Are ZIP and EMAIL Offers Worth It?

We’ve all seen them, and most of us even promote them. Yes, I’m talking about those high paying offers that pay for JUST and EMAIL address or a ZIP code. How can these networks pay so much money for just one field? Easy, they put the user through a massive signup process (usually 50+ coregs), then ask the user to complete several CC required offers for the last section. In the end, they make a ton of money off all of the visitors that put in their legit email and contact info, then requested any of the coreg information… and since most of these users will never complete the signup process and terms to get their free prize/reward, they end up banking.

I made a post about a year ago called, How to Get a Free 42 Panasonic Plasma TV!” by signing up to one of these offers, then completing all of the annoying offers at the end of the process. Back then it was easier to complete and qualify for your reward and to complete offers. Now most of the offers have put in a new clause in to the terms and conditions, saying that you have to stay subscribed to the services you are required to signup to, for at least 6 months. I can only imagine the backend advertisers were getting a ton of signups that were only staying for the free trial, or canceling within a weeks time… I know I did!

In the end, I did end up getting my free flat screen tv… but it wasn’t without a hassle. After having to signup to a ton of offers, I had to make sure they were all cancelled. Not to mention completing the offers ran me around $200 in shipping costs and trial fees. To make things even worse, since the TV is worth more than $600, anyone that received one, also receive a 1099 tax form which meant you were going to pay taxes on the $1699 TV you were sent. So in addition to paying the $200+ to join all of the offers, you also had to pay taxes (few hundred bucks) on the TV.


In the End, I did get my 42″ Panasonic TV… but it really wasn’t “FREE”!

So the answer the question, “Are ZIP and EMAIL Offers Worth It?“. As a marketer, Yes… they convert well and make good money. I’m sure they do well for the back end advertiser as well, since we have seen no shortage on these offers for years now. (For the record… the EMAIL submission converts better than ZIP submission… which is why they usually pay more.) As a customer, the offer probably isn’t that great anymore, especially since you can’t cancel any memberships or services for 6 months. The only program I’m actually STILL using as a result of the Free TV signup process, is my subscription to BlockBuster Online.

In any case, I saw these offers being promoted all over the place and wanted to see if they were really true. I got my free flat screen tv, then I told some friends about it and they got theirs too. Have you promoted any of the ZIP / EMAIL campaigns, or attempted to get a free product of your own?

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43 Comments

  1. What are the most effective ways of promoting these type offers? I haven't ever had success with them, but it seems like it should be easy with the low bar for pay.

        1. dude you pretty much stole the landing page in your case study! that is wrong!!!!

  3. I'd also like to know how to promote these offers.

    There are affiliates who say using polls and surveys are a good way to promote email & zip submits.

    The problem is whether or not the networks considers polls/surveys incentivized traffic. Some affiliates have been booted from networks because of this. I asked a couple of networks if it's ok to do poll or survey type sites to promote these offers and both said to submit the site to have it ok'd first, to be on the safe side.

    1. I’ve heard polls do well too… it’s all about how cheap the traffic is you can get to the offers, since they only pay around $1-$1.75 per lead.

    1. I think it's because of promotion. Email submissions are usually by email send outs only… so the people clicking, are seeing the actual advertiser creative.

    2. I have found that zips convert fairly well. i havent done an email submit yet.

  5. Very interesting experiment- getting a $1699 TV for $400 and a little hassle is definitely a great deal- if your time is worth it and you actually need a new TV.

    1. But now he said clauses are changed. Have to remain subscribed for 6 months? Then it wont be that easy.

  6. I used to do quite a bit in the “freebie world”. I did sites ranging in the “referrals” methods (like the original freeipods.com) as well as the “do it yourself” type sites like this where you complete all the offers yourself.

    As Zac mentioned, there are plenty of rules you have to follow. And there are usually a few “scam” companies that never intend for you to finish and will do whatever they can to make sure you don’t qualify. But there are a few companies that are legit and as long as you follow the rules they do send your gifts.

