What Does This Mean?

From: Amrit Hallan <amrithallan_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Fri 08 Mar 2002 19:38:57 -0600

What's "co-registration?" Someone posted the following message
from my web site. Since this is online advertising list, I think
I can get a clearer picture by posting it here. Does this person
want emails from me? Thanks for your time.

[Note from Moderator: A co-registration is when someone makes
a number of opt-in or opt-out offers on their registration web
page...the web page is often a registration page on a high
traffic site or a place where one would register for a contest.
Someone buying co-registrations would make an offer on the
page, and then they would collect the email address of the
person registering if they opt-in to their offer (or fail to
opt-out). To see examples of both opt-in and opt-out
co-registrations, take a look at the page
http://www.bay9.com/contest/login/? (be sure to scroll
all the way down).

In the message below, I've removed the name of the company
to protect the "guilty." I also received the same message,
as I'm sure many of our other Online Ads readers did. I've
included the reply I sent to them below their message.
--Cliff]

>> Message Begins <<

We are looking for websites that do co-registration, or agencies,
or list brokers that facilitate relationships with sites that do?
Also, we would be interested in data gathered from an opt-in
email campaign. We are a reputable company with a large budget,
and are looking to do business with other good companies.

If co-registration is not an option, another possibility to
consider is, perhaps in one of your outgoing emails (to any of
your lists/ members), you might include a simple URL link (or
'submit' button) that allows your users/members to 'opt-in' or
choose to have offers sent to them? Our opt-in copy would read
something like:
If you wish to receive special coupons, discounts, and freebies
(from the stores you trust!), enjoy free lotteries, contests, and
reward programs, from [company name omitted], please click on the link
(or button) below.

This way you're not so much selling your membership information,
but rather providing your members the option to choose to have
some useful information sent their way (from a very reputable
company)- we pay your company for each user/ member who freely
chooses to 'opt-in' to our quality service- and in such a
permission based deal, everyone wins.

Typically we're looking for a site that can bring us a minimum of
10,000 names per month and we can go as high as 2,000,000 per
month. We are looking for the following information: full name,
email address, physical address (which includes street & US
only), and gender (could be in the form of Mr./Ms. or
Male/Female).
We pay $[deleted by moderator] per opt-in lead (or
$[deleted by moderator] per opt-out lead).

Thank you for your time and assistance.

Sincerely,
[Name deleted]

>> Message Ends <<

[Reply sent to them by Moderator:

I had already been contacted by your firm regarding having
us help them in acquiring these leads. However the person
that contacted us failed to mention 1) the extensive list
of sites/brokers that you were already working with; and
2) that you were simultaneously contacting a large number
of other agencies besides ours with the same request. The
result was that we invested a considerable bit of time in
trying to support your needs that was wholly, and
needlessly, wasted. Had you been honest and forthright
with us from the beginning, we could have probably been of
some real assistance to you... but the result was that you
left us, as you have left so many others (including all the
firms that we contacted that were being simultaneously
bombarded with multiple requests for the same buy from many
different agencies), with the impression that you are NOT a
reputable company.

I also personally receive SPAM from your company on a regular
basis... using email addresses that were almost certainly
acquired by harvesting the Network Solutions domain
registration database, not by opt-in or opt-out co-registrations.
Again, this does not paint a picture of your company as being
reputable.

I hope that you can clean up your act in the future and do
things on a more professional level. At present, the
reputation of your firm is seeming being trashed by your
practices.

------- end of message

The moral of the story folks is to hire one agency to make
your buy. If they don't do the job to your satisfaction,
then hire someone else... but hiring 5 or 25 agencies at
once to make the same buy among the same sellers is
neither prudent nor reputable. --Cliff]


Amrit
Web Site Development - http://www.bytesworth.com
Copywriting and Copy Editing - http://www.amrithallan.com



Received on Fri Mar 08 2002 - 19:38:57 CST