I was wondering if giving your customers the option to sign up for free e-mails or even a free e-book has any affect on your sales? -thanks!!
I believe it helps gain sales down the road from people who may not be ready to buy yet...it gives the vendor more time to build trust and convince them to buy. However, many affiliates don't like to promote pages with opt-ins as some vendors are shady and use the email lists to steal commissions from their affiliates.
This is a big concern of affiliates, on this forum at least and it is importantant not to skim / steal sales through it by filtering people through your own hoplinks in it, but our opt-in newsletter drives our website basically - converting 3x higher than any other traffic source - it gives us the ability to: send further information to people give them free samples of our product handle their objections answer their common questions share with them stories of other success contact them at key points when they have money - payday, holidays etc send them offers and discounts ..basically give them the multiple points of contact they need before buying It is essential for us and we don't steal from affiliates or overwrite cookies - if you run it the same then people will still get on board with you, and I am sure you will find it an essential tool.
Yep, its a big problem because Affiliates are afraid of opt-ins -they think the publisher is going to screw them but the reality is that if the publisher is not a cheater (and there are many legitimate publishers) an opt-in means a much higher conversion rate for the affiliate! The best thing to do is to subscribe yourself to the opt-in and see what type of emails you recieve. Follow the links in those emails and see if your affiliate id is still present, if yes the publisher is legitimate.
How do vendors add an e-mail opt in without scaring affiliates away? It seems like opt ins are a bad idea if you're a new start-up company looking to recruit affiliates.
We've had opt-ins from the start and not faced much resistance directly really. I think "the proof is in the pudding" - if you treat your affiliates right, never steal from them and your product converts for them then they will promote you.