    They do seem to change throughout the year as far as requirements and how many people are doing the sites. Many will come out with new sites that have decent requirements (maybe only have to do 4 offers for a $1k prize or something) but then as more and more people do the site they have to bump it. Basically once the “freebie pros” (the ones that know how to complete sites and actually plan to finish) they end up changing the requirements to make them much harder and unprofitable and generally just a pain in the ass. But then after a few months of slowed traffic and people doing their sites most seem to change their requirements back down to easier steps and such.

    So right now may not be a good time to look for “DIY” type sites but there may be a ton of good ones in a few months.

    I haven’t done any sites for quite a while but I think the best/easiest one I did in the past was just completing 4 pretty easy offers (thinks like blockbuster online 2 week trial) and I had my brand new imac in like 2 weeks. So for a cost of probably under $25 and a two week wait I had a new imac that I sold on ebay for $800-900 a few weeks later.

    There are a lot of great referral based sites out there too but those can be hard because you have to bug people to sign up using your referral link to complete offers for you.

    I don’t know if you want links posted or not Zac, but for those wanting more info on this kind of stuff there is one great community with more information on the freebie world called anything4free.com.

    But I won’t stoop to posting any of my referral links lol…I still have a few referral based sites that I never finished up and could use some referral heheh.

  7. Polls can be big money if done correctly…and if you can avoid the G-Slap.

  8. zac are you currently running any zip / email submits? do you recommend on running this type of campaigns?

    1. At the moment I'm not running any, but whenever a new one comes out I try and think of new promotion ideas. Sometimes it's tough to run on ppc with the low click amount/volume.

  10. Interesting detail that you give. I have always wondered if anyone ever actually received their free TV etc. from these promotions.

    FYI:

    You mention a Sony Plasma in the post, but a Panasonic box in the picture??

  11. Zac,

    I’m one of your email subscribers and this post is quite interesting. 2 weeks ago, I received my first ever freebie macbook Air that I pulled from my spam inbox. I gave it a shot and after 3 months- my shiny MBA delivered by UPS. So not all (almost) freebie offers are fake. 🙂

    Have a good one,

    Anah

    1. If you can get cheap good niche quality traffic, you can make good money. All of the cpm banner ad networks are running the zip offers on banners… so they are still making good money.

  16. I always wondered how those supposed freebies ever made sense, now that i understand how the thing works, it makes more sense! Thanks for the explanation.

  18. btw… I believe if you can find the TV for a lower price when you do your taxes, you don't have to pay the $1699. I'm not sure on the specifics but I'm sure your tax preparer will.

      1. I had a friend win a lot of gifts from a Howard Stern contest and then included this information with his tax return. It saved him several hundred of dollars. With the TV, the price should drop considerably by the end of the year as newer models come out.

  19. Moral of the story is if you want a TV go buy it from a shop. Anything like this offer will just make you wish you hadn't won it in the first place!

  20. I think a big percentage of these offers have their hidden black points. Unfortunately I can't apply for the good ones nor the bad ones here from Spain 🙁

  24. I am trying one now. Some are better such as the smaller ones. I forgot about the taxes.

  25. I know I've tried to get the tempting "free tv" or "free iPod" but have never gone far enough into it. I'm trying to do e-mail/zip submits until I finally get the hang of affiliate marketing and then I'll get into bigger but more complex offers.

  26. Taxes…thats bad. So wasnt a good profit deal as it looked. But never the less nice TV 🙂

  27. Hi… for promoting cpa zip submits…do you get paid as soon as someone submits their email….or when they actually complete the other offers for the advertiser?…

  28. How is everyone? I've been running this site. Free ClickBank Products with so so results. I put in one day of work and have actually been getting traffic. Out of that traffic I've been getting roughly 1 in 4 conversions on email submits. I think the focus should be how to get people past entering their email or zip. After that we don't care if they do anything else. It should be something that grabs at them and will want to make them enter the info. Not sure what it is yet but I'm working on it. Been trying out different approaches that's for sure.

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