List Building Diary to 3K subscribers [dedicated to Max]

[karupoiss]

See it as gaining experience. You have not yet many subscribers, better now than later.

Yeah, it's still frustrating though

You're obviously doing something wrong. Could be the keywords you use in the content, could be your domain or another "red flag."

GetResponse is one of the most reliable emailing services out there, we have clients with 50k+ subscribers using the same thingm dozens of affiliates etc. Open rates are amazing, CTRs are nice and so on.

I know, that's why I went with them. But I will not go back as "wait 2 weeks to get a response" sounds the same as "fuck you" in my ears + all the clusterfck of losing support tickets and taking sweet ass time to respond.

Check the words you are using on your email. For sure you are using one word or more that is not allowed.

I'm not actually. It's the confirmation email that goes to spam. You can't change the content of confirmation message that much. I have added only 1 line in the beginning where I mention the free ebook name (no word in it is spammy or red flag kw). I don't even mention "free" anywhere.

I talked with Aweber support and he said that hotmail is very unpredictable and the worst provider out there. Aweber gives my emails 0 spam score also. The support guy told that the email also landed to inbox for him. I changed absolutely EVERYTHING, even the lander and the IP-s where I subbed for the list etc but still in "junk".

So after more than a week of messing around with hotmail I give up on hotmail. I just added a very detailed "tutorial" on my "thank you" page what users with Microsoft accounts should do to whitelist my email if it lands in junk.

I'm like 99% sure that there is nothing I can do and it's hotmail being super gay. Anyways, that's what I did today. Spent the entire day talking with support of my aweber account and hosting, created new lander on new domain for testing, new email accounts, changed the email titles, content, new email accounts to test inbox rates etc.

At least I now know that I have tried everything

DAY 14
SUBSCRIBERS: 1​

 

[LoftPower]

Best of luck to you on this. I will be sure to follow along!

 

[BloodyNinja]

Ok, so today I put together the first 3 follow up emails, introduction email and the freebie email. Then I tested the different email providers. Hotmail sends my confirmation email and subsequent emails straight to spam folder. Whoopie fucking dooo. I talked with the support and he just gave me tons of posts and stuff to read so I will do that tomorrow. Gmail takes it sweet ass time to deliver the first email, like 6-10 min.

Also, the clicks are sometimes counted and sometimes not, so.. the stats for the campaigns will be probably really inaccurate. Though.. I guess I can still try to improve stats when I have enough subscribers as they would average out. The biggest problem though atm is the hotmail automatic spam folder thing.

I will try to sort that out tomorrow and change my thank you pages a bit.

what do you use for mailing?
do you have spammy words in your template like win, game, get, sign up, revenue, click now, money etc?
what kind of links do you include in emails?
do you use embedded pictures?


good luck on your journey

 

[karupoiss]

what do you use for mailing?
do you have spammy words in your template like win, game, get, sign up, revenue, click now, money etc?
what kind of links do you include in emails?
do you use embedded pictures?


good luck on your journey

I have 0 spammy words in my email title and in content. No such words as you wrote, not even words like "click here" or "free". I use Aweber for mailing now. I have no images in the email and my confirmation message has a confirmation link in it and in the footer the aweber system adds my landing page url also (new domain, hasn't been spammed before). I also tested it by using completely different domain as my landing page also. No difference - mail went for Microsoft accounts in the junk.

 

[BloodyNinja]

I have 0 spammy words in my email title and in content. No such words as you wrote, not even words like "click here" or "free". I use Aweber for mailing now. I have no images in the email and my confirmation message has a confirmation link in it and in the footer the aweber system adds my landing page url also (new domain, hasn't been spammed before). I also tested it by using completely different domain as my landing page also. No difference - mail went for Microsoft accounts in the junk.

Do you use HTML template? Is it custom or downloaded from internet?
Do you use same domain name as before? When you switched to aweber, did you try to use a new domain name? Did you use new contact details along with the new domain?
Never used Aweber, so will also ask this: do you have DKIM and SPF set up for your domain?
How did you check email template for spam words? If used some kind of automatic checker, did you consider that they might not see different forms of the same word (like game or games)?
Do you use shared or dedicated IP?

Can you inbox at least one email or every email starting from #1 goes to spam?
Did you try sending personal looking emails in plaintext? How it went?

The most probable reason is triggering spam filters by association. Hotmail "remembers" that your campaign went to spam once and puts all consequent emails from THIS campaign into spambox. If that's the case, you only have to understand, what's the footprint or similarity that allows hotmail to identify all emails of this campaign.

May be there's better explanation, I am just writing what noticed while performing hundreds and hundreds of tests with gmail, hotmail and yahoo.

