Q: I am just learning about Internet marketing and affiliate marketing. I’m listening to your interview with Joel Comm from his Adsense Premiere program I recently purchased. I understand the value if capturing a person’s name and email in order to market to them later. But as an affiliate marketer, I am having a difficult time picturing a scenario in which I am using Google AdWords and someone clicks on my ad which sends them to my squeeze page, so I can capture their info. I require a double opt-in, so I send them an email which they then have to click on to go to yet another sales page at the actual vendor’s site. Aren’t they going to get frustrated? Is this how you suggest doing it, or should I as an affiliate makreter just send them right to the sales page from my ad? My idea is to create a good content rich site over time. But in the short term, my goal is to make some extra money using Google Adwords to pay for my marketing efforts for my real estate business.
A: I would not recommend trying to get email leads via Google AdWords.
Instead, I would suggest driving this traffic from AdWords to a sales page, and then have a script triggering an exit pop-up for people that don’t buy the product or service on the sales page.
That way, you can attempt to directly monetize this traffic, and then have email opt-ins as your plan B as they leave your site.
You don’t want to cannibalize people who are ready to spend with you, but once you’ve lost them, you may as well go for the email.
Also, I’d suggest going with AWeber for your double opt-in gathering. They provide a great suite of tools, including the ability to A/B test.
It’s vital to test the performance of your various approaches, and if you’re not currently doing it, start now.