From March 12, 2006 to the middle of 2008, James Brausch was among the top bloggers of the internet business arena.

During these two years online, James amassed a huge following because of his no nonsense shoot from the hip style, dishing out a lot of value to the online business community.

His teachings, of course, were always backed with solid statistical evidence based on his own research as he grew.

If I remember correctly, James worked as a statistician at one time, and was a programmer before declaring his freedom from the work force back on September 1, 2003.

By June of 2008, James had migrated his business to a new domain – diegonorte.com, and was living in Costa Rica (and still is as far as I know). He sold his business shortly afterwards and went off into retirement with a one year no compete clause as part of the terms from the sale of his business.

Even though he’s been under the radar, it seems that he has been busy with some new innovations. He has developed an interesting product called IBB, or Internet Business Box. This is a complete blogging system, or more accurately, a business system with built in continuity.

Beyond that, I don’t know too much more about it at this point, but it appears to be structured as a membership oriented blog, with a complete system onboard similar to a traditional offline business franchise.

This looks very interesting indeed, and will warrant further investigation.

Since his retirement, many who really didn’t know much about James, thought that he was in reality many different people on the net. I’ve heard that he was Stephen Dean, Aaron Brandon, Kristi Daniels, and even Michel Fortin!

I’ve always gotten quite the chuckle from these types of ridiculous rumors, so for the heck of it, I decided to try an experiment. I found a photo of Aaron Brandon and used photoshop to superimpose a Hawaiian shirt onto Aaron.

Much to my surprise, with the Hawaiian shirt, Aaron Brandon looked exactly like James! Okay, this was just too weird, so next I took a photo of Frank Kern and again, superimposed a Hawaiian shirt on him… again, he looked exactly like James!

Now surely, this couldn’t happen with Kristi Daniels… but alas, the same result!!! Kristi became the splitten image of James. Now this was just getting downright scary.

“How could this be?!”, I asked myself. Later I consulted a well known professor from Cambridge University who explained to me that this is a simple result of the “Superman effect”.

He went on to explain that Superman was able to render himself completely unrecognizable simply by putting on a pair of eyeglasses. James Brausch has mastered this same technique, only in reverse using a Hawaiian shirt. Without the Hawaiian shirt, James is able to morph into anyone, anytime, at will!

So the shocking truth is, that James is everybody that you see online who has an internet business presence. Don’t believe me? Try the Hawaiian shirt test for yourself… You’ll be shocked, amazed, and maybe even a little terrified.

Once you recover from the shock, jump out to James’ blog and either get to know him, or get back on his list. Whichever the case may be, you can find him here:

http://www.jamesbrausch.com

Oh, and welcome back James!

Every so often, I stumble across something that stands out above the noise and makes me go “wow, that’s cool!”.

It’s an application called “BlogDesk” created by Johannes Oppermann. BlogDesk lets you write and publish new blog updates right from your desktop.

It’s compatible with all the major blogging platforms, including WordPress. In fact, the last post that I wrote was done in BlogDesk!

Adding pictures to your posts, bullet points, and any formatting is effortless the the BlogDesk WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) visual interface.

Typing a great looking article is as easy as pie. Writing blog posts is a joy with this software. It’s a nice, clean, intuitive interface which allows me to be creative without having to muddle with complex menus.

Setting this up to work with my blog was also a breeze. A setup wizard simply walks you through the steps, and does most of it for you!

Now I can simply write my blog updates, click my categories, and submit. Oh, & if you want to edit your update later after it’s already been published, you can do that too. Very cool.

One thing that I particularly like is how easy it is to insert pictures, audio files, pdf’s, etc. You can simply insert them from your computer, and BlogDesk will upload them automatically to your website when you publish your blog.

I’ve tried a couple other offline blogging apps, like Windows Live Writer from Microsoft. It was pretty good, but when I would publish, the formatting never seemed quite right, especially with pictures. so I stopped using it after a couple of times.

I can tell that BlogDesk will be my weapon of choice for blogging from here on out. You can also have multiple blogs in BlogDesk. Just create your article, choose your blog (or blogs) to publish to & voila!

