As the Co-Registration space gets more and more crowded, one basic law continues to prove itself, over and over again: As any space gets more crowded, the amount of businesses giving said space a bad name will rise exponentially.
Why is this? No one really knows. Perhaps too many people think that a quick buck can be made, so they jump in, without a true understanding of what they need to be doing. Perhaps they don’t care.
Whatever the reason, it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the cart. Under that logic, I present the top ten rules for Co-Registration – What to do to ensure you don’t become one of those companies.
1) Be 100% Opt-In. Don’t force registrants to opt-in to any offers. What will force get you? Absolutely nothing – except anger and mistrust from the consumer and your clients.
2) Don’t make yes or no decisions mandatory. You should never have to force your registrants to select “yes” or “no” to anything. There should always be a “skip” option
3) Survey, survey, survey… But then stop. There are many sites out there that put their consumers through endless pages of offers. In some cases they show the user the same offers over and over. Show some restraint and keep the consumers’ experience in mind.
4) Don’t resell opt-in data to anyone but the advertiser to whom the registrant opts in. The registrant trusts you and said advertiser, not seven other companies.
5) Don’t data dump. If I want a pizza with Pepperoni and Mushroom, and you give me olives and pineapple, I won’t be pleased. What makes you think I won’t have the same emotional reaction with my data? Be honest, and give your client what you sold them on.
6) If you’re selling your client data, make sure it’s all genuine opt-in data. If you mix real data with bulk data, they’ll know. They’ll never trust you again, and they won’t trust the medium. Word travels fast.
7) Clean and format your data properly. It’s incredible that some publishers have no data hygiene process in place. If you don’t have the ability to clean or format your data, outsource. There are services that charge a nominal fee for such services.
8) Don’t abuse brand names for the sake of getting the customer in. If you’re giving away “Joe’s House of Music mp3 Player,” don’t call it an iPod.
9) If you’re giving something away, give it away. If you don’t, you’ve destroyed not only your credibility, but also the credibility of the space. This just isn’t helpful. In fact, it’s even worse than forcing someone to register.
10) Finally, have an EXCELLENT customer service plan in place. Respond when you say you will, and always answer questions from customers and clients within a timely fashion.
The bottom line: If you do not follow MOST of the Best Practices listed above your advertisers will cancel their campaigns and your registrant data will be useless. You’ll be sitting there going, “but it seemed like it was so easy!” Skydiving seems easy, too – fall and open your chute. But would you try it without anyone giving you any good advice? Probably not.
This isn’t rocket science. Bu it is valuable information. Co-registration, when done right, makes everyone happy – the registrant, the client, the publisher. But too many people are doing it wrong. Why be one of them, when the way to do it correctly is right in front of you?
A cofounder of Permission Data; Eric is in charge of Advertising Sales. With over 7 years of online sales experience, Eric has held senior advertising sales positions at both startup and established companies in the online industry. Prior to starting Permission Data, Eric was the East Coast Sales Director at Net2Phone, Inc, a publicly traded company (NASD: NTOP). He oversaw the East Coast Sales Team, which covered the entire Eastern US territory and was responsible for over $10 million in yearly revenue.
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