Ad HustlerConfessions Of A Serial Internet Entrepreneur

List Building & Email Marketing Case Study Part 1 was about setting up the double opt in, getting subscribers and trying to monetize the list immediately.  Overall it was a success.  Part 2 of this case study revolves around the first series of emails sent to the list.

My goal with the first series of emails was to not try to sell anything too early on.  I wanted to develop a relationship (even if it’s a small one) by delivering content and THEN hitting them with an offer.  I will break the case study down into an explanation of each email, that emails results and then a summary after i discuss each email in the series.  One preface is that the numbers don’t all match up to 100 which is the amount of subscribers we started with on this list.  I screwed something up with the segmentation on the autoresponder which means it didn’t get sent to about 25% of the list.

Email #1 – 1 Day After Subscription

This email was an introduction about “myself” and the series.  I made up a fake persona letting subscribers know that I am an authority in the niche and gave them a little insight about what kind of content they would be receiving.  There are no links in this email other then unsubscribe.

Email #2 – 2 Days After Subscription

This is the first content based email sent out to the list.  I reintroduce myself in the first paragraph and then give them some good niche related content.  There are no links in this email other then unsubscribe.

Email #3 – 3 Days After Subscription

This is also a content based email with no sell in it.  The only thing I did different in this email compared to the previous one is that I tried putting a very unobtrusive message across the top saying – This Tip Is Sponsored By “BigNameInTheIndustry.com” – I linked it up to a big CJ merchant just to see if anyone clicked it.  No one did so far.

Email #4 – 4 Days After Subscription – **THE BIG OFFER**

Ladies & Gents, the day we have all been waiting for.  Offer #1 was sent to the list in this email.  I approached the sell as, my friend is releasing a particular product related to this niche and giving my subscribers first crack at it.  I have personally used the product and it did wonders for me.  Here are the results

Email #5 – 6 Days After Subscription

This email is content driven as well.  It also has a P.S. at the bottom saying that there is limited availability on Email #4′s offer.  My friend is offering 5 more positions but I talked him into giving us 10.  If you want to take advantage do it now kind of wording.

Let’s Discuss

As you can see my open rates were off the hizzle.  They ranged from 31%-56%.  I think any mailer can tell you that’s really good.  My click through rate on email #3 was non existant.  That sort of surprised me.  I thought that the subtle “sponsored by” message at the top would get a few clicks.  On email #4 (The Big Offer) I really had no idea whatsoever what to expect.  I can tell you that I ran this same offer on PPC and it converted at about 1% so I was hoping it would do better then that considering these subscribers were being groomed and also were extremely related to the product.

Email #4 had 73 total recipients to date.  40 opened the email (54.8%) and 22 clicked through to the offer (30.1%).  Those are all good statistics.  There are a few statistics I find really interesting though.  Although 40 unique people opened the email they opened it 67 times.  I’m wondering if this means they are interested in the offer but just not sure yet so they leave it in their inbox to read again later.  Out of the 73 recipients that received email #4, 1 bought the product earning me a $31 commission.

Back To The Financials

Number Of PPC Clicks: 436
Number Of Double Opt In Subscribers: 100
Click To Subscriber Conversion Rate: 22.93%
Average CPC: 28 Cents
Raw Cost For Clicks: $123.55

Clicks To Email Submit On Page 3:  71
Conversions: 37
Offer Payout: $1.30
Subtotal Revenue: $48.10

Conversions On Email #4: 1
Offer Payout: $31
Subtotal Revenue: $31

NET PROFIT/LOSS: -$44.45

A few things to note here are as follows:

• Not everyone on the list has made it all the way through the series yet.
• There could possibly be late conversions
• I still have about 100 subscribers to my list

One thing that is painful about this process is that it takes a really long time to measure your return on investment.  With PPC i’m used to knowing how I’m doing on an hourly basis.  With email it could be a week or more before I determine if I’m making a profit or not.  I am still down $44.  That’s not bad considering this is a first test in list building and email marketing.  Recouping that $44 should not be difficult.  I can blast the list with an offer any time and someone is bound to take me up on it.  I will update in a few days to let you all know if I’ve turned a profit or not.

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In the last post you heard the plan:  Pick a Niche, Setup Some PPC, Build a List of 100 Double Opt Ins.

The first step I tool was to pick a niche.  I had been experimenting in a particular niche a few weeks ago.  I saw some potential but the offer I was pushing wasn’t converting well enough to turn a positive ROI.  The traffic was pretty cheap so I decided to use that niche for the List Building & Email Marketing Case Study.  An important thing that I took into consideration was if there were enough offers to support the niche I was targeting.  It’s all well and good to build a subscriber list, but if I have nothing to sell to these people once they subscribe then it’s all going to be a waste of time.  I did some research and there are at LEAST 5 different offers that I can push to these subscribers ranging from $1.30-$31 commission.

The second step I took was to get a targeted domain name and build a landing page.  Completed.

The third step was to setup PPC.  Done.

