Any advertisers with 2 step forms using Aweber for prospects?

Sonny Forelli

Sonny Forelli

Well-known member
May 8, 2008
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Liberty City
Wondering how you're accomplishing this or whether another mail service (mailchimp, etc) offers a better solution.

Basically we want to mail users who complete the first page of personal info yet abandon on the second page with credit card entry fields.

I'd use Aweber however I'm a little confused how I'd do this since I'd only want those who abandoned and didn't convert (or in an ideal world be able to track and move them from the prospect list to the client list if/when they ever convert to a sale).

Using ultracart on the back end.
 


With Aweber, Im pretty sure you can put some code on the thank you page and it will move them automagically to a buyers list. Look under their 'automation' settings; it would probably be in there.
 
Garrett said:
With Aweber, Im pretty sure you can put some code on the thank you page and it will move them automagically to a buyers list. Look under their 'automation' settings; it would probably be in there.
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yeah I see that feature in there, I guess the only other hurdle I'm having is that aweber passes through form data as a GET, and not a POST thus it's in the query string.

not the worst thing ever, however not something I really want 100% of my customers to see on the checkout page (namely for the fact that I think this looks cheap/amateurish and am worried about it negatively impacting conversion).

hope you're doing well dude
 
Sonny Forelli said:
yeah I see that feature in there, I guess the only other hurdle I'm having is that aweber passes through form data as a GET, and not a POST thus it's in the query string.

not the worst thing ever, however not something I really want 100% of my customers to see on the checkout page (namely for the fact that I think this looks cheap/amateurish and am worried about it negatively impacting conversion).

hope you're doing well dude
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maybe you can immediately $_POST to a new page. As soon as the page loads, grab the value via $_GET, then just redirect and $_POST to a clean page.

I think that would keep Aweber working, and the redirect would happen so fast the customer wouldnt notice. Kinda just side-steps the issue.

Anyways, hope youre doing well too. We should do lunch again, Ive got a killer technique I want to tell you about.
 
I am having the same exact problem with aweber/ultracart on page 1. The issue is you can grab the data after they submit via _get, but if they are already subscribed to the list then aweber does not forward the variables for the _get for page 2.

Basically it works fine the first time around, but if they come back later to order from you, the data will get submitted to aweber again, and they will get the already subscribed redirect, but then the variables they submitted on page 1 don't show up, unless you have a way around this issue?

I was thinking of using mailchimp as well, but I like the aweber automation rules that mailchimp does not have.
 
flipper said:
I am having the same exact problem with aweber/ultracart on page 1. The issue is you can grab the data after they submit via _get, but if they are already subscribed to the list then aweber does not forward the variables for the _get for page 2.

Basically it works fine the first time around, but if they come back later to order from you, the data will get submitted to aweber again, and they will get the already subscribed redirect, but then the variables they submitted on page 1 don't show up, unless you have a way around this issue?

I was thinking of using mailchimp as well, but I like the aweber automation rules that mailchimp does not have.
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yes, exactly the same problem. I just got off the phone w/ them and it's not a feature they support, nor is there any (easy) way to lookup whether someone is already in the DB without a separate DB being maintained/created I suppose and then looking up against that.

Why on earth they'd be so short sighted in this regard is beyond me, they have a great solution but I"m not hawking $6.99 ebooks on digitalpoint, they seem to forget that first and foremost I need MY CART/PAGES to function independently of their nonsense.

I wonder if there's a way using an iframe or something to do this so that if it errors out it's in the iframe and doesn't affect the rest of the page. I'm guessing not.
 
This was one of the handful of issues that became a huge pain in the ass while making the transition to advertiser. We looked into every solution we could find to this, and could never really get it to work with Ultracart. At least not in a way that we trusted to handle volume. The only way I can think of is to revert back to a 1 page order form.

Also, after paying UC a lot of money in consulting and custom dev, their support guys and even higher up managers began to act like total assholes, so we basically told them to shove it.

What we did though was decide that if we wanted to run volume, we needed to get setup with Limelight CRM. We've used them for a while, and they have a setup for each campaign where you enter a prospect ID and a customer ID. We then used the GetResponse API so that it manages it for us. We now have a prospect list we can mail to get them back to the order form, and a client list we can sell additional shit to.

Limelight is expensive, but it's also a league above anything else out there, in my opinion.

Also, soon we'll be switching to a dedicated box from GR, it costs about $1000/month for every 1mil subs you have. They're not as good as some of the higher end mailing solutions like SilverPop etc but we didn't want to switch to a CPM solution when GR does the job perfectly for us.

Let me know if you need anymore info.
 
Reidy- thanks very much for the informative post.

