Hello everyone, I am new to mailing and very excited to start to sink my teeth into this new industry I knew nothing about a week ago. I was brought to this forum by a friend of a friend who eagerly showed his lavish income through facebook pictures and when asked as to how he makes so much, he pointed me to this forum, along with wickedfire and blackhatmagic. Me being me, I know if this particular individual can make that kind of income, I surely can do the same. What excites me about this industry is that you get out of it what you put into it. It does not seem to cater to the lazy or selfish, but if you're able to put in the time and dedication, you can easily turn your effort into income. Coming from a scientific background (BS in chem., focused my career on industrial chemistry), I am not in my element (pun not intended) but I hope to learn the business and become a self sustaining mailer like this board offers. Let me start with what I have. I am currently affiliated with a marketing company who offers a range of ads and ways to capitalize off them. From buying products to inquiring about car insurance, this seems to give me a wide range of offers. With that, I knew I had to do research in finding an ESP. After looking into many common names I saw across forums, I pm'ed a member of this forum who typically does not deal noobs but once I explained my background and my dedication to trying to make this work he seems happy to work with me (I am not sure if he wishes me to disclose who he is, so I am not going to mention it unless I have his permission). With this, he offered a month of his client along with 2mil of GI data to get myself started and really see if this is what I am cut out for or not. I do not want to call him a mentor (unless he says so), but he made it clear he does not want to see me waste my money and fail. I have my servers, ip's, domains all ready (and by ready, I mean accessible, as I'm still noob I have a lot of research to do) as well as two very close friends who are computer science majors (one specializing in coding and another in networking) who have agreed to help me out with any of that in case I get over my head, so if I don't know the answer to something on the technical side, I have the resources to figure it out. To try and summarize what I have going so far, I have taken SG's sticked post and answered everything that I could at this time. There are still many questions that me and the member who I plan on buying the client from so please don't see my answers as being ignorant or not having done the research behind it, they're just unanswerable from me at this time. I will also try to update this thread with my breakthroughs and short comings as I want to be able to lead by example and help along the next guy who goes through this. Noobkings daily post really helped me ask a lot of questions through his discovery and the information given by members here so I am willing to do the same Data: Is my data scrubbed with a professional, reputable third party? I am looking to purchase "premium" data from a member of these boards that seems to be reputable. It's GI data, but should I still scrub it? Is my data littered with dead accounts, hard bounces, etc? I'm assuming its not, again I do not have the list yet nor have I decided to scrub if necessary. Do I know where my data comes from? (demographics) No Does my data include recipient opt in information (opt in timedate stamp and IP) to provide in case of complaints? I am currently not sure Is my data mostly General Internet? (no comment...) Currently for my first set, it looks to be all GI IPs: Are my IPs clean from the start? (did you check a blacklist site to confirm?) Once I figure out how many IP's I will check, I was told that for GI its not as important as well as there is no need to warm them up for worry about domains that have been active for 30 days. GI was explained to me as "Throw shit at the wall and see what sticks" Are feedback loops set up on my IPs/domains wherever possible? No, how important is this? Is RDNS properly submitted to IP Provider? Once things start moving and I have my data and client, I will make sure this is done Is your IP provider mail friendly and are they aware of your intended use? Do you have a dialog with them or do you act shady and covert? They are currently not aware, nor have I bought my IPs yet Does a single DNS zone file link all your IPs? Not sure Is your Credit Card on file with the IP provider? If so, for your protection, cancel the card immediately and offer payment via paypal, especially if the IP provider has terms stating they charge for complaints. No Did you ask for a /27 or more to start? Don't ask for 60 IPs to start, no matter how bulletproof your justification.. No Mail Server: Does my mail system clean my list by removing hard bounces, removal requests, feedback loops, etc automatically. Yes Is my mail servers main IP part of the same network as my mailing IPs? (If your ISP shuts off your IPs due to complaints, down goes your mailserver too, say bye bye to your cleaned data) I will make sure its not Can I extract clickers and openers from my mail system? Yes Can I use DKIM SPF and other methods to legitimize, justify the authenticy of my mail? Is this automated or do I have to set up DNS myself. I am not sure about this question, is this something I would ask my client provider ? Can I control HOW SLOW I can send? Warming up IPs in the beginning is key. Yes, I was informed warmping up IP's/domains for GI is not required. Can anyone confirm/deny? Will I have to generate thousands and thousands of dollars a month just to pay for the resources to keep this mailing mechanism online and how does this factor into my warm up process? No, but the goal is to generate thousands and thousands a month. I have removed the ads section as that was all done with help from someone else and I don't want that information (unless I learn something) to get mixed in with what's offered here. My #1 biggest question currently is data. Unless everyone has there own generating sources, why is it so difficult to find a reputable data provider? Is everyone rev-share or once you find that provider, do you not share with others? As someone starting out I plan to purchase my data until I move into the phase of generating my own but this is where I feel noobs can get lost, burned, and really turned off by the industry which is why I am trying to be so so careful in what my first initial invest is in. Thanks ahead of time for all the help! As I also learn more about my set up, I will fill in the answers to the above questions
Seeing as your plan of attack involves GI - I'd suggest that you start buying more servers now because you'll lose servers and you shouldn't wait for this to happen. Also I'd suggest buying a server with 2-3 IPs on it for a backup server. In the event you lose a server you'll lose all that traffic too unless you roll over to a b/u server. You'll never mail from this server so get a cheap one, should be around $50/month and ask your platform provider how to set this up. Good luck!
