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In setting up your Autosponder follow-up series, which do you "Test"?

by Bkelly301
4 replies
Hello all...I have a few questions for ya.

I'm just now finally starting to focus on email list marketing rather than trying to monetize via. my website.

I'm currently creating a nice series of follow-up emails, in which I will be sprinkling in affiliate offers. I intend to have about 20 emails in the series.

Now, as far as "testing" goes. Once the follow-up series is complete, I am thinking that I'm going to experiment with some paid traffic methods. However, when it comes to testing, I'm a bit confused as to how to test what is "working".

1.) If I'm paying to drive traffic to my opt-in page (which will be the home page of my content-filled website in which I give away my free offer), what would be considered a "successful campaign"? The amount of people that sign up for my list?

2.) The first email just gives away the freebie. The subsequent emails will contain the affiliate offers. Some emails have a mix of non-affiliate links and affiliate links. The non-affiliate links are a necessary part of the free valuable content that I'm giving away to my list subscribers. Anyway, Aweber tracks "clicks"...meaning that ANY LINK in the email is counted as a "click". I believe I'm only concerned about the clicks on the affiliate links. How do I use this information for testing?

3.) Is there anything else that I should be doing differently? I think I'm going about this in the right way!

Thanks!
#autosponder #followup #series #setting
  • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
    Think of your testing protocol as a chain, a series of linked items.

    Work on one link at a time.

    In this scenario, you want to test various traffic sources, landing pages and subscription offers until you reach the point of diminishing returns. Optimize your opt-in conversions. One of the pitfalls of affiliate marketing, at least as concerns testing, is that once you get that click on your affiliate link, your ability to track that person is pretty much gone.

    Use a custom field to track the traffic source through to the affiliate click. With paid advertising, you're looking for the lowest cost per affiliate click since you can't track which clicks actually buy.

    Then watch the series itself, as a whole. Is there a spot where your open rate drops? Test different headlines, maybe drop that email altogether if it doesn't ruin the continuity. Does the open rate pick up again?

    Within the emails, you should be able to track which link gets clicked. Get with Aweber tech support to find out how.

    There are many more things you can do, but starting out, I'd stick with working on the opt-in rate, the open rates and the affiliate clicks.

    The main thing is to not change a whole bunch of things at once. If you do, you won't know which changes are good and which ones are bad.
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  • Profile picture of the author malcsimm
    Also, down the road, consider investing in Office Autopilot. It's $297 a month. Once you are earning that it's worth it to get a better email marketing service because it's can quite easily double your open rate.

    I double my own open rate by resending my emails two extra times to people who don't open. Once set up this is completely on autopilot.

    If you are doubling your open rates then you should expect to double the sales from your emails too.

    OA is also much more user-friendly than Aweber for email marketing.

    Malc
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    • Profile picture of the author Bkelly301
      Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

      Use a custom field to track the traffic source through to the affiliate click. With paid advertising, you're looking for the lowest cost per affiliate click since you can't track which clicks actually buy.
      Thanks a lot! It sounds like you know a lot about testing. I'm a bit confused by the above quoted bit. How exactly would I test this, since I'm essentially paying for the traffic to come to my opt-in page....From there, there will be an entire series of emails sent to them, so how would I calculate/test the lowest "cost per affiliate click"?

      Originally Posted by malcsimm View Post

      Also, down the road, consider investing in Office Autopilot. It's $297 a month. Once you are earning that it's worth it to get a better email marketing service because it's can quite easily double your open rate.

      I double my own open rate by resending my emails two extra times to people who don't open. Once set up this is completely on autopilot.

      If you are doubling your open rates then you should expect to double the sales from your emails too.

      OA is also much more user-friendly than Aweber for email marketing.

      Malc
      Wow $297 a month compared to the $19 that Aweber charges...once I'm earning, I will definitely look into that. For now, Aweber it is.

      Thanks for letting me know about that program though!
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        Originally Posted by Bkelly301 View Post

        Thanks a lot! It sounds like you know a lot about testing. I'm a bit confused by the above quoted bit. How exactly would I test this, since I'm essentially paying for the traffic to come to my opt-in page....From there, there will be an entire series of emails sent to them, so how would I calculate/test the lowest "cost per affiliate click"?
        Sorry about that, chief... (Are you old enough to get that reference, or did I date myself again?)

        Here's how I do it (not Aweber, sorry again)

        When someone arrives on my landing page, a bit of code grabs the referrer if available and sets a variable containing that value (usually the URL of the referring page or 'email').

        I add a hidden field to the opt-in form specifying the value as the variable name.

        When someone opts in, that field is recorded to the database along with the other information.

        Here's where you might need someone from Aweber to help you.

        I self-host, so the database is on my server. Look at the link tracking data, and correlate it to the source of the opt-in.

        I don't do it often anymore, as it's a bore compiling the info by hand. But if you're going to pay for traffic to make affiliate sales, doing it in the beginning could save you some money.
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