There are a ton of other features that I haven’t even touched upon such as adding effects, resizing, & thumbnailing of your pictures, frequently used phrases feature, tag generator, and more…

Oh yeah, there’s just one catch… the price… its, er… ahem… it’s FREE! Yes, I couldn’t believe it either. This is a first class piece of software, take it from a guy who develops software myself. I would give it three thumbs up if I had an extra hand.

If you’re a blogger, and you haven’t tried this yet, go check it out. I think you’ll love it as much as I do. And if so, why not show them a little love while you’re at it.

Did you know that nearly everyone that jumps into the “make money online” arena spend tons of cash on how to do this, and how to do that?  Perhaps they’ll shoot out of the gate running and register a web domain & get hosting.  They might even go so far as to put up a web page with a few affiliate links (but not likely).

It’s sad, but true.  I would estimate that a good 98% out there never take any action whatsoever on the information that they purchase.  You might be thinking “well maybe that’s true, but I’m an exception.  One of these days I’m going to get moving and get myself online and making some serious bank, just as soon as I find the right system.”

Hmmm, I hope that everyone reading this blog succeeds.  That’s the point of being here, right?  The keys to success is based on two major factors.  Learning to market online, of course, but it must be followed through with taking decisive action.

This means stepping outside of the comfort zone.  This is unexplored territory, which is a scary place to be if you are to venture out into changing your future.

This is why 98% never actually follow through.  It’s more comfortable to keep ‘working on building a business’.  As long as you are ‘working on it’, you are not failing.  The down side of always ‘working on it’ is that you’re not getting anywhere either.  Before you know it, another year is shot and it’s time to make that new year’s resolution that THIS time, you are going to really do something.

If you fall in this category, do yourself a favor.  Don’t make a resolution this year.  Instead, stop what your doing right now and get that domain that you’ve been thinking about all this time.  Really!  I’m serious!  Go get it right now… I’ll just wait here until you return…

Got it?  Great….  What?  No we’re not finished yet!  Now let’s monetize it.  No matter what you heard, you need to DO something to make money.  Yes, everybody who is making anything off of the internet is selling something.

It could be affiliate marketing, or maybe you like to write and you created an ebook, report, or audio/video CD.  Ok, now let’s find a decent sales page with a similar product from another site and study it.  What is it that makes you want to buy their product?  Nothing?  Find another sales page.  Ok, now what is it?

Write out that sales page by hand to train your mind how to write decent copy and to be persuasive to your visitors.  This is a great way to improve your copywriting skills.

If you are into affiliate marketing instead, go out to some good affiliate review sites and do the same thing.  By the way, you can learn the ropes of affiliate marketing here.

Now download a copy of Kompozer and create your sales page.  Sign up for a Clickbank account and put your product into the affiliate system.  The cost to register your product is $49.  If you’re broke right now, get a PayDotCom account instead… Your first product is free to sell through them.

Paste your payment link into your sales page and viola! you’re in business!  See?  That wasn’t so hard.  Now you can drive traffic to your site.  That will be the subject of my next post.

Staying in a reactive cycle of broke and searching for opportunities is much easier than being proactive, getting out of your comfort zone, and going for it.

Remember what I’ve said before; being broke is a direct result of inaction.  Inaction to build your business.  Inaction to spend your money wisely, etc… etc.

Act on getting your online business started and you will quickly see that actually DOING is a lot easier than you think!

Last year when I first started submitting to blog carnivals, I often wondered if it was worth it to go through all the tedious work of looking through the list of several hundred blog carivals to find the ones relevant to my blog post.

To be effective, the best way was to start at the beginning of the drop down list and scan through each listing until you find a blog carnival relevant to your subject matter.  Select it, fill out the form and click Submit.  Then repeat the process until you’ve made it all the way through the list.  Usually, it took me about an hour to do the whole list.  I kept coming back because the results were really making a difference.

The problem was that since I didn’t want to outsource it (outsourcing time consuming tasks is good by the way), I would have to muster up the ambition and time to do it.  That didn’t always work out so well.

I finally reached the point where I thought to myself “there MUST be a better way, Ugggh!”