i have been a noob and I still think i'm noob now thought earned some money. There are some companies and you can try impressionwise. I never got a SBL after cleaning from them. I think what you get may be raw data. These are not problems after you get them. No need for GI I've met some guys who warmed up IPs. But in general, NO need for GI
I want to point out that I am starting with GI as that is what is avalible to me. As being new to the game, is that what you vets would recommend? I see many lessons I can learn from GI data even if the big boys are the money makers. Re-reading my sentence, I have many lessons to learn through everything I do with mailing lol
Just waiting on my servers, then will get them up with the ESP, purchase data, and attempt the first drop
You will need a lots, I go through domains really fast, like after every drop. The more domains you have, the better, here is what you should expect for every drop 1 domain - $3.99 each => assume you make 5 drops a day => $20 a day 1 IP - $1 each = > 5 drops => $5 platform - $20 a day so everyday no matter what,you have to make $50 minimum in order to survive in this game.
Also noobs, something I have learned. LOOK INTO THE INTEGRITY OF YOUR DATA: Raw=Not scrubbed. Basically a really expensive lottery ticket with even worse odds. If you buy raw, always try to get it scrubbed before you use it. Deliverables= Then next tier up, scrubbed data that will typically get to its destination. Openers / clickers = There is record that this data does open messages they get. The best chance of getting your product across. If someone more experienced would like to chime in please do, but this is my newest learning
hope this lesson didn't come at a high price. And don't think that just because someone says "this data is deliverable" it means it's been scrubbed. Deliverable from 6 months ago is nowhere NEAR clean! Your opinion of o/c data is slightly off as well IMO. Just because they clicked or opened on the last guys offer doesn't mean shit for you. This is THEE LAST type of data you or any other noob should consider buying.
Why do you say O/C should be the last a noob should purchase?Is it because It runs a high premium and we are not savy enough to make the most out of it?
Unless you know what type of campaigns the recipients opened/clicked on it's pretty useless.. Also just because the source of the data was able to deliver to those domains on the list and get someone to open/click, doesn't mean you'll be able to. I usually use the open/click data from my own platform to see which domains i'm gaining traction in and focus more resources at those.
Nick, (I am asking not only on behalf of myself, but to have it avaliable to noobs who read my thread) would you say then Its smart for new mailers to buy scrubbed data, see what opens and clicks from that data, and using that information focus on whats working and what is not?
I'd tell you to look for deliverable data that's been recently scrubbed AND delivered to. Not taking your IP space or any other variable into this equation, you're better off knowing your data is reasonably clean and recently deliverable. This will at least let you start mailing and testing your creative skills. Raw scrubbed is still just cleaner raw data.
Another noob question of the day. Do you guys have a system in how you pick your domain names? Is there certain stuff that makes it through? Others that don't? Is that part of the creative spices found in mailing? Any input is appreciated
stay away from "offer/s" - maybe you'll like this http://www.servermind.com/domain-name-generator.html
Also, isn't there a certain number of characters to avoid? I cant find the post here but I think it was 13
Thanks Push, back to what mrlucky said with doing 5 drops per day. Say I purchase 1mil of scrubbed GI data. With that 5 drops per day figure, do you drop 5 different ads using the same set of data? Do I divide that data into 5ths and throw a different ad at each of them? I guess my root question is when starting out with small (in comparison to the big boys) amounts of data, how is it reccomended that you blast them? Or is this something you learn trial by fire.
