Be very careful of utilizing Opt-In Online Marketing to help enhance the "hits" you receive on your website.
Although they will direct some traffic to your website, it is not nearly the amount that you pay for, and the quality of the leads are poor, at best.
Opt-In Online Marketing claims to offer targeted and non-targeted e-mail campaigns, that are supposed to be SIC code specific, if needed.
I ran two campaigns. The first directed at medium-sized businesses (targeted: 40,000 emails), and the second campaign directed at small-sized businesses (non-targeted: 6,000, 000 emails). I ran them back to back. At the time, I was offered a 10% click-through rate on the first campaign (4,000 clicks to website), and a 2% click-through rate on the second campaign (12,000 clicks to website) [Note: they have now lowered those numbers somewhat, due to my complaints]. I set up the website with "statcounter", which is the preferred stat counter their website recommends, and also received SEO statistics from my webmaster, as well.
On the first campaign, I received 1,500 clicks on the website (out of the guaranteed 4,000 clicks), with no business phone calls, or business from the advertising whatsoever. On the second campaign, I received about 4,500 clicks on the website (out of the guaranteed 12,000 clicks)—once again, with no business or phone calls from the advertising whatsoever. I am offering a business to business service, so I find it very hard to believe that with over 6 million e-mails going out exclusively to businesses, that I would not receive a single phone call—not even a phone call to take them off the mailing list! Also, from a percentage perspective, receiving 6,000 clicks on a campaign of over 6 million e-mails is equivalent to a click ratio of only 1/10th of 1 percent!!! Comparing those statistics with other companies that offer e-mail campaigns—the competition is saying the "average click percentage" is anywhere in the 10% to 25% range, for a tailored or targeted campaign! To actually get a percentage that low indicates to me that the opt-in email addresses used are either: mixed (non targeted), old, worldwide, or show up in the spam folder.
When I questioned Opt-In Online Marketing about the results, they gave me some "song and dance" about how everybody counts "clicks" differently, and according to their records, they exceeded the click count. I went with the more generous of the two stat counters I was using on my website, and found them to be within a 10% difference of each other (in other words, my web host would have about 1,500 clicks to about 1,650 from statcounter).
Furthermore, when I asked Opt-In Online Marketing to prove to me that they sent out 6 million e-mails and/or received the clicks-to-website that they claim I received, they refused to do so. I asked them point blank, 3 times, if they sent out 6 million e-mails, and they refused to answer every time I asked.instead, they asked me to "prove to them" that I was receiving such low stat-result numbers. When I did, by sending them both my webmaster's numbers and statcounter's numbers (on a daily basis!), they still refused to make any accommodation for me, or explain the huge discrepancy in numbers.
It wasn't until I threatened to report them as a fraudulent company, that they offered to run the campaign again. They re-ran the e-mail campaign again, but stopped it after two days, and I only received about 1,500 clicks-to-website—again, with no business or phone calls. The net result is that I received less than half of the "clicks" that I paid for, and they made no overtures to follow-up with the success of the campaign, or show any concern or regret for their lousy performance. Their only guarantee they have is that they will start the campaign within "5 days" of signing, and offer no satisfaction or money-back guarantee. I even requested that they refund me in part, and they refused to do so.
[Also, be careful of the method of payment, as they encourage direct withdrawal from your checking account—which is very, very risky! ]
After studying the IP addresses in greater detail (from the stat logs), I found out that many of the clicks were coming from overseas (Lima, Peru, Manila, Philippines, and Brazil and the like), which doesn't do my business any good, as we are a U.S. Based company only.
THIS IS THE SCAM: This is what you need to be aware of. For every "million" e-mails that you pay for, the cost increases. For example, the cost of 1 million e-mails cost $99 and 8 million e-mails cost $399. Sounds like a bargain, right? The rub is, that it doesn't matter how many "million" e-mails you pay for, Opt-In Online Marketing is not going to send out anywhere near the number of e-mails that you are paying for, and then stop the campaign short. If you do the math, a 1/10th of 1% click-rate on even 8 million e-mails, is only 8,000 clicks—yet, even though you are paying for 160,000 clicks. You may actually be getting the 10% clicks-to-website, but based on a much smaller campaign that they are sending out. They are delivering only the "bare minimum" number of e-mails to achieve their arbitrary and inflated numbers, and then stopping the campaign. I doubt that they have a database of any more than 100,000 e-mail addresses for any "million-size" campaign—thus, the more you spend with them, the more you are just throwing your money away.
Ask them to prove it, and they can't. Ask for a refund and they won't. Pay for millions of e-mails, and you will only get thousands. And worst of all, ask for their marketing to increase your business, and it won't happen. No phone calls. No e-mails. No business. No good.
Don't get duped by their misleading and fraudulent advertising tactics. Avoid them like the plague!
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