February 23, 2001
How To

Major Consumer Brands Test Online Co-Registration; Top 3 Tips to Do it Safely

SUMMARY: No summary available.
Hershey's is testing it. Adidas has been using it for a while now. Travelocity's marketers love it. And according to some experts, co-registration may be the fastest growing online ad medium of 2001. What's it all about?

Ever noticed special opt-in check boxes for other companies' offers when you've signed up for something online -- perhaps at MacAfee, Mastercard, or Hotmail? That's co-registration, aka online lead generation. Mitchel Harad, CEO GetRelevant, a co-registration ad firm, says, "It's been around a long time, but it wasn't available on many big sites until about six months ago. Now it's probably the fastest growing component of cost per acquisition (CPA) marketing online. On the email side you can rent a list for 25 cents per name, or with co-reg you can own a name for 50 cents. It's not too much math to figure out what to do if you're going to send more than one email."

However, Harad warns marketers, "There are a lot of jokers out there burning advertisers." Here are his top three safety tips:

1) Don't Buy Opt-Outs: Instead of asking registrants to specifically opt-in for your offer, some sites may just pre-check the box, forcing them to opt-out -- or worse yet, pre-check one general box for "Get all offers" dumping their names into a bunch of lists. Harad says these names are generally much cheaper than opt-ins, sometimes as low as five to ten cents per name. But he says, "You're taking a huge risk with your brand name. Consumers may think you are a spammer."

2) Only Pay for Validated Names: The reality is that most people are not great at typing. In fact when consumers type in their email addresses for offers, 20% of them on average make a typo rendering the address useless. So, make sure your co-registration firm either validates all addresses or only makes you pay for the names that your company can validate. It will save you a lot of money.

3) Make Sure You Can Turn off the Spigot Quickly: Once your offer is placed on a few big sites, you might be surprised at how incredibly quickly names come in. So, before the campaign begins, make sure your partners and/or service firm are able to turn offers off quickly. Otherwise you may find yourself stuck with the bill for thousands of names you never anticipated.

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