When looking for a solution for this problem, I made the most logical move… I Googled it.  I searched for “blog carnival submitters” and a zillion variations of it.  I found a number of blog carnival submission services & some weren’t half bad.  Robert Phillips was way up there on my personal list.  I was pretty surprised that there was no software to handle this task though.  Heck, even if I had a submission service, I would find this very handy!

Well, being that programming is one of my favorite past times (I know, I’m a geek), and making money is another, I did the next logical thing… created my own blog carnival submitter!  Anyone following my blog for a while is likely familiar with Xingla Pro.

This is my favorite piece of software that I have written and I’m quite proud of it.  Today I just officially released version 3.

Xingla Pro 3 has some exciting new features that weren’t available before.

For example, Xingla Pro 3 now has a Quick Finder search feature.  Before, you still had to troll through the entire drop down box to build your list.  By saving your list, you still saved a ton of time with Xingla Pro 2, but I was still haunted by the tedious process of building the list itself.

Now with the Quick Finder, you can type in a keyword relating to the type of carnival you are looking for and it will list out all the available blog carnivals for that keyword!  Then you can simply select and add to your new list, or your current one.  Yesterday, I built a list of 23 carnivals relating to “internet business” and “making money” in under a minute.

The next thing that I felt the new Xingla needed was some way to let you know when you had dead carnivals in your list.  Blog carnivals come & go, and before you know it, you have a list speckled with dead blog carnivals.  You might think you have a list of 30 but maybe only 22 of them are still active.

This is where the “Check Inactives” feature comes into play.  Now you can simply click a button and it will instantly scan your list for dead carnivals.  You will then be shown a list of the dead carnivals and asked if you want to delete them.  Pretty cool stuff if I don’t say so myself.

Other new features include a smart dupe checker to warn you that a carnival already exists in your list if you happen to be modifying your list with new carnivals.

After filling out the form fields, you can now simply press the ‘Enter’ key to begin the Auto Submit process.  Previously, you had to be careful not to do this or the “Submit” button would activate from within blogcarnival.com.  Anytime I fill out online forms, just by shear reflex, I hit the ‘Enter’ button as soon as I’m ready to submit.  Adding the ability for Xingla Pro to auto submit upon detecting the ‘Enter’ key press was a natural evolutionary step.  It’s a convenient alternative to clicking the ‘Auto Submit’ button.

The Auto Update feature has also been improved.  I noticed that in some Windows configurations, people were not always able to update smoothly.  Now it should be a breeze for everyone.  Xingla Pro checks for updates in the background when you start the app.

Also, I’ve had numerous requests to to have an affiliate program for Xingla Pro.  As of today, Xingla Pro 3 now has an affiliate program with a 50/50 split after merchant fees.  At the moment this is a $47 payout.

Finally, Xingla no longer requires the Microsoft dotNet Framework!  I rebuilt Xingla Pro from the ground up in an entirely new programming language that is Win32, and doesn’t force its users into installing the dotNet Framework if they don’t already have it.

Some of my customers didn’t have the dotNet Framework on their machines which made for a long beastly install as it auto downloaded from Microsoft and configured itself. Afterwards, it required a restart of their PC just for good measure.  It kinda reminded me of the classic double glove slap… Wap-Bap!

Xingla Pro has a sleek new look, and my testing indicates that it’s rock stable.  If you have a blog, or are running a submission service, you should check out the video on the sales page here:

http://www.KeiferSoft.com/XinglaPro

BTW – Next week I’ll be raising the price on Xingla Pro to $147.

The ten commandments in the Hebrew bible is something that if followed, can certainly help promote harmony in our lives and in the lives of others.  It can be considered a basic road map of principles on which to live our life.  Life doesn’t come with an owners manual, so often times we learn the laws of cause and effect the hard way.

Stick your finger in the fire and you get burned.  Guidelines for our lives can help us avoid some of those un-pleasantries by heeding the advice given by others.  The learned ones who have been down that path and have made the mistakes so you don’t have to.

Well now, I give to you the Ten Commandments of Internet Business.  There was no trip to the mountain top with a burning bush.   No golden tablets zapped out by a divine presence. Just something to help guide and keep you on the right hand path.

