Better than Mobile Optin?
Private for Th3Core members only
...or how to create your own and better version of a $1,000 per month product, get cheap clicks, phone calls and beat your competition by fixing the flaws in mobile and using them to your advantage!
In a private Facebook group there was a post by a member asking about a product that had launched a number of weeks ago.
I saw the product launch and although balking at the price of it, it did have some superb functionality in parts, although in other areas it was lacking. More importantly than that though, It made me think and realise it could be replicated with greater functionality at almost no cost.
This version is simply a proof of concept, that although functionally identical and works in the real world, it isn't battle hardened. However, it does have some tweaks that I will detail below that in my (not so humble) opinion mean it is superior for some key reasons I will detail.
What is Mobile Optin?
Although closed now, Mobile Optin is a remote hosted ad server and click tracking script that created specific adverts to be shown only to mobile devices.
The theory behind it was simple: Asking consumers on mobile devices to sign up to an email list via a traditional squeeze page is awkward. Quite simply, trying to type your name and email address on a phone sized touch screen is a royal pain in the backside!
They were right of course. It is!
Their answer was to use an old fashioned, rarely used function of the anchor specification and it's roots go all the way back to 1998 with RFC 2368 – The mailto link1
In essence it is a way of forming a link that will prepopulate an email, defining who it is to be sent to and potentially the Subject and Body of the content too.
They were using this, alongside a little known feature of Aweber2, Getresponse3 and some other mailing list services. Within Aweber or Getresponse, if an email is sent to the email address of YOURLISTID@aweber.com or YOURLISTID@getresponse.net, then that person will be subscribed to your email list. Obviously you'd need to change the email address to be in the correct form and include your List ID
This feature of crafting pages with mailto links, alongside tracking clicks through the system were the only features that the service provided, or are the only features that I can remember from watching the launch webinar.
Click tracking and creating mailto links! – That's not much for $1,000, however to be fair to the creators of the MobileOptin product they did raise some key points that I completely agree with.
Primarily:
1. Lead Capture on Mobile are VERY hard to do well.
2. Mobile Advertising is VERY cheap, compared to all other media buys. This is especially true for in app advertising.
There is also a 3 point which is very hard to ignore and I have to give them credit for. They thought of this method... I didn't.
Although it utilises a very old method of mailto links, it is used in a way that I didn't think of and likely, without their launch wouldn't have expanded upon –
However, we live in the real world and although I doff my hat to them for their idea, I do believe what follows takes the work they have done and expands upon it in some subtle but important ways to create a much more rounded and functional system that can deployed in the wild and scale to some great heights, with massively reduced costs and improved functionality.
The adverts their system created were simple html pages.
This is how they looked: In my opinion they were terrible ads and hard to get on display networks
Car Deal Playbook Ad:
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Fcardeal.png&hash=68232ee79a4d499f35397fa827fe4bdbe41c5b7f)
Dog Training Ad:
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Fdogtraining.png&hash=1a40e51b094157051700223f8ea6791d6c404d9c)
Each of the elements on the page are clickable and craft a pre formatted email to sign the visitor up to your email list. However, I do believe the ads are terrible and extremely formulaic in design.
This is a restriction of their system, not the method itself and so it is easy to solve that problem.
However, we still need a way of improving the actual method further as well as being able to use it for email systems that don't work by simply sending an email.
EG I use the self hosted Sendy product for a number of reasons, but it doesn't have the ability to sign someone up to a list via a sent email.
Improvements:
By the end of the document I will show how to integrate with any auto responder, email system, CRM etc. I will also show you how to get a double bite of the cherry with an automated phone call through to your systems.
I will show you this on probably the lowest cost traffic you can purchase – Mobile ads!
Quite simply, if it accepts a person filling in a form with their name and email address, then this will work.
I will also show how you pretty much guarantee your emails arriving in the user's primary email in box for every single one of your subscribers. Yup, you did read that right. You will reach the inbox, never be marked as spam, and avoid the promotions or other tabs in Gmail!
For me, that is the single most important part of this method and was my primary reason for spending some time on researching this further. It's just a pleasant side effect that it also means that it works with, quite possibly the cheapest traffic available to purchase right now, and so together becomes an extremely powerful in it's own right.
Thirdly I will show you how to use the same traffic for a second time, and in the example I show, it will initiate a call through to my phone. Again, all without any further user interaction
You will need to provide some basic things yourself. Top of the list is an ad server, ad tracker.
