Is Co-Registration Worth Testing?

Co-Registration (or 'co-reg') is a form of online marketing where your subscription or promotional offer appears on a webpage AFTER the primary transaction of the publisher whose site you're advertising on occurs.

For instance, let's say you're on a site like MSN.com. You see an ad for one of MSN's free enewsletters. After you sign up for one of MSNs free newsletters and hit 'submit' a Thank You page may pop up with other publisher's offers. These offers usually are laid out as a bunch of small advertiser logos accompanied with a short description of the offer. This tactic of online marketing is usually used for lead generation purposes since the word count is so limited, it's often a challenge to sell a product with limited space. However, it doesn't much space to convince someone to try something for free in exchange for their email address.

The key in getting co-reg to work for you is to follow up with any leads that come in quickly. The names collected through this mechanism need to be segmented from the other names in your file since these co-reg leads are virtually "cold" to you -- meaning, they really don't know your company at all and need time to buy into your gurus, philosophy and mission. These people also tend to forget who and where they signed up for free offers, so targeting co-reg names with a timely, specific offer reminding them where they signed up and the benefits/value proposition of your enewsletter is a helpful with keeping these names on your file longer.

To get the most from co-reg names and improve your conversion rate and potential life time value, you'll need to bond with co-reg subs first and then hit them with a special cross-sell offer. It's usually best to have a series of introductory emails that try to accomplish this and after the editorial 'bonding' stage, you insert your first solo promotional offer. Popular offers are 'limited time introductory offers' with discounts such as 10-25% off you're front-end product.

The average CPA (cost per acquisition) in co-reg agreements can range from $1.50 - $5.00 per name. Make sure this is "net" names - after any bad emails or duplicates (names you already have in your file) are removed.

Like most online marketing, my belief is not to rule out any tactic until you've at least tested it. If you have the budget to accommodate a test, it's definitely worth trying as long as you have your strategic plan and autoresponder series mapped out in order to get the most of the test.