1. You Shall Take Action

Action is the key to everything. If there were ever a magic formula, it could be summed up in one word, ‘action’. Poverty is merely the visible manifestation of inaction.

2. Diversify Your Income Streams

Never depend on one source of income. Once you have a stable source of income such as from your own product, diversify into other markets. Also, add affiliate income for digital & physical products, as well as CPA to your repertoire.

3. Diversify Your Traffic Sources

Never depend solely on one source of traffic. SEO is great, but then you’re at the mercy of the Search Engines. Same with PPC (Pay Per Click). Add other strategies as well (Blogs, forums, articles, E-Zine advertising, banner ads, CPM, etc.).

4. Forsake Not Your Customers

Supporting your customers is one of the single most important elements of your business. If customer service gets to be too much of a bother for you, just start ignoring them. They’ll all go away eventually. Oh, and so will your income.

5. You Shall Not Offer Junk Content

The quality of your content directly reflects the quality of your products or service. Going that extra mile for good quality content will pay for itself forever. If your site is full of scraped, auto-rewritten content, then your visitor will immediately pick up on it and go elsewhere.

6. You Shall Not Enslave Yourself

Define your goals before you go into business. Is it more freedom that you want? If so, don’t get caught in the enslavement trap by trading your own skills for money. You’ll find yourself working 15 hour days for a paltry income. Outsource the work. Collectively, you can get thousands of hours of work accomplished in a week instead of just 60+ and killing yourself to boot. Leverage & scale = profit and more profit!

7. You Shall Not Bear False Info to Your Visitors

Never mis-lead your visitors with hyped up information, false promises and fake testimonials. This kind of stuff will catch up to you fast, and will ruin the one thing that you can’t fix… your reputation.

8. You Shall Not Spam

This one should be obvious. Not only is e-mail spamming illegal, it can get complaints filed against you that can get your domain suspended. Also, spamming the forums & blogs accomplishes little more than pissing people off.

9. Honor Your Mentor

If you have a mentor or marketing coach, listen to what they have to say and carryout their advice. You may sometimes think that they are wrong about some strategies, because they don’t fit comfortably into your perception of how your business should work. Just remember that he/she has already been to the mountain and back, and you are still the grasshopper preparing for the journey.

10. You Are Commanded To Prosper

Sometimes it seems that society has made ‘rich’ a dirty word. It’s OK to be wealthy. Don’t settle for a mediocre existence. Think big! Don’t limit your ambitions to making just enough to pay your bills with a little left over at the end of the day. Be set for life. Our cup was not meant to be empty, or simply to be filled. It is meant to be continuously running over with all the prosperity, joy and good health that the universe has to offer.

Don’t miss out on the wonderful things that surround us in life. Follow these guidelines for your Internet business, and success will be yours for the taking.

AmazingCloaker 5 has now been released.  If you are a current owner of AmazingCloaker, the upgrade is free and automatic of course.

There’s a lot of improvements in AmazingCloaker 5.  One of my main motivations for AC-5 was to get rid of the requirement for the Microsoft dotNet Framework.  I’ve found that many people who purchased AmazingCloaker didn’t have the latest version of the dotNet Framework and it was pain to have to upgrade or install the latest version.  This was automatic during the install, but could make for a long install and restarting the computer.

AmazingCloaker 5 eliminates the need for the dotNet Framework, and now for those without the Framework at all, AmazingCloaker will install, because it has been redesigned in an entirely new programming language.

It is much more streamlined in design, and uses a fraction of the resources without compromising the great features that the AmazingCloaker is known for.

One of the most powerful features that the AmazingCloaker is known for is the embedded cookie feature.  You can create an embedded cookie and add it to your affiliate review or landing page. Your visitor will be cookied with your affiliate info, even if they don’t click your affiliate link.

What this means is that if they bypass your link, or simply don’t bother to check out the product, but then think about it and buy the product directly from the vendor, say a week later… You still get credit for the sale even though your link was never physically clicked.

And why not? You still took the time to put up your review page and educate the visitor on the benefits of the product, so why not receive the credit that’s due? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how quickly that these recovered conversions can add up.

