Can anyone point me to a valuable resource on the internet? I look forward to your reply.

Bradley

Thank you for your comments,
chicky

I collect data from my readers when they sign up. (please refrain from posting URL's, people can visit your site from your profile - baffled)

In Group Mail Pro, I can't view stats like I could using "categories" in outlook. I want to continue collecting and reviewing the stats. Is there a better way? I've just been winging this.

[This message has been edited by baffled (edited 02-07-2001).]

I have a few ventures in mind that need cash...so I wanted to sell my baseball card collection worth book value $7500. Now NO one will pay book value for it and selling it in pieces would take ages, and would leave me with 1000's of useless cards nothing close to $7000.

So I figured, heck, a raffle!! That way I can sell a chance to win this $7500 collection for a mesely $2.95...and sell 2000-3000 tickets to keep chances high and not to exceed the value of the collection.

I personally think this is a great idea and can be implemented by anyone needing to get rid of something...I'm just not sure how to promote and how it will fly.

Check it out and let me know http://www.greaturl.com/raffle/card-collection.html

Just a few days ago, the UK's leading ISP, FreeServe also started using GoTo.com as it's search engine.

Then today I found a link in Allan Gardyne's newsletter to a shocking story which reveals that Yahoo! are about to charge for listings:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/491082.asp

For the first time in its history, Yahoo is charging a mandatory fee for commercial directory listings. The move is an expansion of Yahoo’s Business Express service launched last year — through which sites pay $199 to be reviewed for listing on Yahoo’s directory within a week, rather than having to wait months to be listed. But until now, that fee was optional...

It's not good news for me because I rely on search engines for 80% of my traffic. I had suspected that search engines would begin to charge for the top spots for quite a while, but the speed at which they're implenting these paid-for-positions is distressing.

No doubt the Open Directory and Go will also start charging...

I always knew it was coming, but with Yahoo's decision to charge for sites to be listed, is this the end of the democratic nature of the Internet?

How will it affect webmasters if all/most of the top ten rankings are paid for? It might only got a few cents a click at the moment at GoTo for most seach terms, but it's going to become more and more expensive.

Should we return to playing football in the parks because anybody with less than $100,000 hasn't got a cat-in-hell's chance of succeeding on the internet anymore?

I'd be interested to know what others think...

[Signature removed - Ron]

[This message has been edited by Ron C (edited 11-23-2000).]

In both we offered a free ebook (no request for their email required) and a free 5-day trial. (our program is only $7.97)

We worked day and night to get the copy and the site copy perfect... and finally 2 weeks after they promised to send it out, they got around to it.

We tested both of our email copy and site copy on a variety of people before the campaign and got rave reviews... however...

Out of 10,000 "double-opt-in" email address of people "wanting to read about our diet and fitness information" ...

Only about 1200 actually opened the email.

and of that only 54 people clicked into our site. (about 26 from each of the two ad copies)

Out of the 54 people that clicked... only 1 person signed up for our 5 day free trial of the "personal food analyst."

No credit card or any type of payment was required for the free trial.. just an email.

So... we payed about $18.00 per click.... what a bargain! :/

If you're thinking that our web and ad copy must have really sucked...

We are also using Google Adwords Select, and the results have been great. Out of the 48 people who've signed up for the free trial, over 30 have become customers.

Our cost per click with Google Adwords Select is averaging less than 30 cents per click.

The double-opt-in email company that we used is one of the top companies out there... I'd mention their name, but we're trying to see what we can do with them in order to negotiate a refund.

Tony

I live in California, which requires that you are a non-profit agency, get a permit, AND that you give some of the tickets away. The senate is fighting to get the freebies removed, but you still have to be a school, non-profit, or service organization.

I share your concern (but posted about it in the more appropriate, Search Engine Forums )

http://searchengineforums.com/Forum29/HTML/000292.html

By the way, another concern is the idea of volunteer editors....

Both schemes will ultimately fail, I think because they are both "garbage in/garbage out".

When you say that only 1200 emails were opened, I assume you're saying that it was a HTML mail and so you can tell that only this number actually received the e-mail. If that's the case, then you may have a more valid argument.

BannerWorkz

[This message has been edited by victory (edited 07-26-99).]

Also, raffles aren't thought of too highly in the online world yet, similar to writing contests that require an entry fee. There's just too much room for dishonesty and scams in taking the money and not awarding the prize. I doubt if you would get many participants, no matter how widely you promoted it.

The "big guys" will start charging, and I would bet that after a few years (or quicker), people won't go to their sites as much as they used to (when it was free).

I would bet that more and more free listings search engines will start to pop up (or become more popular with users) in the near future.

This just saved me a few hundred $$$.

Thanks!

If you are going to use it on your site, we can just point people there.

You may want to talk to any stores in your area that sell sports memorabilia to see what they will offer you. If you aren't willing to wait to sell each one at its true value, you might as well see what you can get from them.

hey there, you certainly posted a lot of info. maybe i missed it, i am sure of it. but exactly who did you lease your double opt-in email addresses from?

i am just curious as to how thoroughly you researched the reputation of this seller before purchasing.

sorry about your failed campaign, i guess it happens. even if you were dealing with a reputable broker, maybe it just didn't work for you. but just by your initial posting, you have used this experience to help me and about 100 or so other people who are reading this right now...

http://www.netb2b.com/educational_tracks/track4/ (This isn't directly to a specific artical but to a large number of them... a lot of them may cover banners though).
http://www.webreference.com/dev/banners/ Covers mostly information on the effectiveness according to placement of a banner but might be good information to include.