 

[karupoiss]

Do you use HTML template? Is it custom or downloaded from internet?
Do you use same domain name as before? When you switched to aweber, did you try to use a new domain name? Did you use new contact details along with the new domain?
Never used Aweber, so will also ask this: do you have DKIM and SPF set up for your domain?
How did you check email template for spam words? If used some kind of automatic checker, did you consider that they might not see different forms of the same word (like game or games)?
Do you use shared or dedicated IP?

Can you inbox at least one email or every email starting from #1 goes to spam?
Did you try sending personal looking emails in plaintext? How it went?

The most probable reason is triggering spam filters by association. Hotmail "remembers" that your campaign went to spam once and puts all consequent emails from THIS campaign into spambox. If that's the case, you only have to understand, what's the footprint or similarity that allows hotmail to identify all emails of this campaign.

May be there's better explanation, I am just writing what noticed while performing hundreds and hundreds of tests with gmail, hotmail and yahoo.

I use the HTML format for emails but they are just text, no images or anything.

I used the same campaign setting that I used with getresponse. The first test mail went to inbox with hotmail, no problem. I then changed the confirmation email title to a custom one and then it went to junk for another hotmail account. I did not use any weird words for the title. Only "spammy" world could be "ebook" in the title.

I set up the SPF to my domain that is in the "from" field.

I just used the aweber built in spam score checker.

I'm not sure what .. IP.. My landing page is on shared hosting but the emails are being sent by Aweber.

The first test went to inbox, all messages for hotmail. When I changed the confirmation email title to custom title, the emails went to junk. All of them. I changed the confirmation email title back to default one "confirm you subscription" or smth but still in junk.

I did not try plain text.

I can honestly not think of any linking thing between the campaigns. The only one is that I use the same Aweber account and the Aweber server might use the same IP.

Also, as I said before, the live support guy who was helping me, told me that the mail went to inbox for his hotmail account.

 

[Elon Snup]

Check if your IP is blacklisted with

https://rblwatcher.com/check/YOUR.I[COLOR=#333333]P[/COLOR]
and
http://multirbl.valli.org/lookup/YOUR.IP.html

then check your spam score by sending an email to

http://www.mail-tester.com/

Then you got the "Junk Email Reporting Program" at this page

https://mail.live.com/mail/troubleshooting.aspx

 

[BloodyNinja]

then check your spam score by sending an email to

http://www.mail-tester.com/

free email spam score testing services are mostly honeypots
I would stay away from any of them.
It's not hard to check everything manually if you know what to look at

 

[BloodyNinja]

I use the HTML format for emails but they are just text, no images or anything.

I used the same campaign setting that I used with getresponse. The first test mail went to inbox with hotmail, no problem. I then changed the confirmation email title to a custom one and then it went to junk for another hotmail account. I did not use any weird words for the title. Only "spammy" world could be "ebook" in the title.

I set up the SPF to my domain that is in the "from" field.

I just used the aweber built in spam score checker.

I'm not sure what .. IP.. My landing page is on shared hosting but the emails are being sent by Aweber.

The first test went to inbox, all messages for hotmail. When I changed the confirmation email title to custom title, the emails went to junk. All of them. I changed the confirmation email title back to default one "confirm you subscription" or smth but still in junk.

I did not try plain text.

I can honestly not think of any linking thing between the campaigns. The only one is that I use the same Aweber account and the Aweber server might use the same IP.

Also, as I said before, the live support guy who was helping me, told me that the mail went to inbox for his hotmail account.

here's a plan for you:
1. reg a new domain (3-4$ with Honey plugin and Godaddy)
2. put fake contacts into domain reg info, which were never used before
3. connect domain to aweber, setup SPF and DKIM (you may use your current account)
4. change subscription confirmation email but put just "bla bla bla" into subject (not kidding)
5. If it inboxes, change confirmation email's subject to your desired subject EXCEPT "ebook" word. Put "bla bla" instead of "ebook". Send this email to a NEW hotmail address, which should be prepared before (not made 1 min ago)
6. If it inboxes, try sending with "ebook" word in the subject to a NEW hotmail address.
7. If it inboxes, try sending your actual campaign letter, once again to a NEW hotmail address.

If at some point your template (confirmation or campaign) stops inboxing, make a new email address and send there a plain letter like "Hey, it was nice to meet you, we had great time together bla bla see you next time. All the best, Name". You should use a NEW alias for sending this test.

IF if inboxes, then your template is triggering the filters.
IF it doesn't, then you have some problem with IP or domain reputation.

If might seem complicated but once you perform this cycle 1-2 times, you will start getting a feeling how to "debug" whatever is triggering spam filters.