Link cloaking helps keep your affiliate info hidden so that people can’t simply replace your affiliate ID with their own.  This is called link hi-jacking because your affiliate link has now become their affiliate link on their own purchase.  They are reimbursed the affiliate commission, allowing them to get the product at a discount, and at your expense.

Link cloaking isn’t all about security.  Most readers simply won’t trust a review of a product with an affiliate link.  This is because the visitor naturally assumes that the review is biased because you want them to click your link.  Credibility is reduced and they may either move on, or bypass your link… just because.

A cloaked link looks natural.  This is because it is pointing to a redirect page which still resides on your own website.

If you’d like to know more about how link cloaking works, it’s covered in the AmazingCloaker Help file.

You can get it here:

http://www.amazingcloaker.com/AmazingCloaker_help.pdf

You can see the video of the AmazingCloaker’s features here:

http://www.AmazingCloaker.com

Every once in a while, a book or ebook comes along that stands out and makes you go “whoa!”.  These are the times when those defining memories are created through self revelations about yourself and the universe around you.

There’s many good books out there that tease you with bits of wisdom and useful philosophies that can help you down the road to enlightenment and self improvement.

More often than not, however, we are left a little short changed and wondering why the techniques outlined don’t quite live up to our expectations when we apply them to our own lives.

This is usually the case because, as warm and fuzzy as some books can make you feel about changing your life, they just don’t address the core beliefs that you may hold.

This is where Self-Transformation Beyond Belief, by George Lutz really stands out as one of the finest self transformation ebooks that I have ever come across.   The title really nails it.

In this book, you really get down to the very core of what it is that defines us.  We are defined by our beliefs.  Think about it…  we literally are our beliefs and memories.

Not all of our beliefs are good beliefs, yet we hold them because we misinterpreted or made a judgment on some aspect of an experience, which was then filed into our unconscious mind.

This limiting belief now has become a part of who we are, and all the positive affirmations in the world to change it aren’t really going to help, because deep down inside we still hold that core belief as being true.

If you’ve ever tried positive affirmations to reverse a negative belief, you know the feeling of what I’m talking about.  It’s the feeling that you would get trying to convince yourself that the sky is really green when you know it to be blue.

This ebook shows you how to get beyond those limiting beliefs once and for all.  Not to simply mask your limiting beliefs, but to ERASE and replace them!  This is the only true way to self-transformation, and take it from me, it works!

The stunning revelations that you gain through this ebook will forever change the way you see the world around you.  For the skeptic,  George Lutz backs up these concepts with quantum physics.  Science is only now beginning to see the profound interconnection with your physical universe and the divine.  George does a wonderful job at explaining these concepts in a language that you & I can understand.

I had the honor of crossing paths with George Lutz via this magical medium of the internet nearly two years ago.  George is an extremely fascinating, kind and enlightened soul.  He is a retired CEO of a technology related company.

George has had many highs as well as low points in his lifetime.  Depression was a condition in which he had to battle with for a good many years.  About 7 years ago, George’s life went through an amazing transformation.

Never again to deal with the devastating effects of depression and an unfulfilled life that can come as a result of being a slave to your own limiting beliefs.  Realizing that no obstacle can’t be overcome, including illnesses & disease.  These of course, are also manifestations of negative and conflicting beliefs.

His fascination with quantum physics, the universe, and what it is exactly that makes us tick inside, all seemed to combine to form a life changing experience.  An experience so profound, that now he must share this with the world.

This is a must read for anyone who truly wants live their lives to the fullest.  You can take control of your destiny! Don’t ever settle for having destiny control you.

Self-Transformation Beyond Belief is something that can forever change your life.  I would never waste your time or mine writing about this if I didn’t truly believe in this myself.  What’s more, after reading this ebook, you’ll almost feel guilty that you only paid $29.97 for this!

Do yourself a favor, if you want the most out of life, take a quick assessment of yourself.  Are you not completely satisfied with where your are in life? Do you seem to always end up in bad relationships? Loaded down with debt? Maybe your internet business is in the tank.