I don't use an ad server but I do track my clicks with the excellent DemonTracking product. I have just found out that it's been discontinued but let's be honest here, if you're doing any media online you are already likely to have your own favourite tool or system. Absolutely any of them will work and will likely do so better than the one inside Mobile Optin.
Secondly you will need a software system for managing your email list. As mentioned earlier, I use Sendy and love it. However, you can use whatever system you already use or like. As long as it has the ability for users to submit a form, it'll work.
Thirdly, you'll need some images for your ads. I don't like the html heavy pages the Mobile Optin system created as standard mobile image ads with a defined call to action are better in my opinion– However, if you want to do media online.... you'll always suffer this issue, of having to create advert images, so it shouldn't be a big deal!
Fourthly, you'll need somewhere to host your ads. As you work online with loads of sites, it shouldn't be a big deal either. I'm sure you have web servers in abundance.
Finally you'll need to sign up to Zapierrd. It is an online service that connects multiple APIs to work together in a simple system. It is this tool that I have used to create the simple Proof of Concept. It's very similar to IFTTT but more business orientated and in some ways much more powerful with the ability to tie various and disparate products together via their individual APIs.
Example Output....
If you go to http://links.ninja/ad.html (http://links.ninja/ad.html) on a mobile device you will see an advert for back pain. It's simply an image I found online and I am using it for example purposes.
Click it.... When you do, it will open an email pre populated with some content.
One of the email addresses it sends to is the email address that all my newsletters from the list they are signing up to, are sent from. It's my email address – jason@the.domain.name
This is important as getting the user to send an email effectively places them in a special group that means any incoming emails from that address will pretty much always end up in their inbox. In essence it bypasses spam filters and whitelists the email account for incoming email.
It's a small pain in the arse when receiving the emails, but due to the format we're using I filter them in my email account so I don't directly see them. However I do look at the folder occasionally and the quantity of emails in there gives me a down and dirty quick way to see how many new subscribers I have.
The second email address, the CC address, is tied to my Zapier account. This is the email address that will do the heavy lifting and sign up the user for the email list.
In the email message that will show on your mobile email client, is a basic call to action, asking you to click SEND. It is this ease of action of a mobile device... click an ad, click SEND that is the heart of this method.
When you have sent the email, your phone will go back to the browser, however the URL has changed and now shows an image saying CLICK TO CALL.
On Android (I am afraid I haven't tested this on iOS yet) it requests access to the users microphone. As soon as the visitor clicks confirming the call.... A call to my phone starts, although in this method, it is free to the end user as it uses VoIP through the browser, even though the call comes through to my phone.
If you prefer it will be very easy to replicate this with a Facetime call on iOS, hangouts on Android or even a traditional phone call.
In this example, you can well imagine the following happening.
User has bad back.
Sees advert on phone.
Clicks Ad
Receives Information about local Chiropractors in email
Goes back to browser and places call
Makes appointment with local chiropractor
Receives regular emails about back related things!
The example images of each step are below:
The Advert on Android.
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Fadonphone.png&hash=e484b13da85a5e8b88d5c52773bbacc4ae3f9382)
The Email Client Once clicked on Advert
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Femail.png&hash=bb6f849350986c9d6cb5ca9c6453b1b1d11d76fb)
The Phone Call Screen once Email has been Sent
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Fcall.png&hash=bede6810f65f334005a18a197ea00cb1ebc9046d)
You may have noticed on the pre populated email that there is a set of random characters in the subject line, inside of square brackets.
That is my LISTID and will be parsed, along with the name and the email address of the person subscribing.
On the final screen, you will notice the ALLOW Button for the call through to my phone.
OK enough about all this – I will now move onto the work you need to do for each stage.
Zapier.
You must sign up to Zapier4. Their lowest cost level is free, and for this proof of concept all I have used. I intended to test in Zapier than code something up, but since playing around with it, I have started to use it for other things, including integrating webhooks within Wordpress using the excellent Hookpress plugin5 etc.
All in all, it's an extremely powerful system.
Zapier have a free product, designed to be used by Zapier apps that parses emails. You will need to sign up separately to use it.6
You will create an email address there and send an example email of the kind your ad signups will be sending – I suggest you place your list ID / Name within square brackets in the subject line, as I have done. This is purely to make it easy to extract and parse within the actual Zapier application.
N.B. It is the square bracketed list id, that I suggest you use to filter the emails that will arrive in your main email account.
This is what it will look like within parser.zapier once you have sent and confirmed the parsing rules.
