do people tend to opt out more if it seems like your offering an incentive but hit them with an off.

Have you purchased the ebook or is it your ebook? Are you promoting it as an affiliate? Need a little bit more information.

Yup - I have a lot of experience. Here goes nothing.....

Let's see..... you have a landing page that looks like it offers an incentive but doesnt?

What the hell does that even mean?

Does it mean that you're using tricky wording in your copy that makes the prospect think that the 11 dollar ebook is FREE (or part of it) only to optin and get nothing but the offer?

If that's the case..... It's dangeriously close to a bait and switch.

I may be missing something but if I'm not youve already failed with the mere idea. In other words, I dont like the idea - at all - and THAT disdain is based on MY experience.

There are usually a number of ways to do any one task and they are...

1. The FAST way
2. The EASY way
3. The FREE way
4. The RIGHT way

I can tell you that I'm pretty sure this way isn't number 4 - which is the only way.

The right way to do it is to offer a freebie that gives value and is complimented by your paid offer. The way you want to do it sounds like sleazy "trickery".

I'm not trying to be a jerk but I'm not one to blow smoke up your ass either - and I just don't feel right about the idea.

If you are talking about making a squeeze page and offering something worthwhile for free, then following up with a paid offer, that is acceptable, not my style but I know many who use that approach successfully.

I prefer offering a quality product for free to get the optin then cultivate the prospect over a few emails offering quality information and advice and building trust, then if I send them a paid offer they already know, like and trust me and I am usually successful at converting them to a customer.

However if you are talking about deceiving people into believing your offer is free then it's not, yes expect them to opt out immediately and some will report you the the FTC. Totally not worth it. If you aren't ethical stick with your day job or whatever else you've been doing. This isn't the business for you.

If you offer something for free and then redirect them to a paid offer, ofcourse they will opt out

You'll have much more success if you give away a free report that presells the offer than the method you are using right now.

Is it serious, or has April 1st come round again?

"I'm trying to do business by deceiving people and wondering whether they'll mind"?!

Would you go on a seconded date with someone who lied to you about who they are?

be honest and be valiable.....they have to trust you

Hi,

Maybe you mean that you're explaining what your paid offer is going to explain
to them once they sign in and see that offer right away.

I've seen it where a video presentation is given on the sales page that explains
a system right there and then and what you do is present this via your squeeze page.

So if someone wants to see that presentation they opt in first then are taken to the
sales page that explains the system in much greater detail.

But the opt in page never says that it's FREE but rather explains that there is a
presentation on the other side that EXPLAINS XYZ system for example.

Maybe you have gotten confused or haven't explained it the way you wanted
to.

Don't get too hung up about the comments above I'm sure you'll learn from this
and be able to adjust and move on.

What you're describing sounds like bait and switch, unless I'm misunderstanding. Personally I'd say that's never the way to go. Forgive me if I misunderstood.

I think the OP is basically talking about setting up a 'gateway', for lack of a better term, that will lead directly to an offer after someone opt's-in.

I've done something similar to this for years... yes, it works, but you will have a lot of churn compared to a list you build using more of a 'standard' type relationship based freebie page so you need to be ultra aggressive in your follow-up. You will get unsubscribes and a few spam-complaints. You need to accept that going in. It comes with the territory as this is a straight up sales and sales follow-up model.

I've found this method very effective for promoting video sales pages... (I attribute this to the fact that most of my traffic coming from YouTube.)

Build the squeeze page with a headline that echo's what's on the offer page so it keeps with the 'flow' and be very careful of the words you choose to put on the squeeze page or some people will feel like the old "bait and switch". (personally I never use the word 'free' when building out these types of funnels) instead use phrases like: "Video Reveals How To...", "Discover The Method.." "Underground Presentation Uncovers..." etc.

There's nothing 'deceptive' about this if you're doing it right and eliminate the word 'free' from the entire funnel including the follow-up sequence.