We all have some aspect in our lives that could use a makeover.  Take a time out from what you’re doing right now and pick up a copy of this amazing ebook.  You can get it here:

http://www.eraselimitingbeliefs.com

As you can see, this is not an affiliate link, and I don’t get a dime from the sales of this book.  I believe in George and the power of my own experiences with this wonderful ebook. The treasures that I have gained from this ebook are truly priceless.

I would like you to experience the power of George Lutz’s words as well.  Self-transformation in your own life is just a click away.

I was perusing Terry Dean’s online business blog today and happened across a hilarious post called “Do You Have HyperCopyitis? “  It’s not only funny, but it really drives home a point that is so prevalent in copywriting all over the net.

In a very witty way, Terry points out how such an overwhelming number of sales letters are so hyped up that it’s pathetic.  For example, the typical Paypal or Clickbank statements showing thousands of dollars a minute being cranked out because of their super secret system.  Yeah right… I always suspect, whether right or wrong, that those kinds of images are Photoshopped.

Other typical things like the yellow highlighter in every other paragraph, the eighty kazillion exclamation points scattered throughout the copy, and the endless run-on sentences which exhaust your breath, much like the one you’re reading now.

The main point, I believe, that Terry is making in his post is that many copywriters, or those of us who write our own copy, fail to connect with our target audience.

These hyped up sales letters have all the “cool” emotional trigger words, the neat little graphics, the fancy buy button with the cool check box (Yes Jack! Count me in!!!) next to it.  You can hype your product to sound like the biggest thing since sliced bread, but are you really relating to your prospect, or just shouting at him… Buy! Buy! Buy it nowwww!!!

Suppose instead of talking at your visitors, we connected with them instead?  Hmmm.  Imagine  empathizing with your visitors instead.  Gently and indirectly persuading them that your product is just the perfect fit to solve the problem they have.  Not because you jammed your offer down their throat, but because they drew their own conclusions based on how you connected with them.   Because you kept them hanging on to your every word, as one paragraph leads to the next, guiding them down a pathway straight to the buy button.

Terry Dean has interviewed Shaune Clarke, a copywriter who emotionally connects with his audience without gimmicks, exaggeration, or swipe files, as Terry puts it.

What’s even more amazing to me is that Terry Dean has done a 70 minute interview with Shaune Clarke revealing some of his most valued secrets.  This is an amazing interview which is in mp3 format AND transcribed into a .pdf (Adobe Acrobat) file as well, so that you can refer to either format!

How much you ask?  Only $10… You know I jumped on this one!  Terry Dean is known as one of the good guys & when you buy from Terry, you’ll always get amazing value.  This is easily the best $10 I’ve ever spent and you can bet I’ll be modifying my own web copy to test the results.

Edit Update - Terry Dean informed me (in this post’s comments) that the Interview with Shaune Clarke is now at $15.  As I elaborated in my follow-up comment,  this is $15 well spent many times over.  Even if you have to skip that pizza & coke with your buddies, or pawn that guitar, get this valuable information now.  The price may go up again soon.

Don’t let the affiliate link at the end of the post fool you.  I was really inspired by & believe in this product.  In fact, if you don’t wish to use my affiliate link, then simply go out to http://www.terrydean.org and buy it direct.

If you want to find out more about this, just click on my semi-blatant affiliate link now.

Kenton Newby has some great suggestions on automating your blog submissions in 4 easy steps.  He covers the value of submitting your blog posts to blog carnivals and has done a review of Xingla Pro as well.

Thanks Kenton, I really appreciate the feedback!

I regularly visit Kenton’s blog because it’s one of those sites where you can click into any random blog post and you’ll find great information.  Kenton has a unique gift for offering true value in whatever subject he’s covering.

Don’t just take my word for it, check out his online business blog and see for yourself.  The “Internet Basics” category is a great start.  Don’t let the category name fool you, there’s some great tips in there, even for the seasoned entrepreneur.

This guy is one sharp cookie, and I would recommend getting on his subscriber list right away.  Trust me on this one, you won’t be disappointed.