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Fparser.png&hash=296526ba020db11abc92a378d1301dc6146746b6)
Inside of Zapier you will need to create a new App
Zapier works on Triggers and Actions. This is very similar to IFTTT
IE: You have a trigger and then an action is undertaken .....
In our Application the email be received is the Trigger and submitting the extracted data to the sign up form for our email system, is the action.
The constituent parts areas follows.
Quite simply you associate your email parser you just created at parser.zapier.com with your actual Zapier account. You then use a webhook, to post the received data, the list ID, the emailer's name and their email address to your remote sign up form.
It's not that complicated but a picture points a thousand words so here a few are
1. Select Email Parser Trigger and Webhook Action
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2FZapier1.jpg&hash=16e552e9461eb9a1ea34309bc551dd16ecc083e8)
2. Select and associate the correct (if you have more than one) parser account
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2FZapier2.jpg&hash=c8c294a186957a64c393bf97495c804e90d991a1)
3. Select the webhooks action – It's likely to need POST
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2FZapier3.jpg&hash=5de06f2b3822a672b50ac9d206514a659d1b1ed2)
4.Define the mailbox, and then only do something if.... In this instance, it has extracted the email sender name and sender email address.
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2FZapier4.jpg&hash=b0ef67313f4be81de8b241cdb30ba79a5ff3e9c5)
5. Match Up Remote Variables to Email Variables
It's also important here that you take the form action and variables that are on your email subscribe page.
You'll need to view source of the page the sign up form is on, or look at what your provider gives you, but in principle you need 3 things.
Name Email address and the form action URL to post data to.
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2FZapier5.jpg&hash=9ae488982f29a6a4d1262f6f987412f5e1b8116b)
6. Test it all works and Save it
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2FZapier6.jpg&hash=54a965a6289104a51f56a449c47f49fd2b5d299d)
Once you have created the Zapp application make sure you make it live. As soon as it is, any and all emails that are received by your ad viewers and clickers will also be subscribers.
You now need to create 2 pages – One to host your advert and one, if you wish to, to create your automated Phone Call Page.
Advert Page
Here is the html I used in my ad. It's very simple to put together and completely Unoptimised. It is, a straight grab from Mobile Optins pages that are public7.
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Fadhtml.png&hash=c6c645ee06c641665debadefd48620f259d723c3)
I am positive it can be coded better and with greater functionality, neater code, but for this proof of concept, knowing it works, is better than knowing it is perfect.
It is probably easier to view the source of the page itself
http://links.ninja/ad.html (http://links.ninja/ad.html)
The most awkward part is in creating the mailto link. Not because it is difficult but it must be encoded correctly for it to work as you wish it to.
Thankfully there are some online tools to assist with that - http://www.cha4mot.com/t_mailto.html (http://www.cha4mot.com/t_mailto.html)
The Click to Call System
This is slightly more involved than the html above, but far from complex either. I have it set up so a call always comes through to my mobile phone. However, you can have it set up so calls are received on a desktop computer if you wish, or even a dedicated SIP phone if you have one.
1stly, go and create a SIP account with Sip2Sip.info (http://sip2sip.info) there. Record the information.
If you use Android, as I do, then enter the SIP account details into your phone. I use the standard phone app on Android and have multiple SIP accounts always on receiving calls. You can add SIP accounts via applications on Windows, OSX or iOS but to do so, read the documentation with the app you decide to use.
I am only showing you how to do it on Android as the inbuilt SIP client is very good, although it seems to be hidden deep inside the inner workings and if you didn't know it was there it's hard to get to!
To access this hidden feature do the following:
Go to your phone app.
At the top right hand side click the 3 vertical dots.
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2F8.jpg&hash=7b02a095c050e3c6e8eedcdd8ad8f4c4fda2d51f)
Enter Settings.
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2F9.jpg&hash=cf1ed6aabd7a392ffe3bef800c2d8396f74125d9)
Enter the Call Menu
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2F10.jpg&hash=5af76f96533f04a83f0e9962c76b873e28e5cbb0)
Enter the Calling Accounts Menu
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2F11.callingaccounts.jpg&hash=834046769c4401f0841f6bf65be243743bfb7b5c)
Click on SIP Settings
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2F12.sipacounts.jpg&hash=4af3679825f90d47b28eeff8be406a7b306ab292)
Enter Your SIP Settings
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2F13.AddSIpAccount.jpg&hash=ac8361d551440239b2237f0343f05f8ea4bb64fd)
Once you have the SIP settings set on your phone, soft phone application on your computer or wherever go and sign up for another 3 party service called Click2Dialhttp://Click2Dial.org (http://click2dial.org).
