The 'Corrected Link' Email - As a Tactic?

It is a tactic, but not one I approve of. These types of tactics are the fastest way to get me to hit the "unsubscribe" button. I HATE sneaky tactics. It just shows the dishonesty of the owner as they just try to Trick you into clicking on a link.

Benjamin Ehinger

I actually did send out an email with the wrong link in the other day completely by accident. In fact I had a batch of subscribers telling me before I even realised myself. For all the world it must have looked like a tactic.

Unfortunately, it's an all too common tactic used by
some really desperate email marketers.

I have a policy of NEVER sending out the 'oops e-mail'
because I don't want to be lumped-in with that crowd.

I also have a procedure in place to TRIPLE check every
link in the e-mail to make sure that they work.

If you value the time and attention of your subscribers,
then you'll make the effort to check your links BEFORE
you hit send.

And if you respect your subscribers you won't even
think of resorting to the 'oops bad link' e-mail BS.

Dedicated to mutual success,

Shaun

It most definitely is a tactic! Until you realize that you have done it yourself.

(Cap in hand, KenJ skulks, red faced, into a corner. It is so embarrassing)

KenJ

Yeah to be honest it doesn't even need to be
used as long as you have a great follow up
sequence anyway.

Now we have to be careful and say that SOME
marketers may have made an honest mistake and
that's okay.

But once you've been around the email marketing
circuit a fair few years, you instantly know the honest
ones from those who are just looking to push the numbers.

You can see a far greater return on your time and money
spent on building your list by taking time out to think about
what can benefit your subscribers first and foremost.

I think a lot of newcomers think that it is okay to use
some of the spam tactics because their email inbox's
are filled with mostly GARBAGE.

Great topic of conversation anyway guys!

I enjoyed getting involved in this one.

All the best
Gavin

This was a lot more common a few years back but I think that
most I see are really genuine mistakes. I don't see why you
will have to make an excuse to your list to send a reminder
email without resorting to suck gimmicks.

-Ray Edwards

I've accidentally put the wrong link in an email before so for me it wasn't a tactic but I accepted that almost everyone on my list would think it was.

How exactly does one benefit from this "tactic"?

By sending a broken link in the first email just so they can send a second email with a working link?

I'm failing to see the point...

I suppose if the link in email 1 really isn't broken, then you'd have a incredibly lame way to sneak out a second mail.. but to what effect?

A crappy open and ctr? way to win at losing...

Brian

Since I don't know the motivation of the person sending the e-mail and I'm not standing next to them while they do it, I have NO idea if it's a tactic or not. Whether it is or isn't, is completely irrelevant to what I'm doing.

If their content is good and provides value, I stay subscribed.

If it isn't I'm gone.

I have no real way of knowing if it's a genuine mistake or not, so it's not something really worth worrying about.

RoD

I always unsubscribe from email lists that send more than one email per week.

I often wondered if it was a tactic but always unsubscribe from a person who does this because I think if you cant even send a correct link then what else are you doing that is wrong.

So if its a tactic it is wasted on me.

I just went through and checked and the last 5 times I received a "wrong link" email, they sender had indeed just sent a prior email with an incorrect link.

So this is a tactic that all of these people are using? How does it benefit them?

It seems to me like perhaps they are human beings who actually make mistakes once in a while.

Jeff

I think to myself if anyone's that big a Moron to not even check their emails before sending and send out a 'correction', it means either:

a) they're incompetent
or
b) they're lying and just want an excuse to double-blast their email.

Epic fail, they're fired for life instantly and unsubscribed from. That's almost as bad as the MORON "2nd Chance Because Our Server Went Down" emails. I mean come on, be professional or go home. Anyone that does that stuff gets a "No" from me for any jv consideration if in my niche, and a life-ban unsubscribe if I'm on their house list.

Be credible, professional, and honest. And check email links before sending, that's what the "Test" feature in all autoresponder email services is for. I use it 100% before every email, and sure I catch mistakes, though in sending thousands of emails I've never, not once, sent out a wrong link in an email in doing this over 13 years fulltime. Ever. Typos now that's another storiee lol.

