eZines you can advertise in Free

Easily confused with Safelists, there are many eZine services

that sell Solo Ad mailings to their big, loosely harvested lists,

and sometimes they’ll even offer a free emailing just to get

your business. Of course they want to sell you a much bigger eMailing down the

road.

It is common to see an ad from a company that looks like a legitimate eZine

“collector” company, offering a free Solo Ad submission to a list around the size

of 5,000 – 50,000 recipients. I haven’t tested too many of these because of the

hoops they make you jump through and the long lines you have to stand in.

In my experience, these companies have the power to collect and sort such a list

out of their main, untargeted list and use it as described above in a sort of “bait &

switch” routine.

I can’t verify if they all do business this way, but I have seen it happen more than

once. The free mailing will go fine but you’ve got to buy a second mailing… So

you choose a package, pay $67 or more for the mailing, and a month later when

it’s your time to be featured, the much larger list doesn’t convert nearly as well as

the little one did!

Let’s not overlook that you really have no way of knowing how many recipients

got the email, or if they were safelist boxes, completely untargeted, etc… So any

time you see the words “eMail your ad to 2,000,000 people for only $X,” just

remember that there are many more than 2 million safelist email boxes online!

The only way to take advantage of this technique is to keep using the “little lists,”

by jumping from service to service, never paying for a bigger mailing. However,

there is usually a few weeks or more of waiting in line to get through each time,

and from time to time an outright scam can occur.

One of the few times I attempted this I used PayPal to send the company $1 to

“hold my place in line.” They said I’d even get the dollar back so I said ok, not

even caring about the buck.

Three weeks later the 5,000 subscriber mailing went out, and I got a paltry 115

people to show up on my very closely targeted website. Naturally I wasn’t going

to sign up for a bigger package, so I didn’t contact them again, not caring about

the fate of my $1.

I won’t make that mistake again! Apparently their fine print said that the $1 was a

“down payment” for the bigger solo ad later, and if I took no action within 30

days, my default package was the $89 Solo Ad to their 150,000 general

subscriber list! My PayPal account was charged $88 a month later and I had no

clue what it was for!

Getting out of these kinds of situations, especially when dealing with companies

that don’t have a phone number, is just not worth anyone’s time. Making this

technique work requires a lot of searching and a thick skin against hassles.

If you want to try your luck, however, simply google the phrases “Free eZine

mailing” or “Free eZine Ad Blast.” You’ve been warned though. It’s a tough road.

If you are determined to use eZines for advertising (there are many advantages,

such as proven, targeted spenders) then I suggest paying for it. At least we now

have a very helpful service called

Amigo

that lets you pay per clickthrough, so

your ad budget is never wasted and can be monitored closely.

See “

Safelists

” and “

Blasting

” for more on this subject.