VoucherCodes.co.uk bought out for reported $40m

[Frog]

Where is the controversy?

Nothing wrong with not having an opt in... I don't have one in some parts of my own voucher site where it suits me to leave it out. I'm just making the point that often these fake emails won't be discarded as there is no way to immediately discard them if you are mailing in house and not double opting in...

 

[aZooZa]

Where is the controversy?

Nothing wrong with not having an opt in... I don't have one in some parts of my own voucher site where it suits me to leave it out. I'm just making the point that often these fake emails won't be discarded as there is no way to immediately discard them if you are mailing in house and not double opting in...

You know best. I only know better. If you want a lesson in the technicalities of email marketing, PM me.

 

[Frog]

Thanks but I have no real interest in email spamming... haven't sent a single email to the email list and don't intend on the doing it for the forseeable future

 

[aZooZa]

Thanks but I have no real interest in email spamming... haven't sent a single email to the email list and don't intend on the doing it for the forseeable future

You really don't get it do you. I'm not talking about spamming. I'm talking about leveraging your assets. If you never intend mailing your list, I think you're missing the plot.

 

[Frog]

When "leveraging those assets" is sending emails to a dodgily collected list then yeah I'd say that was spam.

Maybe in the legal sense its not spamming. But when you tricked someone into going on your email list in the first place, and never used an opt in, as far as I'm concerned its spamming if you then email them something they never wanted in the first place.

And before anyone makes the point of why am I still doing it - I'm not. The only email collection going on now is via aweber, double opt in.

 

[aZooZa]

When "leveraging those assets" is sending emails to a dodgily collected list then yeah I'd say that was spam.

Maybe in the legal sense its not spamming. But when you tricked someone into going on your email list in the first place, and never used an opt in, as far as I'm concerned its spamming if you then email them something they never wanted in the first place.

And before anyone makes the point of why am I still doing it - I'm not. The only email collection going on now is via aweber, double opt in.

Ahh - I see from your signature why you just parried with Greywing about about EMD's. From a guy with 500+ posts and one sale, I'm not listening to you too avidly. If you know about aweber you'd understand the opportunity. Why are you using them if you don't mail your list? Or are you simply acknowledging what I said in the first place? Don't be obtuse/obscure. Business is all about (as I said) leveraging your assets.

 

[Frog]

Ahh - I see from your signature why you just parried with Greywing about about EMD's.

Whats the relevance? "payday loans" will never have those type of links that I was talking to Greywing about... its a generic phrase rather than a brand.

From a guy with 500+ posts and one sale, I'm not listening to you too avidly.

What the hell does the number of domains I've bought or sold have to do with anything at all...

 

[aZooZa]

Frog - you're a troll. I've no more time for you. I responded to you about aweber and your naivety about email marketing. Did that strike a nerve? And now you want to start a diatribe with me?

 

[dougs]

5.2 million is the cleaned list

Some points:

We spend a fortune on finding deals
Yes we use our deals well to create our list well
We clean our list every few days via a large amount of methods which any email company will help you do.

The ultimate thing is what you do with the list and that can be seen in 3 things:

the bounce rate
the open rate
the unsubscribe rate

I am pleased to say our staff have got this to be some of the best our email providers and advisers have ever seen

Doug

 

[edo]

The ultimate thing is what you do with the list and that can be seen in 3 things:

the bounce rate
the open rate
the unsubscribe rate

Doug

What sort of bounce rate, open rate and unsubscribe rate should someone be aiming for do you think Doug? Or does it depend on the sector?

Cheers,

Ed

 

[Edwin]

Doug, if it's not "commercially sensitive" information, would you be able to share which email solution and which hosting company you're using?

 

[TinkyWinky]

The ultimate thing is what you do with the list and that can be seen in 3 things:

the bounce rate
the open rate
the unsubscribe rate

Especially the unsubscribe to subscribe ratio... !

A great email database will add a large multiplier to the value of the "website business" - as whatever happens to your SERPs positions, provided you manage and communicate with your existing database in the right way you will keep the revenue coming.

Good luck with it all Doug.

TW

 

[jimm]

which hosting company you're using?

Discount vouchers site is hosted on an IP which is within the DediPower managed hosted range.

 

[mat]

Worth noting that they now also have control of other vouchercodes.co.uk sister sites including restaurantvouchers.co.uk

 

[domainseller200]

Worth noting that they now also have control of other vouchercodes.co.uk sister sites including restaurantvouchers.co.uk

 

[dougs]

hosting and email providers

We have just moved hosting from dedipower where we ran numerous servers for different parts of the site

We now run on almost everything on amazon cloud...or will do soon.

Simple reason is because of the growth of the business, plus when our newsletters go out the load on the server explodes.

As for email providers we use SmartFocus/EmailVision but the choice is simply based on these factors:

size of pipe they have to the internet ( small pipe means long time to deliver)
tech they have to manage the lists ( we are building our own systems so this is not the issue)
costs
how much they love you

There are about 10 companies with offices in the UK who can do this.....Dunc uses Epsilon I believe, Mark used emailVision and MoneySavingExpert were using the The Bunker. There are loads of US companies. It's just a matter of doing the rounds....there appears little between the big players.

Edo - Open rates etc depends on the sectors, but:

Expect 50% of the list to respond poorly relative to the other 50%
50% good list - people quote 5-7% open rate, we smash that
50% poor list - people quote <1% open rate, again we smash that

The click out rate is dependendent on whats in the email......free money/free sex gets higher

The goal is simply to analyse the data and get the right email into the right email box. This is what every email provider is trying to do, so there is a huge amount of work going on in this area by many clever people. Think behavioural targetting for email.....thats why Groupon/VC.co.uk multipliers are so high.

Aswell as these lists being good at producing money they will be capable of behavioural tagging people in real time....that is massively valuable, because these lists put you "in play", ie you get tagged prior to doing google searches or even being on a merchant site.

Hope that makes sense

Doug

 

[Edwin]

Brilliant info, Doug! Thank you.

 

[WaftyCrank]

I echo Edwin's statement, thanks for the info Doug.