Overall it seems like either
a) you had been sending test emails to the same address, what triggered spam filters (and now they are reacting to everything similar to that initial situation)
b) or you used some spammy word, what triggered spam filters (and now they are reacting to everything similar to that initial situation )

 

[karupoiss]

If at some point your template (confirmation or campaign) stops inboxing, make a new email address and send there a plain letter like "Hey, it was nice to meet you, we had great time together bla bla see you next time. All the best, Name". You should use a NEW alias for sending this test.

Thanks a lot for this. I will test it out. What is a "new alias"? New "from" email address or the same "from" email address but with different name in the name box?

Also. When I was using getresponse then I did send a several "test" emails to my email account in hotmail. Though they were sent via the "test" option that getresponse had. At one point the emails started going to junk. So there could be definitely be a connection. Why did it let me inbox the first time to hotmail when I changed to Aweber though.

 

[BloodyNinja]

Thanks a lot for this. I will test it out. What is a "new alias"? New "from" email address or the same "from" email address but with different name in the name box?

Also. When I was using getresponse then I did send a several "test" emails to my email account in hotmail. Though they were sent via the "test" option that getresponse had. At one point the emails started going to junk. So there could be definitely be a connection. Why did it let me inbox the first time to hotmail when I changed to Aweber though.

New alias is a new address like [email protected], [email protected] etc, which may still point to the same box.

Did getresponse send emails with a word "test" in subject? Emails with subjects like "[[[TEST]]] bla bla bla" sometimes even don't make it through. So I guess that might have triggered filters for the first time.

 

[karupoiss]

So I was dealing with my other project in the meanwhile and had drinking days where I was hung over and didn't do much. I am back now and I want to test the hotmail spam filters like the BloodyNinja told me. I am afraid I can't do the title testing like that as aweber takes 1 day to review your confirmation email title manually and they automatically rejected my "bla bla bla" title.

What I have done is changed the title so that it does not use the specific words my old title used and exchanged the "ebook" for "PDF". I have left the first half of the title of "Please Confirm Your Email To Get" the same.

I have registered a new domain and connected the SPF records but I can't get any help from anywhere on how to connect the DKIM records. The live support of Aweber told me to take contact with API departement.

I would have never thought that with a paid ESP I can get so much trouble with inboxing a simple email series.

 

[karupoiss]

Ok, what I did today was being pissed off at live supports: on aweber and godaddy support.

Godaddy support was awesome: I explained like half an hour what I want.. and in the end he asked if I wan't to buy email service from them I was polite enough not to say "go fck yourself" but I did give him 0/10 feedback.

Aweber support was as useless: I explained that there is no connection with this new campaign to the old one and my emails land in junk. His answer was as good as: God's ways are mysterious. Aka.. hotmail spam filter is unpredictable. Like THE FCKKK?? Aren't they having close relationship with hotmail, yahoo, gmail etc ESPs so that emails from aweber would land in the inbox? What the fck am I paying for them? The confirmation email I sent was on new list, new "from" email (new domain for the email also), the title nor the content included the same words my last campaigns did. Just, straight to junk. And the support told me the same he told me last time: on my end it landed in the inbox. Yeah right, dude.. it sure did. I have tested this shit with 12 new hotmail accounts, created from different ip-s on different times and all land straight to junk but you have a magical hotmail account.

Then he told me that hotmail has only 5% market share so I should not worry.. and gave me a website.. that said that outlook.com email CLIENT has 5% marketshare. That doesn't mean that people with android email clients don't use hotmail accounts.

So basically, they don't give a shit. Wipppi.. My only conclusion is that hotmail spam filter connects somehow the campaigns via the same account with aweber (some id that stays the same) or the ip is fucked.

I don't know if I can cancel my aweber trial account and create a new account with the same user details and cc info.

 

[sosolly]

This definitely doesnt look like you are dedicated to max.
Forget about hotmail,start getting subscribers your domain + ip will gain reputation over time and you will start hitting inbox every where.
And hotmail is not even that big anymore,in 2009 yeah it was,but now most people use gmail/yahoo

Just beceuse you use aweber doesnt mean you will hit inbox everywhere
Hitting inbox is not as easy as having a good letter.

You should focus on getting subscribers and stop wasting time on the things you are wasting it right now.


And aweber support is actually always very helpful.

 

[karupoiss]

This definitely doesnt look like you are dedicated to max.
Forget about hotmail,start getting subscribers your domain + ip will gain reputation over time and you will start hitting inbox every where.
And hotmail is not even that big anymore,in 2009 yeah it was,but now most people use gmail/yahoo

Yeah, I am having trouble with being dedicated to max. Why should my domains + ip get reputation over time if all hotmail/outlook/live emails will get my mail in junk? In junk = nobody is going to open the follow up emails. I'm not sure how the domains + ip reputation works. I thought things like IP reputation is for your own email servers but not with aweber and such. The stats that I found while searching online was that microsoft email still has like 50% user base (last year stats). These number can of course be wrong but I am sure as hell that hotmail/live/outlook combined have a huge market share and as I will be using paid traffic mostly to get subs to the list then this would be a huge part of my list that is dead from the start. So.. it only makes sense to me to get this shit sorted before getting subs.