I agree 100% and plan to move to Limelight once proof of concept/revenue emerges and it makes financial sense.

After spending countless hours looking into all sorts of options that is a cut above everything else I've seen by a mile.

I talked to mailchimp today and they have a API, so that could be an option.

If I might ask- can you give me a rough estimate of what mailing to the first page abandons who never checkout returned as far as lift in overall ROI?

I'm guessing it's somewhere in the 10% range which candidly I may just ignore for now and instead try to address with a special exit pop redirect for the 2nd pagers versus the first.

However my biggest concern is being able to mail to the current customers to get them back to re-order (product isn't a rebill) so the most important is simply to add those who purchase to a list of active customers and then worry about automatically moving prospects to customers after that.

This is all ridiculously easy with Limelight isn't it? It looked that way from their demo video.
 
As for a lift in ROI, it's hard to say really. We usually see abandons making up maybe 25% of our eventual sales. The key thing is to mail them as much as possible. We mail every day for a week, then pretty much every other day for a month. You will get people coming back and buying sometimes 2-3 months down the line.

Even those that don't buy are still useful for affiliate promos and such.

Also, I don't know what fields you want on the first page, but if you are going to do it Acai style with the full adress field, then there is a lot you can do with that information to. There are services, for example, that will set you up with a sort of post card autoresponder, whre you upload your prospects addresses, and send out a post card every week driving them back to your site.

We haven't done much of that yet, but it's on the agenda as some people are telling me they get insane conversion with postcards.

Moving a prospect to customer is ridiculously easy with Limelight, along with the ability it gives you to just pull the form code you need without having to code it yourself. That saves so much time, when you can just send it to your designer and get a page back that's fully ready to go.

But you're right, I'd recommed getting profitable first, then switch over to LL, you'll love it when you do.

Other than that, the only advice I would give you is to start running as best you can now and improve as you go. Most people think switching to advertiser is easy, we did, but we spent so long trying to make sure everything was perfect, that we didn't even get running for like 5 months. Now we have tons of merchant accounts, call centers, support people, and all the infastructure we need. But that will have to develop over time, if you try and get it all done at once, you'll never get started.

That is assuming you are not planning to jump into the networks yet. Don't jump in there until you are fully tested and sure you can handle the volume. That is a painful mistake to make.

Hope that helps!
 
just use mailchimp and segment your data into non-completed leads and completed sales. send transactional emails to just the completed sales, send reminder emails to signup to the non-completed leads, and send marketing emails to both groups. move non-completed leads to completed sales when they do signup.
 
Reidy said:
As for a lift in ROI, it's hard to say really. We usually see abandons making up maybe 25% of our eventual sales. The key thing is to mail them as much as possible. We mail every day for a week, then pretty much every other day for a month. You will get people coming back and buying sometimes 2-3 months down the line.

Even those that don't buy are still useful for affiliate promos and such.

Also, I don't know what fields you want on the first page, but if you are going to do it Acai style with the full adress field, then there is a lot you can do with that information to. There are services, for example, that will set you up with a sort of post card autoresponder, whre you upload your prospects addresses, and send out a post card every week driving them back to your site.

We haven't done much of that yet, but it's on the agenda as some people are telling me they get insane conversion with postcards.

Moving a prospect to customer is ridiculously easy with Limelight, along with the ability it gives you to just pull the form code you need without having to code it yourself. That saves so much time, when you can just send it to your designer and get a page back that's fully ready to go.

But you're right, I'd recommed getting profitable first, then switch over to LL, you'll love it when you do.

Other than that, the only advice I would give you is to start running as best you can now and improve as you go. Most people think switching to advertiser is easy, we did, but we spent so long trying to make sure everything was perfect, that we didn't even get running for like 5 months. Now we have tons of merchant accounts, call centers, support people, and all the infastructure we need. But that will have to develop over time, if you try and get it all done at once, you'll never get started.

That is assuming you are not planning to jump into the networks yet. Don't jump in there until you are fully tested and sure you can handle the volume. That is a painful mistake to make.

Hope that helps!
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Good feedback thanks. 25% is higher than I thought, I"ll have to get it working via mailchimp's API then.

Page is setup just like a normal continuity supplement offer yet is a sale offer. The direct mail point is quite interesting, I had only thought of this for related services/offers (ie for a diet product also sending someone a weight watchers coupon, gym membership discount, etc) but hadn't thought of sending them a call to action to come back to YOUR site and purchase. Interesting. Thank you.
 
holy +rep

thanks very very much for sharing that, the ratios especially are quite helpful to keep that all in mind. may I ask if you're using a custom mail system to handle all of this (I presume) or something off the shelf customized to your needs?
 
