Frustration With Aweber

Email marketing and list building is a lot trickier than it sounds. I'm not sure what niche you're in but one of the biggest problems with growing your list is not getting your opt-in form in front of very targeted traffic. You only want people on your list that are super into what you'll be emailing them about.

From my experience leads form solo ads are notoriously bad. That's why they are selling them to you. If they were good leads, like buyer leads, they wouldn't let you touch them.

I also wouldn't put a persons email address into your autoresponder without them explicitly giving you permission to do so. The first email you send will look suspicious to them and they'll wonder how you got their email. If you were getting their permission then no problem, but it still seems like a very time-consuming way to go.

Do you have a free offer (lead magnet) you're giving away in exchange for an opt-in? This is the best way to generate leads. Make sure the free offer is something of value that your target market really wants. For the IM niche, an example might be "50 of my most clicked email subject lines".

Put your lead magnet opt-in form on your homepage, on your facebook fan page, on YouTube, everywhere you can think of to reach your super targeted prospects.

Facebook ads are one of the best ways to get super targeted leads on your list. But that's another discussion entirely.

I don't think it's an Aweber problem. I would take a closer look at your overall listbulding strategy.

Finally, once you've got people on your list you have to email them consistently. Five to Six times a week at least. Make your emails entertaining and valuable. Don't be afraid to pitch your products or affiliate offers, just don't make the email all about the pitch. If you let your list go cold it can be very difficult to revive it.

I hope this helps and good luck.

It is not Aweber that is your problem.

I'm an Aweber user and have been for 15 years.

Your problem could be for many reasons.

1. What are they signing up for? Is it useful? Valuable? Different?

2. How targeted are your subscribers? Is your offer something really attractive to them?

3. What email address are you 'sending' from? Is it a free one like @gmail @yahoo? This will impact your delivery rates.

4. Do you use double opt in?

5. Is your traffic source valid and appropriate for your market/niche?
I have a music/guitar website and specifically don't want anyone under
35 on my list.....they never spend money on what I sell. (though they may
spend on other types of music sites.

Of course you can't hope for a decent answer on here unless we
can see your landing page, offer, sign up form

You have excellent advice in this thread ...and your decision is to keep doing what you are doing? You are assuming if you can somehow get people to read your email...they will buy. Not necessarily true.

If you have 400 unsubscribes - those are people who SAW your email and said 'no thanks'. If you can't answer the questions asked by experienced marketers above...you may not be ready to build a list.

Your landing page is full of promises - fast/easy money in your paypal account in three hours. And that page leads to....an affiliate product on WPlus....with totally different promises...

How do I know that? I signed up on your landing page to see what you were selling. The message came to my spam folder with an explanation that it's similar to many other 'emails reported for spam'. My guess is your emails - specifically YOUR emails - have been labeled as spam.

You need to rethink from the getgo - have something in place to offer signups and keep them interested - learn what to expect if using solo ads...start testing different signup pages and add some substance to your offer.

I know these comments are not complimentary - but you need a wakeup call. I would advise you to stop this 'campaign' and learn more about list building....get your ducks in a row and start over. Without that - I doubt Aweber will allow you to keep an acct for long...just my guess on that one.

I signed up too and your confirmation email ended up in spam.

No big deal getting people to check their spam folders BUT they aint
going to open the email when they see the warning that comes with it.

I'm not keen on the 'blind offer' on your landing page it looks really really tacky.

You don't build any relationship with subscribers so you're not putting any value INTO
the system which is why you're not getting anything OUT of the system.

Anyone who understands all the 'jargon' you've used about bonuses and Paypal will
also understand that they can get the product under their own steam using their own affiliate links.

So big problems here.

1 A very lightweight landing page with just a 'blind' offer

2. Your aweber confirmation email is going to spam and marked as dangerous.

If I may make a suggestion and this is for all email marketers.

You ideally want to know the domain makeup of your list(s) and create seed accounts for the domains with the highest percentage of users. Then use the seeds to test your inbox placement of your messages.

For many, AOL, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo and parent domains using the same mx, can makeup as much as 85% or more of their list. So at the very least, you should start with them and any other seed accounts you can set up or acquire.

If you're hitting the spam folder, you basically need to look at the following...

Back-end setup: spf, dkim, rdns, etc...
IP/ domain reputation: any domain / IP that is associated with the mailing.
Content: everything in the message body, subject line, including your template.

You then need to test everything and isolate the problem and fix it.

If you had been doing the above, you could have caught the problem early on and fixed it.

I agree but I think (here at least) the 'content' should be at the top.

Update:

- Aweber customer support (they have been helpful) confirmed that many of those subscribers were the result of a SpamBot - some BS!

- 2000 "people" deleted and $10 refunded for wasting up storage

-Diablo also has a good point about the IP/Domain reputation - I'll see about working on that.

-Also Aweber support suggested to create a custom headline for your "confirm message" if using double opt-in

-Aweber support also mentioned their forms have automatic captcha but it is based on certain criteria so if a spam bot knows this loophole they can easily get through. The confirmed opt-in is supposed to help so that you don't pay for fake email address (because spam bots never confirm, they stay in pending mode which you won't be charged for, and they get auto deleted after 30 days

I appreciate the responses here

PRACTICAL ADVICE:

go to Glockapps.com and sign up. import their test list and send them an email.

then check. they will show you how your email perform and give you advice for setting up as an example the DKIM or other parameters in your autoresponder.

Maybe your server is blacklisted.

Maybe your headline semms too spammy.

Use this tool, it's free for the first 10 emails.

Then follow all the other advices, try to re-write the headline,

Make Money Sending Emails isnt a get rich scheme, it has a lot of work to implement, but it worth like no other

read some reviews about brand from this area. maybe you're playing on the wrong field

I think that getting your emails delivered is key.

It is a common theme in threads on this forum of marketers having problems with deliverablity. If someone receives an email from you and it comes as a "surprise" they are likely to flag it as spam.

I think that you need to have a really high quality free product that subscribers will get real value from. If it is rehashed rubbish they will expect more of the same and not want to receive anything else from you.