Credits for reading - is there a sweet spot?

[Darren Olander]

I just joined a viral mailer that rewards free members with 2 credits for each mail they read... That is the lowest I've seen so I was quite surprised to see it. I see a lot of variance when it comes to this with mailers... is there a sweet spot for an amount that is "worth it"? What makes it worth it for you to read mails somewhere?

[Jerry Iannucci]

I think if you read every email the site sends out you should just barely have enough credits to mail the entire list.

 

It seems like the mailers I get the best results from come pretty close to this.

[Steve Jones]

I agree with Jerry for the most part, but prefer to have a "cushion" also.  This also depends on the site.  With some sites, even if you read everything, you don't always have enough credits to mail by the time you can again.  Other sites are just the opposite.  You can build up thousands of credits in a short amount of time but only be able to mail 500 every few days.  Seems like somebody would (should?) have some kind of formula for this by now.  

[Matt Koshko]

I think if you read every email the site sends out you should just barely have enough credits to mail the entire list.

 

It seems like the mailers I get the best results from come pretty close to this.

 

That's an good way to position credits/points. In what time frame would it be reasonable? Meaning, if you read every mail in 30 days...would you have enough credits at that point just to reach the entire list? Or, is it a week time frame? ...

[Jerry Iannucci]

That's an good way to position credits/points. In what time frame would it be reasonable? Meaning, if you read every mail in 30 days...would you have enough credits at that point just to reach the entire list? Or, is it a week time frame? ...

 

Whatever the set mailing frequency is for that membership level.  So if you are allowed to mail every 3 days then reading 3 days worth of emails would be enough to mail the entire list.

 

I guess this kinda falls apart for sites with long delays between mailings.  I don't think anyone would want to read every email for an entire week just to send one of their own.

[Robert David Smith]

I would hope,that if a free member could accrue more credits than needed for each mailing, that the free member could trade excess credits for banners or text ads. To me the sweet spot would be amount of credits per email in proportion to amount of members. I would rather earn one credit in a new site of 250 members as opposed to 10 credits in a membership of 25,000.

If the click through on the little site is 7% and the click through on the big site is 0.07%, I get the same amount of clicks both places but who has time to click 2500 emails for one mailing?Sweet Spot to me would be enough credits to mail every 2 days to a site with a decent click through%

[stealthmayhem]

I was wondering this myself.  I belong to about 60 safelists.  Some offer ~2-5 cred per email, others as high as 1000.  I think that the lower the amount of creds offered, the better.  If I can only mail 3000 members every three days, and I am earning 1000 credits for each email, I only need to read one email a day to be able to mail all the members I am allowed to.  I think the chances of "my" email being the one that is read by fellow members is so low as to be non-existent. 

[John Bell]

It's hell when you start a mailer because you really have no idea how many people are actually going to open emails, or how many are going to send.. how many are going to upgrade (getting free credits essentially with each mailing) and reducing these numbers is way more difficult than increasing them...  having a low credit rate from the start may seem demotivating but I think it's a good strategy for long term success to start low and adjust up if needed

[Matt Koshko]

I agree, John. It's hard to know those numbers up front, though certainly less damaging by starting low...however, as you pointed out, may be less appealing to those who've been in the industry for a while.

[Roosevelt Evans III]

I have never had confidence in safelist mailers. I imagine that persons who are members of dozens of mailers don't really read the e-mails that are sent them, especially upgraded members, however I know persons who swear by safelist mailers and wouldn't think of marketing any other way.

[Guest Andy B]

I have just recently rejoined some safelists after leaving them alone for a while and I was pleasantly surprised.

I joined the top ones listed on Traffic Hoopla and as i was working through the emails received I started thinking I could see why they were the top performers.

In the past, I was put off safelists in general as I wasn't getting the results I thought I ought to and I think the reason was simply that there were far too many emails being sent (and so therefore too many credits were obviously being awarded for reading them, to enable such prolific sending by members).

We all only have a certain amount of time and so I would only ever click about 100 emails a day, from anything up to 1000 received. Assuming this waqs similar to others, this would suggest why I had such low click rates on my own emails sent.

Now, with the top ones I have joined, I am getting only about 100 a day, so the click rate from me, at least, is 100%

Conclusion. Better to earn fewer credits to limit amount of emails sent to each member, then those that are sent have a greater chance of being read and clicked.

Better to send to just 300 at 100% click rate than to 3,000 with just 1% click rate. 10 times better!

Edited February 14, 2014 by Darren Olander
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[Garrett Hutsko]

I read SLs using SL Genie as my tool/browser of choice and I do not feel it matters how many credits for reading. I find that under normal use I see the same ad repeated over and over again. I do go beyond the level of just collecting credits but only if the promo peeks my interest, I think the key is getting the promos out and making them as interesting as possible then the promos will be selected more often. Basically we are in an environment where numbers are more important then the value of what we read. We can collect the credits and use them. I use both big and small SLs and try to get lots of credits so I can put out lots of promos, If I have to buy then so be it, at least some will read these and maybe react to them.

[xiqual]

I read SLs using SL Genie

Does anybody knows about any other tool like SL Genie?

[Garrett Hutsko]

The closest tool I have found is Mailer Ninja, the next closest tool I have found is Referral Frenzy. SL Genie is by far the best tool for use in the SL Environment. I can help you learn to use the tool if you need I have developed a set of training/instructions for use with SL Genie and I can provide them for you use if you want. Just signup in SL Genie then send me a request for these instructions and I will provide them to you.

[Len]

How good are some of these mailers, how do you know the credibilty of the people being mailed, are they from all over the place and how were they achieved, you hear stories of, "Post to 25.000,000 starting today". what is the quaility of this sort of amount? Is this why you don't see many results if any. Can anyone tell me of any good one where they know where the leads come from and get any good results?