DeRoy said:
If your partials (page one) submits to buyers are higher than 7 to 1, generally speaking on an RFT model then you have a page 2 problem.

With that said, for the sake of even numbers at a 5 to 1 partial ratio, that means on 1,000 buyers you would end up with 5,000 partials.

Now, you can only get so much on your upsell path to reduce your front-end cpa costs. However, there are several ways to further reduce it - drastically!

On my media system, as soon as a process 1 (page 1 submit) is complete my system fires off an email. That email basically says; because you took action yada, yada, yada.

In that email, is a link that pre-pops with the page one submit info to another one of my offers or a partner offer that I get paid cpa on (or just another network offer). Note: I can not have the offer pre-pop if it is from another network.

So effectively, if I am running a 5% conversion with that immediate page 1 submit email that automatically fires off, on the 5,000 partials, I have generated 250 sales which brings down my CPA cost by 25%.

So the money I have collected on the 250 leads offsets 25% of my 1,000 CPA leads I have to pay for. Because I don't pay a dime to the network on partials I convert.

Remember, they raised their hand and filled out and submitted page one. Which means I have everything except their CC info to complete a sale. These are hyper responsive prospects and all they need is some more contact from you.

Additionally, I run a co-reg checkbox on the front of my page 1 that has a 65% take rate that is forwarded (host and post) to an mlm company or where ever to be put into a drip and I can get 2 to 3 dollars for those leads.

So, 5000 partials x 65% = 3250 co-reg leads, times (x) $2.50 equals $8,250 in revenue for a checkbox.

Ever wonder why some offers have the little check box that says: "click here if you want to make multiple streams of income?" Now you know!

I also send out on all "success" (thank you) emails an embedded link that offers a different one-click upsell (except for CC info because of post email transaction) that can have a 5% plus take rate on it as well.

The trick in achieving all of this, is to match the offers very tightly, so as not to have it appear there is any overlap, or you are just offering a bunch of garbage to get their money.

I won't kid you this can be challenging depending upon the vertical that you're in or you may get lucky and its no problem at all.

You want your upsell(s) or cross offer to be where they say: "Wow I gotta have that!" Kind of like when you buy a new cell phone, you gotta have the super deluxe silicon skin cover in your choice of color. Plus, the screen protector and the Elvis Rhinestones to plaster all over the dang thing.

So, in essence you are using network traffic to help pay for your traffic if you do it right. Also, make sure you have an exit chat-bot on your offers to increase sales, especially in your upsell path.

Doing any or all of this will help increase front end revenue to offset cpa costs.

I have had great results using a three-path post cart one-click upsell path that uses logic. Lets say you have upsell 1, 2 and 3. If they take upsell 1 or 2 in any combination (either one or the other or both) they never see upsell three.

If they reject upsell 1 and 2 then they are presented upsell three which basically gives them a killer deal on upsell 1 and 2 together.

This works very well. I know some people will say that you can have as many upsells as you want. I don’t find that to be true. It makes the customer agitated. Here they are buying this one product and multiple upsell(s) are basically saying you need all of these other things before its going to work. I have a chatbot client who tested this very extensively as well.

It makes them feel like you are trying to empty their wallet. I also like to charge the card separately for each transaction in real time for one-click upsells. This avoids problems with refunds down the road if its all lumped together.

In addition as soon as they are approved the next page presents their order number on the top along with any product information and goes right into the next upsell.
It’s much better this way because everything is more clear and it avoids any confusion and chargebacks down the road.

On doing a three or two page offer for RFT or CPS, its funny, because some affiliates like this and think it converts better because the client is more involved because of the survey or whatever involvement device you are using.

And some affiliates like as few pages as possible and to get right to the offer to get the conversion which means they get paid. So, based on that you should have a two page and a three page offer and split test the two or better yet I would give the affiliate (or network) the choice of split testing or choosing to run the two page or the three page offer.
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damn man post of the century right here thank you +rep
 
Awesome info on this thread++.

To the original OP, use Getresponse. Post all the data to Getresponse first, then use the page 2 as your thank you or error page. Use php sessions to grab the data from page 1 that you submitted to Getresponse. With Getresponse you can always redirect to page 2 vs. their own page, so it works pretty well.

If they end up buying, remove them from the leads list and move to a customer list via the ultracart api and Getresponse automatically. PM me if you need more info on how to do this. Getresponse was the only autoresponder email solution I could find that was fairly easy to implement with Ultracart. Mailchimp would probably work as well, but getresponse was easier for me to get working. As a long time aweber user, I did not want to switch but there is no way to get it to work with aweber.

Also I capture all the data in getresponse including address, etc. which is fairly easy to setup.
 
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