 

[GreenBird]

day 13 : 3 subscribers
lol
you are wasting your time

it shouldn't take that long

 

[kemba996]

good journey!! keep updates

 

[Elon Snup]

day 13 : 3 subscribers
lol
you are wasting your time

it shouldn't take that long

You are wasting your time posting on that thread. Go take some action.

 

[johnny westen]

hi, OP good luck with your journey!!

a couple of tips from a marketer that has build many multiple thousands subscriber lists

Ask people to sign up to your list using gmail, simply state something like "please enter your best gmail adress" or "use a gmail adress to ensure delivery of your free gift" also you can write on the thank you page to "please whitelist you, the sender to ensure deliverabilty and make sure to check the spam folder"

Thank you pages are overrated there is not really a need to use a thank you page, this is actually one of the most valuable moments to make money on, you have their fullest attention now, so instead of just saying thank you (you can monetize the thank you page with offers but they convert at a very low percentage) send the new subscriber directly to a CPA offer, immediately making money of your subscribers even before they receive their freebee, as alternative you can create a simple thank you page (your gift has been send to your email bla bla bla) and then redirect the page after 5 sec to a CPA offer relevent to your niche

in most of your emails ask your subscribers to react or ask questions and make sure to ALWAYS respond to them, this is very valuable because you will really connect with your subscribers this way.

monitor your open and CTR rates of emails and if subscribers dont open your emails for a certain time (for you to decide) DELETE them from your list, this might sound odd, but a list of 100 actual active and interrested subscribers can make you more money then some peoples lists of thousands subscribers, no need to pay your autoresponder service for people that dont read your emails anyway

NEVER ever send your subscribers to an offer you dont fully support just to make money, you should really be dedicated to helping THEM and you will reap the benefits from that type of attitude sooner than later.

use blogging, video marketing, social media, add swaps and forum marketing as methods to reach people and get new subscribers, in combination these are some of the most effective and long lasting methods to reach your goal.

you can actually build a list of 1000 in a month this way, starting from scratch!

good luck!

 

[karupoiss]

day 13 : 3 subscribers
lol
you are wasting your time

it shouldn't take that long

If you would have read the thread instead of just looking at numbers then you would know that I have only made 20 forum posts for getting subs and that's it. 98% of this journal has been messing around with ESPs and trying to get mail to land in inbox for Microsoft emails.

hi, OP good luck with your journey!!

a couple of tips from a marketer that has build many multiple thousands subscriber lists

Ask people to sign up to your list using gmail, simply state something like "please enter your best gmail adress" or "use a gmail adress to ensure delivery of your free gift" also you can write on the thank you page to "please whitelist you, the sender to ensure deliverabilty and make sure to check the spam folder"

Thank you pages are overrated there is not really a need to use a thank you page, this is actually one of the most valuable moments to make money on, you have their fullest attention now, so instead of just saying thank you (you can monetize the thank you page with offers but they convert at a very low percentage) send the new subscriber directly to a CPA offer, immediately making money of your subscribers even before they receive their freebee, as alternative you can create a simple thank you page (your gift has been send to your email bla bla bla) and then redirect the page after 5 sec to a CPA offer relevent to your niche

in most of your emails ask your subscribers to react or ask questions and make sure to ALWAYS respond to them, this is very valuable because you will really connect with your subscribers this way.

monitor your open and CTR rates of emails and if subscribers dont open your emails for a certain time (for you to decide) DELETE them from your list, this might sound odd, but a list of 100 actual active and interrested subscribers can make you more money then some peoples lists of thousands subscribers, no need to pay your autoresponder service for people that dont read your emails anyway

NEVER ever send your subscribers to an offer you dont fully support just to make money, you should really be dedicated to helping THEM and you will reap the benefits from that type of attitude sooner than later.

use blogging, video marketing, social media, add swaps and forum marketing as methods to reach people and get new subscribers, in combination these are some of the most effective and long lasting methods to reach your goal.

you can actually build a list of 1000 in a month this way, starting from scratch!

good luck!

The asking of gmail address is good, I even thought about that, but I'm afraid a lot of people don't use gmail as their first email and if they use some secondary gmail account then they will log in, get the freebie and then never log back into the gmail or log in very rarely. I want the person to use the email that he/she uses the most.

I even added step-by-step instructions on my thank you page for how to whitelist my email if people use hotmail.

Thanks for other tips as well.