Now let’s go into a little detail about the whole process.  The double opt in process work’s like this:

1. User gets to a landing page which has a sign up form.  They fill out the form.
2. User Is Taken To A Thank You Page
3. User receives an email that requires them to click a link to confirm
4. User Is Taken to Confirmation Page

It’s a pretty simple process but without understanding all of the steps, you are going to fail.  I broke down all the steps and made some notes.  Here are some thoughts that were going through my head when I set this up:

• I’m paying for traffic so I need to make sure that my landing page converts the traffic I’m buying into subscribers.
• I’m paying for traffic so how can I make back some of the money right away?
• How can I make sure that the people double opt in after the users enter their information into the form?
• How much is a new subscriber worth to me?

LANDING PAGE

I kept these thoughts or questions in mind throughout the building process of my campaign.  Here is how I approached the landing page:

• Page 1 – This is the page housing my subscribe form.  I created a very attractive page very much geared towards the niche.  Everything I put on the page graphically, was designed to drive the users eyes towards the subscribe form.  The landing page revolved around the idea that the email list would be providing tips related to this particular niche.
• Page 2 – This is a simple thank you page.  The idea of this page in my mind was to MAKE SURE that the user immediately checked their email and double opted into the list.  This is obviously crucial to the success of the campaign.  Here is the text I used on this page word for word:
  >You are almost finished….
  >We need to confirm your email address.
  >To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.
  >BONUS: After opting in, you will receive an exclusive offer.
  My thinking behind mentioning that there would be a bonus after opting in was that it might peak some curiosity into what that offer is and make them want to immediately check their email and click the link.
• Page 3 – This page is the one the user lands on after they click the link in their email.  My goal was to use this page as a first step towards monetization of the campaign through use of the aforementioned bonus offer.  The text basically says that the users subscription is now confirmed.  Below that I present the user with a bonus offer which is an EMAIL SUBMIT that pays $1.30.

TRAFFIC

This case study is really not about the traffic being used to drive users into the landing page.  Any traffic source that you can find people related to a niche will be a good one.  My average cost per click for this case study was 28 cents.

INITIAL RESULTS

Let’s take a look at how the traffic converted, how long it took and what it cost me.

The goal here was to build 100 subscribers.  I was able to do that in under 24 hours on a pretty low volume niche.  The idea here is to see if this can be monetized.  If it can be we can scale the campaign.  At the rate of 100 subscribers per day, 3,000 subscribers per month can be accumulated.  Over the course of 1 year the potential to subscribe 36,000 is there; so If this campaign works, there is definitely the potential for scaling.

Number Of PPC Clicks: 436
Number Of Double Opt In Subscribers: 100
Click To Subscriber Conversion Rate: 22.93%
Average CPC: 28 Cents
Raw Cost For Clicks: $123.55

Clicks To Email Submit On Page 3:  71
Conversions: 37
Offer Payout: $1.30
Total Revenue: $48.10

NET PROFIT/LOSS: -$75.45

Actual Cost Per Subscriber Before The First Email Is Deployed: 75 cents

Summary Of Initial Results: I am very happy with the initial results of this test.  I spent $123.55 and made back $48.10 before even the first email was sent to the list.  I am not thinking about this in the standard way a PPC marketer does.  Usually we want a positive ROI immediately.  I am making an assumption here that each of these subscribers will have some sort of lifetime value.  I have no idea what that value is yet as it will take some time to figure that out.

To break even on this campaign I need to make back $75.45 off of 100 subscribers to my list.  There are numerous ways to do this.  As of now I am planning on doing 4 emails in 4 days.  After that I am going to back off and not mail nearly as much.  Here is the plan for the first 4 emails in the series:

Day 1 – Introduce myself under a fake persona as an expert in this niche
Day 2 – Tip #1
Day 3 – Tip #2
Day 4 – Make a special offer, try to make back the $75.45

I have yet to set up any of these emails so I am going to get on that now.

One question that’s bound to come up is which email marketing provider I am using.  The answer is MailChimp.  I use their service pretty hardcore for some other projects and think they are really a great company.  In a future post I will do a comprehensive review.  If you sign up through AdHustler.com, they are offering a $30 credit to your account.

Look forward to Part 2 of the List Building & Email Marketing Case Study when I get some more data to share.

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It’s been a while without a case study.  That’s about to change.

You always hear a lot of talk in the blogging community about how you should be collecting emails.  I feel like a lot of people talk about it but not as many people as you may think actually do it.  A lot of us PPC guys go for the quick sale but since we don’t collect data, we can’t ever remarket to the individuals who buy the products we push with PPC.  I have decided to take my PPC skills and attempt to build a list based on a niche I pick.  The initial goal is to collect 100 double opt-in email addresses, report to you how much that costs me and then figure out a way to make the money back (and hopefully turn a profit).  I will share some information with you and hopefully inspire you to attempt to build your own list.  My next post will be Part 1 of the List Building & Email Marketing Case Study.

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Have you ever noticed that when you are completely and utterly busy every minute of the day that time flies?  I do.

Posting has been a little light here but I will ramp that up with some killer posts coming soon.

Is there anything in particular that you guys want to read about?  If so, leave a comment and I will work on something.

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