The Truth in Advertising

LET THE TRUTH COME OUT A WHITE PAPER FOR ALL SUPPLIERS WHO SEND EMAIL BLASTS A must read!

We’ve confirmed that there is a possibility email blasters in the promotional products industry are vastly over-reporting stats from their email blasts. We’ve heard this from several Suppliers who advertise with us and our email blasting competitors. Furthermore, we’ve seen the documents supporting this claim.

Let me provide an example of the discussion with a Supplier who shared their stats with us.

This Supplier received a report from one of our competitors stating this email blaster sent 65,000 emails to Distributors which resulted in a 16% open rate. The email blaster also said they had generated 900+ click-throughs to the Suppliers website. These are impossible numbers...they are simply fabricated totally unrealistic.

How can you prove that what you are paying for is real and not fabricated?

Very simply. Verify from YOUR side: Your webmaster can tell you in just a minute or two.

Here’s how.

The click-throughs that were reported in the above example--the 900+--WILL ALWAYS BE VIEWABLE AS A REPORT ON YOUR WEBSITE’S REGISTRY. Meaning, your webmaster can produce a report that accurately details if Distributors did click through to your website 900 times on or around the day that the email was sent. If not, you are being duped.

There’s your proof—it’s very easy for your webmaster to pull this information, just call them on the phone--but make sure that your webmaster takes your daily regular clicks out of the total. For example, if your website gets 300 click-throughs daily and your email blaster is reporting 900 click-throughs you should have a total of 1,200 for that day.

If after deducting your daily clicks you should have the approximate number of clicks-throughs that were generated by that email blaster. If those numbers don’t closely match (within a 100 or so), then you ought to get your money back...because the click through’s to your website are the money clicks.

Let me make a comparison.

When a Distributor walks by your booth at PPAI and looks at your products but doesn’t allow you to scan their badge, that’s the equivalent of an “open or unique open” in emailing terminology. They see your stuff but it’s just not enough to make them want to come into your booth.

When a Distributor walks into your booth and allows you to scan them, that’s the equivalent of a “click-through”. Remember: All click-throughs are recorded on your server...so you can use this information to keep your email blasters honest.

And don’t think that anyone can run up your clicks...they can’t because if the same IP address appears over and over again--like 20-30+ times--then you know someone has been up to no good and is just clicking on your website to run up your numbers. You CAN get where a Distributor clicks in many times from an email, but certainly not over 5 from the same IP address.

This is the reason we supply the email addresses of those Distributors who click through after we send your email campaigns; it proves we actually received those leads. We include the time and date stamp so that your webmaster can compare. Providing those emails with the time/date stamp is concrete proof that we don’t lie.

So in ending, do you want to pay for fake click-throughs or get the real ones that can be verified from your website/webmaster?

Let the truth be told… Ask your webmaster to compare click-throughs.

It’s Time for the Truth about Email Campaigning in our Industry! Pay for what you get!