Click2Dial only allow specific SIP servers to receive calls which is why you signed up for the sip2sip account previously.
They have created an Open Source SIP client in JavaScript using the new HTML5 feature of WebRTC. This means that anyone with a modern web browser, which means all Android and iOS phones, can call your SIP account just like a normal phone call would occur, except there will be no costs other than for the data.
Although it is open source and I prefer to host all my own applications, the documentation for this application is currently non existent so I am using their hosted product.
So far it works very well.
Once signed up you will be given a snippet of JavaScript and a link. Anyone that clicks on the button the JavaScript creates will the SIP account set up on your phone, alternatively anyone that visits the link, will automatically dial. It's unfortunate that the automatic dial button is hosted on their site as it distracts massively from the experience. I have bodged it so this is no longer an issue, but with a bit more time, I am sure I could adapt the JavaScript and make it less .... Hackish!
The hack is simple. A page that has a single image on with some Call to Action text at the top. It also has an iframe with height and width set to 1 pixel to the URL received from Click2Dial, which invokes a call to my phone.
The code for the page is best seen by viewing source at the URL - http://links.ninja/dial.html (http://links.ninja/dial.html) but is included below for you to see
(https://th3core.com/chat/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Flinks.ninja%2Fimg%2Fcallhtml.png&hash=d9c81265ea639d7bea12c2fe8d4367d6797f71a1)
Overview.
We set out to find a way to purchase the extremely low cost, mobile traffic, including in app ads, and for anyone that clicks our advert to be monetised as best as we can, in an easy manner that means very little user interaction is required.
I've always found personal and ongoing communication with a prospect delivers the greatest rewards so signing them up to our email list is a definite winner to me. Another pleasant side effect is the user will subscribe with their main and real email account, due to the nature of the system and how most people set up the email accounts on their phone.
Further you can't get more personal than a one on one phone call. Hence we do that in the same action.
I should also add that as you have their email address you can now retarget them on Facebook and now even Google and do this across ALL devices not just ones that have received a retargetting pixel added to their mobile device. However, it makes perfect sense to place the pixel on the click2call page too :)
I hope this helps you out and if you need some help then don't hesitate to get in touch. You can find me in the group often but I also answer my phone, Skype, emails too.
Finally a plug for my services....
https://the.domain.name/ (https://the.domain.name/) - Over 500 million expired domain names with every statistic and measure under the sun, ready for you to search for and use as feeder sites in bulk, or just one or two, if you wish to.
If you want them all set up, registered, hosted and content too... No problem, we've automated it all for you so you only have to click a few buttons.
I can also pretty much guarantee we have every niche, in every country in the world covered and with the lowest prices in the globe on them all!
Jason Duke
Site: https://the.domain.name/ - Domains with value, at scale
Email: jason@the.domain.name
Twitter: @JasonD
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/jasonduke1
Skype:JasonD
Tel: +44 (0)1273 914410
Mob:+44 (0)7595 924 934
Fax: +44 (0)1273 914411
Holy mother of God! Amazing.
I don't think I've been spoon fed like that since I learned to hold my own spoon.
Made it about 1/3 of the way through and realized this will take some serious reading - never could figure out what to do with Zapier and IFTT.
I think it will take me a few days to read and digest the whole thing. I think it would have taken me a month to write.
Thank you, I was just trying to follow your lead and provide some big value in a post.
Can you tell I was up all night on Saturday night, Sunday morning? :)
Incredible post Jason! It is making my mind spin with possibilities.
Quote from: JasonD on November 23, 2015, 05:43:42 PM
Thank you, I was just trying to follow your lead and provide some big value in a post.
Can you tell I was up all night on Saturday night, Sunday morning? :)
Yeah, except mine took less time to write than yours takes to read! Seriously, just the first insight about email links already is a good one.
Like you, I know the spec and have built email links with pre-populated subjects and bodies and, I see now, hit the creative wall on what you could do with that. Never occurred to me to do anything other than save people some typing even though they had a perfectly good keyboard.
Jason, the more I read the more excited I'm getting.
Phone calls are not what I'm wanting but the email aspects ... yes yes YES YESSSSS!!!!!
Making it so easy for mobile users to join our mailing lists would bridge a huge gap.
Now if you'll excuse me I have do to some studying to do.
... especially to ponder how to geotarget this.
All, thank you.
>BW
That can normally be done at the ad server level, but it isn't hard to do in the ad html in JavaScript either.
