Opinions on converting affiliate offers on thank you pages after a free offer!

Or instead of a thank you page, right after they submit their email just go straight to an affiliate offer

Personally, I'd advise you strongly against doing that.

There's quite a lot of misguided thinking about, on this subject. It's worth bearing in mind that it's possible to make the occasional quick sale that way and still lose a lot of money overall. Here's the key concept: the few people who will buy anything, that way, are all people who would have bought it in a week's time anyway, after receiving some email from you, so there's no real gain. But many other people, who would otherwise have bought it a week or two later, will be alienated by it, because of course it makes you look like "just another marketer", so if you do that, expect a much lower open-rate for your emails than if you don't do it. It can make an enormous difference (at the very least, this is something you should carefully split-test for yourself, rather than just "deciding to do it").

I think this is very likely to be even worse.

For myself, I need the thank you page, in order to give clear instructions, both in words and in pictures, on what subscribers (two groups: "gmail users" and "others") need to do, in order to receive my emails in their in-boxes. Again, without this, my open-rates are significantly lower.

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It seems a lot of folks are after 'short-term' gains, but unfortunately most of these folks will never make it. The value of a list and your subscribers needs to be viewed over a long duration. If a relationship is built, by adding value and getting to know 'you', then the prognasis isn't good. The best theory seems to be to do what Alexa states and use this time to drastically increase your chances of future revenue.

Not really a good idea, you want to build a solid relationship with your list they need to know they can trust you. Once they do then you offer something but make sure the product is good that your offering. Your word and reputation is on the line...

Why not have a really sweet "Thank You" style page in your first follow up sequence?

Thank them for subscribing. Introduce yourself. Tell them that you actually care about their results!

Even ask them questions as to how you can best help them.

(You'll be shocked when people start emailing you and thanking you, and answering a million questions with their heart felt responses).

I actually use an affiliate product as my TYP Page.
You can promise your subscribers the free gift as a video and direct them to an affiliate sales video.
You can also offer them a free report and direct them to an affiliate sales report page.
This way you will be killing 2 birds with one stone. You have a good gift for them which can convert into a sale.
This way, even if you decide to pay for traffic, you can make all of your money right back so you would never really have to pay for traffic

Its the best and has worked for me..Always..