody to opt in.
However, SOTAM login ads are quite popular with marketers and are often sold out, which is another reason why I thought I’d try it because I’ve seen some well-known names and marketers buy these full-page ads.
When I logged in to SOTAM last week and saw that a 3-day slot was available, I thought, “What the heck, I’ve heard good things about SOTAM, so I bought myself a 3-day “full page login ad” for $19.95.
What I’m going to do in this video and the rest of this blog post is to show you my results and offer some thoughts about safelist marketing and login ads.
My State-of-the-Art-Mailer Login Ad Video Review
My State-of-the-Art-Mailer Login Ad Statistics
According to the stats on my SOTAM login ad page, I had 500 views. Five hundred fews for for +/- $20. In other words, it cost me 4 cents per view (20 ÷ 500 = $0.04):
My Leadsleap Tracker Tells A Different Story…
When I checked those stats against my Leadsleap tracking stats and checked the 7 day statistics for my 100% Commission Funnel lead capture page, I found that there was a significant discrepancy.
First, here is the traffic graph for this campaign. In the video I added the “total” and the “unique” together, which is not how you count the stats at all! There were 242 total views, OF WHICH 224 were unique. In other words, 224 different people saw the login ad. Of those people, only 191 stayed on the page long enough to count as “real” visits.
As you can see in the bar graph, about 90 people stayed on the page for less than 5 seconds and are not considered “real” visitors by the tracker.
How Many Opted In? 🧐
Okay, so how many of those 191 “real” visitors to my lead capture page actually opted in? 🤔
To answer that question we need to check the “Action” column…
As you can see, I was rotating three different lead capture pages, and every one of them drew a complete blank. ZERO action taken across the board! In other words, nobody at all opted in!
My Campaign Draws A Blank!
I had 191 real viewers and not a single one of them did anything. Not one of them took any action. Not a sausage. In short, I wasted my money. I got 191 loads of zero for $20.
Do I Recommend SOTAM Full Page Login Ads?
And the answer is a big fat, “NO”…
However, having said that, if you’ve had success with SOTAM login ads, let me know in the comments section below this blog post, because I could have been doing something wrong.
Also, I have had SOTAM surfers opt in to my leads capture pages through my SOTAM mailings, so I am not dissing SOTAM completely here, just because my first experience with their login ads failed.
Possible Improvements To My Login Ad Campaign
One thing I intended to do was to make a special version of my lead capture page for SOTAM surfers.
My Campaign might have had better results if my lead capture page had directly addressed SOTAM users:
“Hey, State-Of-The-Art Mailer Surfer! Are you ready to make money fast?”
But I didn’t do that. I just put up my general page and I got zero results.
Another option that might work better is to us a splash page rather than a lead capture page.
Whereas the aim of promoting a lead capture page is to capture the viewer’s email address, a splash page merely requires a click. The surfer is invited to “click” a button to get more info, and clicking is less hassle than filling in a form with your email address.
When you click a splash page, it causes the target page to open in a new browser tab. The surfer can choose to continue surfing SOTAM, or view the new page now, or later.
Track and Split Test!
Whether you use login ads to promote a lead capture page or a splash page, the key thing is to track your results, and split test different pages. All you’re trying to do with login ads is build your list. You’re not trying to flog stuff directly to people from a login ad, safelist email, or traffic exchange ad. (Well, a lot of people DO try that, and almost certainly fail to achieve any results.)
Am I going to spend any more money on SOTAM login ads?
No, I’m not, at least not for the time being. I much prefer to spend my marketing budget on Lifetime upgrades such as:
- WebsiteTrafficRewards – a responsive mailer that pays Gold members $0.20 just to log in every day!
- AdsNCash4Me – $25 one time fee gets you 3 Lifetime Gold safelist upgrades + 100% commissions!
- 100PercentClicks – a responsive mailer that pays 100% commissions on each referral’s first purchase!
Do you see the difference between those lifetime deals and a one time punt on a login ad or a solo ad? With lifetime deals, you pay once, and get to advertise again and again several times a week without ever having to pay again. Incredible value!
So that’s why I won’t repeat my “failed experiment” with SOTAM login ads. There are better deals out there!
And if that helps you to save some money as well, then my “failed experiment” is not really a failure at all! I’ve done my job.
Cheers!
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus
P. S. Check out my top 5 best performing traffic sites over the last month.
Hello David,
i feel like to have success with login ads you need to test with a big budget and with multiple pages, i recommend that you buy some login ads from hungry of hits, i got some leads over there.
Hi Rafael, Yes I agree. I was watching a webinar about login ads as a list-building strategy, and the guy paid thousands of dollars and tracked everything… He lost a lot of money before his tracking led him to success. Thanks for the tip about Hungry4Hits. By coincidence, I logged in to that site a few minutes ago to post some banner ads.