I would suggest doing it in the ad server though, as that puts everything in one place.
>> doing it in the ad server
Yes, I'd do the targeting via how I set up my AdWords or FB ads etc.
I was thinking more about strategy than about how-to / mechanics. Example: boost bids when the eyeballs are located within richer ZIP codes.
Pair this with some well-crafted autoresponder sequences, and the possibilities could be sweet.
Ahhhh, well you could redirect to predetermined pages with different list IDs for each ZIP code area, or simply change the listid in the code of the page, to preformatted auto responder sequences.
Poor people zip codes
Middle class zip codes
Rich people zip codes etc
>> could redirect to predetermined pages
No need for redirects, just create whatever landing pages are appropriate and use those URLs when you set up your ads. You can create campaigns to target (or exclude) whatever geo, demo, etc, you want.
It's a straightforward matter to get different ads in front of different segments. We just have to decide what we want and work through the steps to set it up.
I read this.
tried to post some thing intelligent, and as usual it was out of my reach. Only this time I knew it.
Step aside ergophobe. :)
for me first I need to think about where to advertise. Like Google, I have failed up to now with mobile ads.
Here's my plan. It's a simplified version of what Jason posted, within reach of my skills.
- Create an email list at Aweber (I already have an account there.) Give it an attractive, meaningful name so people can tell what it is if they see it in their Sent Mail.
- Create a nice email for the double opt-in confirmation.
- Create a digital giveaway to be a reward/bribe for joining my list. "Free printable blah blah blah" or some such.
- Create autoresponder sequence to deliver the giveaway then engage folks over time.
- Create a landing page where mobile users will be presented with the mailto link. Explain what's about to happen, that clicking the link will bring up their email program, and what to do next.
- Include enough other content besides the squeeze to make sure AdWords, FB etc. will let me promote the page.
- Include tracking snippets from AdWords, FB etc, on every page in the sign-up funnel.
- Include remarketing snippets from AdWords, FB, etc. Make savvy use of custom combination lists.
- Create and circulate ads to promote the landing page. Different ads for different target groups. Do A/B testing. Remember impression caps.
- Study the stats, and tweak to improve. Do more of what's working, less of what's not.
- AWeber sends an email when there's a new signup. Set up a fun sound when one of those comes in.
Help me think!
Similar to Bucky I was just thinking that this is a great element of responsive design to switch out email capture forms.
So rather than a landing page for mobile users, *all* your email capture forms sitewide get traded out as per Jason's method.
Three lines of CSS is all you need to make "no-typing" email capture forms.
I have long had the idea of running all incoming email on a certain address through a parser and setting up auto responses based on content.
For example - for our rental, your ranking in listing services goes up if you respond quickly and I think there are enough unique cues for a new inquiry that you could send a useful autoresponse with just a tiny bit of regex magic, but setting up the whole system didn't seem worth it - it looks like this makes it pretty easy.
> 3 lines of CSS
Can you share?
thats a very cool hack:) Thank you!
Quote from: JasonD on November 24, 2015, 08:52:07 PM
> 3 lines of CSS
Can you share?
I just mean a couple of simple media queries. Let's say I want your image method to show on anything smaller than an iPad.
Assuming I have something like
<div class="big-screen-form">
<form>Stuff</form>
</div>
<div class="jason-method-for-small-screen>
<a href="mailto:me@mail.com"><img></a>
</div>
Then my CSS is simply
.jason-method-for-small-screen {display:none;}
media only screen and (max-width: 767px) {
.big-screen-form {display:none;}
.jason-method-for-small-screen {display:block;}
}
So it's three lines of CSS not counting the media query. Obviously you would need more CSS to style the elements, but that would show/hide based on screen size. If you want iPads included, then you would use a max-width of 1024.
Excellent, thank you
And note that if the AMP thing ever catches on, the <form> element will be disallowed on mobile, so you'll definitely need this
https://github.com/ampproject/amphtml/blob/master/spec/amp-html-format.md
https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4779275.htm
https://www.ampproject.org/
Excuse my ignorance on the topic, but where does one buy cheap mobile traffic? And, how much is it costing?
Lots of places but any RTB system should give you access to remnant unsold space.
I personally like Adult traffic and adult pops (most probably related to buying so much in former professions for gambling stuff) and can vouch for people like http://www.trafficjunky.com/ but tghen again I am the guy that signed off on a GBP 7 Figure deal with Kim Dotcom on his Mega stuff, not long before he got arrested..... so take what I say with a pinch of salt :)