In my previous post, I was ranting about the steep price increase and asking if you feel the new features are worth the difference in price.  I received a very detailed response from Justin Premick from AWeber.  As promised to Justin I am writing a follow up to his comment.  His points were very well stated and I would like to share them with you here, along with my response.

Here are some excerpts from his comment that I would like to address:

I’d like to state here that we’re not trying to “stuff” you or sneak anything “in through the back door.” AWeber users who joined before May 20th will not be upgraded to the new features and pricing unless they ask us to do so. That’s the reason there was no email about a price increase… because for existing customers, there isn’t an increase. You don’t have to pay any more today for the same AWeber service and features than you did last month. We saw this as a non-issue, and felt that sending an email out about pricing “changes,” when in fact no customer’s pricing has changed, would just serve to confuse and cause undue panic.

I can see the logic in this, but I think the end result was the opposite effect.  It caused an undue panic with many customers because of the surprise.

After receiving Justin’s response, I donned my hip-boots and went trudging into the forum cesspool to see what others had to say about it.  Most of the “panic” that I saw from other subscribers was a result of this not knowing until after the fact.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one that missed the email.

With that said, I was shocked to find out how many people dumped AWeber because of it.  Why?!  AWeber didn’t force this on anyone with an existing account.  I, as a current AWeber customer am free to keep my account just the way it is.  This is a good example of that “forum junkie” mentality, which is the very reason I don’t let myself get caught up in these pointless debates.  It must have been a great month for GetResponse though.

“The price increase is pretty steep. When you average out the cost per lead verses the benefits that you get with the analytics package, is it justifiable? These factors may depend on the size & quality of your list, plus the range of products that you have to offer.”

Well said, though I think it has more to do with quality than size, and with how you use the tools available to you – in other words, how much more effective and profitable can you make your email marketing using these tools?

We feel the answer to that is “a lot” (which is why we developed these tools). One example: you’ll know who did and did not respond which emails, and you can segment and deliver appropriate emails to subscribers based on that knowledge. This alone has great potential to increase your sales and profits far beyond the additional cost for these tools.

I have to say that the power of these tools would have to be impressive.  You can compensate for having a small list with the ability to target and test your list with surgical precision.  You can also segment by time zones!

Until now, analytic tools like these were only available to high dollar businesses with the budgets to pay the big fees to their ESPs.  AWeber has now made these available to everyone.  It seems that the segmentation ability alone would more than pay for itself.  After all, quality will outshine quantity.  In terms of traffic conversions, 5,000 untargeted visitors isn’t nearly as good as having 500 highly targeted visitors.  The same applies to your list – quality vs. quantity.

You can now even get rid of those ugly AWeber tracking links from within your emails.  By using a simple javascript on your website, you can put a clean natural link into your emails which look much less threatening to the paranoid.

Justin also pointed out that for those with lists under 500 leads, the monthly price is actually lower.  $19 per month as opposed to $19.95 per month.

Justin also included a link to AWeber’s analytics info page which gives a great explanation of the benefits you can receive after upgrading.   https://www.aweber.com/users/billing/analytics_upgrade/1

The only flaw that I see at this point is that the tracking features seem to rely on javascript.  This could skew the analytics leaving out the subscribers who have javascript disabled in their browser.  The tracking links in your email messages are also accompanied by an invisible graphic that “talks” to the javascript on your target website.  Many of my own webmail accounts disable the “unsafe” images by default when I view them.  That probably disables this invisible graphic popup as well, thus not allowing the tracking info to get passed along to your stats.

Taking this into consideration, the overall results are still going to give you a pretty accurate assessment of your subscribers, especially as your list gets larger.  If we estimated a very high figure of 10% of your list having javascript disabled or email images blocked, You’d still have about 90% accuracy to work with.

In summary, I think that AWeber’s intention is to offer the very best marketing features possible to their subscribers.  Testing and targeting your campaigns are a must if you want to be successful with your email marketing.  It not only benefits you, but your list members as well.

AWeber has practically dropped this essential element of success right into our laps with this analytics package.  Now there’s simply no excuse not to test and target.  I believe that those who see the value and apply these tools, will be riding the new wave of success using email marketing 2.0.  I plan to catch this wave… how about you? Land lubber, or surfer?