-k

p.s. if you do send out a wrong link, then FIX it on your server, don't annoy your list. Just put up an auto-forwarder/redirect html page or copy the right page to the misspelled pagename. Don't make your customers read a second email on the same topic

I have sent out links that didn't work for various reasons such
as the redirect service went down, and I've considered sending
out another email with a direct link but resisted.

I send every broadcast email to myself, and click on every
link in the email before sending it, and still have snafus from
time time. Sending the email to myself lets me not only test
the links, but also see how the email will look to recipients.

When I get one of those emails, I don't usually think that
it's probably a ploy. I don't see how it would benefit most
senders. I guess with some subscribers, it might sending
them two emails might increase the probability of them seeing
the email, but the way that I process my email, it probably
wouldn't.

Willie

Funny, I recently wrote a blog post on this very subject. Yep, it is a tactic and I absolutely hate it - it is very annoying, and I instantly unsubscribe becuase it just makes me think one of two things:

1. The marketer is not careful with what they send to their list - if they can't get a link right, what else are they getting wrong?
2. They are pulling the wool over my eyes and lying to me just so they can get the email in front of me twice - and of course, the first link was never broken in the first place.

It's a tactic plain and through.

Any email marketer worth their salt will ALWAYS double and triple check the links in their email before sending it out. It's not hard to do and I do it every single time and as a result in hundreds of emails I have never once got the link wrong or left out the link.

These types of emails always make me rethink my subscription to their list. Also the people who send out emails with the firstname tag or something like that still in it. Honestly, if they don't have the decency and don't treat their business serious enough to double check their emails before sending, it also tells me a bit about the type of person they are.

It's not rocket science. Yes mistakes happen and no one is perfect but that is exactly why you double and triple check everything BEFORE sending.

A famous IM 'guru' if you like who's a multi millionaire from internet marketing (a real one not a pretend one) makes mistakes like this all the time in his emails, not just incorrect links but spelling and grammar mistakes, sentences which make no sense and other errors.

To my fellow Warrior Members,

The link in my signature seems to be broken, can you come back to this thread in ten minutes, by then it will be working.

I haven't seen anyone mention list segmentation in regard to these kinds of fake error emails. For example, most of the "oops" emails that I get are from subsriptions to things that I've never resonded to, and for many of the senders (including a host of JV promoters) these are emails that I' ve never opened...ever. Obviously this marks me as a very low-value prospect, in which case an email marketer has little to lose by using any trick in the book to get my attention.

And for those of you who are attempting to apply reason to why a marketing trick might work --or not-- that really has nothing to do with anything. The most successful email marketers design their email campaigns based on data and statistics, not reason. If a misspelled word in the subject line improves the open rate, that becomes the new control. The misspelled word trick will then be used until such time that it is outperformed by another trick ( like fake broken links).

I've unsubscribed from every single list that uses this tactic.

I've been getting a TON of these lately - 2-3 a day it seems now of this type

Quick unsubscribe

Who cares if it is a tactic. It's stupid and a complete waste of time.

How many times are you going to try and pull this on the same subscribers before they get sick of it?

Why are people so attracted to short cuts and stupidity?????

It's a bad technique in my opinion lol.

I mean come on, are people really that uncreative?

That reminds me of the episode of seinfeld when George forgot his hat at that lady's house just so he could sneak his way back in. (but this backfired, and the hat got stolen).



Or in weekend at bernies, when that dude paid the taxi driver to drive off when he was walking the girl to her door (rofl - this backfired.. the lady casted a spell on him so he'd never come back).

Can you learn from their mistakes?

Get creative.



Edit: I just searched one of my seed boxes and searched for "wrong link" and you guys would all engage a woeful double face palm if you saw the results.

Way to common for it to be a genuine mistake for most marketers.

I just unsubscribe when i see it..

If it was done on purpose i don't want to be related to that person.

If it was an accident, well i still don't want to be related to that person as they are not treating their business seriously.

Cheers,

Gary

I got so many emails with those subject that I am sure it was just a tactic.

It's funny when people do this because if they notice a few minutes after sending, they could easily just redirect the wrong link to the correct one.

I normally respond letting them know that they sent out the correct link, it's just that nobody click on it

Making your e-mail seem like it came from a human being, that's all.
E-mail marketing is constantly trying to pass through filters, that you're not even aware exist.
Questions is - did you try doing this and it improved reach for you?