If you haven't signed up for the special $300 Onpoint license and the W4/Crush contest, you have about 8 days left. If you are still on the fence about whether to try this amazing platform, we've created this thread so you can see firsthand what you need to be doing and SOON before you miss out Onpoint Signup Links To sign up for the $300 OnPoint license for 30 days you MUST go through here: http://kobeni.com/?page_id=955 What follows will be the most comprehensive, documented, Onpoint thread ever to appear on the Internet. I predict over the next few months many of you will be going back to this thread for setup help, overall strategy and software implementation tips, and contributing yourself. This thread will contain my own experiences with Onpoint, but I also want it to contain yours. If you have comments, questions, or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask here, it's going to be a giant melting pot of information. To those who have not yet tried or tested Onpoint, you might be asking "Is this just another ESP/mailing platform? I've tried a dozen, they're all the same.. what's so special?" Onpoint was designed by mailers. All of us have tried different software, and all of us have always thought "I wish it had THIS option. Too bad it doesn't let you do THIS, etc" This is where the rubber hits the road with Onpoint - they've somehow managed to put into their package everything you've ever wished for, and then some. In fact, to be absolutely honest, there are so many features and options, you have to take them in slowly, or you'll get brain fried. And for those who want a simple 1,2,3 mail option, it's there as well. The overall functionality is effortlessly put into a very easy to follow interface, but the reporting and data options can go more in depth than you ever imagined. This is simply a treat for the mailer who wants to know everything, down from what subject lines make the most revenue, to what time of day. If you're on the fence, or have already set up your introductory license, we're going to address the entire process from start to finish, so those who have started can make sure they're doing it correctly, and those who are thinking about it, can still jump on the bandwagon. I'm eager to begin this thread as one of my partners has already started, and his results are simply amazing. I plan to document the day by day strategies, as well as learning curves I've surpassed (to save you the trouble), as well as show daily revenues. I have set up both accounts with Crush and W4, however, I have asked my accounts are not used for the contests in any way. I wanted to give extra attention to our great sponsors for this event so everyone will see which offers are working (at least for us) and hopefully this will help the sponsors as well. So, as of right now I do know how to use the software, I've been trained, and I'm about setup and ready to begin shortly. For data, I'll be using a list from a feed we have set up through several of our websites that collect EDU, Payday, and General Promotions leads. Tomorrow I'll go into details on the data side of things (e.g importing, options, etc) For the purposes of this thread, I have set up 1 license, so those contestants who are starting off with 1 license know the possibilities/potential. I've run this data on other platforms so I know it's very good, so I'm not too concerned on the revenues coming off of one license, nor should you. In email, as in most Internet marketing, everything is built to scale. You should learn how to use the system month #1, focusing on optimization if you can, then begin to scale months 2-3. So, let's get started. Our server configuration: Quad Core 2.0 gz Windows 2008 Standard Edition - 64 bit 8gb of ram 100mbps network connection Make sure you don't go with a pipe thats 10mbps, it will just be too slow and your mail will take forever to get delivered. Here is how easy setting up the servers is with Onpoint: 1. You receive an email from your ISP with your server logins, etc. 2. You paste above email into a Support Ticket 3. Your server is activated and online within 1-2 hours (normally). I submitted my support ticket yesterday morning 9am, the server was online and ready to go 90 minutes later. This won't the first time nor the last I make this comment: Onpoint Support is second to none. You won't find faster, or better, anywhere else. The server is up, and tomorrow, we're importing the data. Stay tuned for my daily updates, and please feel free to share your experiences in this thread as well! And as a reminder once again: Onpoint Signup Links To sign up for the $300 OnPoint license for 30 days you MUST go through here: http://kobeni.com/?page_id=955
Agree with everything above. Also, they give you the ability to have, "standby" servers set up, as well as a backup server. The backup server is there so that you don't lose any residual clicks in the event you get shutdown. The standby servers are there so that when you do get shut down, you simply submit a ticket asking for whatever standby server you want to be activated, and just like that you are back up and running again. Those two things are a huge plus in my book, as well as some of the stuff they are currently testing, and should be rolling out in a couple of weeks.
Good info! I'd like to enter but I don't have my own websites for data collection. What's the best option for noobs who need data for the competition? I have purchased opt-in data in the past and had lousy conversions. I handed it off to an experienced mailer and he had similar results. Also, why all the server backups? Are the risks of having your server shutdown so much higher with GI?
Honestly, that's a bad way to do it. You should be hosting your redirect links on a different server (with a different provider) to begin with. You should assume that the sending server will be shutdown even if the chances of it going down are slim. I'm not saying what they're doing is omg bad, because it's not. It's good they offer that, but it could be improved. I don't want someone to think I'm trying to shit on them, because I'm not.
I see what you're saying but if you have a backup server in place (obviously with a provider that you don't use for mail) then does it really matter if the redirect links are hosted. Not being a smartass, just want to know if there is a difference. As far as I know you don't have the ability to host your own redirect links with Onpoint but they are always open to suggestions.
Say your box gets shutdown and you have to move over to your backup box. You'll have to change the DNS for the redirect domains so they point at the backup box now. Even if you have a really low TTL (1 hour) set you'll have to wait about an hour for DNS to propagate. That still leaves you with a bit of down time. On the other hand if you were running your redirects through a different server to begin with you would have 0 down time. EDIT: If you don't have the TTL set correctly and it's uber high you're screwed.
Looking forward to the update round. Has anyone run into this when creating a mailing? It's an offer with crush. Alert: The offer you have selected uses a network which is set to pull from the api, however, the tracking link is not in place for all the links. Please remove this offer from the mailing and edit it in the offer section to update the links.
Hey Fun... hit me up so I can check everything on our end. Did you add your Crush API key into their system? Not 100% sure how that works on their end, but you may need to do that...?
The link in your creative needs to have $$TRACK$$ in the appropriate spot in order to pass the tracking info on to the affiliate. Where and what querystring field depends on the network.
Our links would just be the standard tracking link, it definitely does not have $$TRACK$$ anywhere in it. Do you know where the appropriate spot is? Sounds like something we can easily change.
In theory, that way makes more sense. However, I've tried it that way and stopped after I ended up losing both servers on several occasions since spamcop reports would get sent to both the sending server ISP and the ISP of the server hosting the redirect. Also, If you get SBL'd, you risk getting both servers listed. You're also creating a footprint that can lead to quick DBL listings if you have multiple domains pointing to the redirect server. Once one domain gets listed, any others you point to that redirect server will get listed pretty quickly. In the end, it created more problems than it solved, at least for GI mailing.
This is the reply I just got from Kobeni: This is just a warning, it will not affect his mailing, BUT, the API is a key feature we offer which basically allows mailers to see which list did the exact $ amount.
You wouldn't see the $$TRACK$$ on your end. $$TRACK$$ just tells onpoint where to place the tracking code. With the networks I use, it's the c1 field. So on the end of your link, you would put &c1=$$TRACK$$.
You can try adding it into the s1= . With our links you can add up to &s5= and our system will track whatever variables you put in there from a click and conversion stand point.
