The Secrets behind the “Free” Giveaways
The Secrets Of “Free” Giveaways
Hello everyone and welcome to this weeks newsletter. This week I will be looking at the secrets behind the “Free” giveaways that I’m sure you will have seen on your Internet travels. If you are unsure what I mean by “Free” Giveaway websites, take a look at the screenshot below; the websites all follow the same format:
These giveaways range to anything from Free Websites, Free Graphics and Free e-Books. The websites all work in the same way and were the brain child of top IM Guru Mike Filsaime, Mike created his “Butterfly Marketing” package to the public last year and since then these sites have been springing up all over the web! Mike has made well over $1,000,000 from this method and recently released a “Butterfly Marketing Manuscript” that shows in detail how to make these sites work.
Now that I have given you a brief history lesson lets take a look at exactly how these websites make money!
As you can see, once you visit the website you will usually see a brief sales page telling you about the free products on offer. Then when you scroll down the page you will be asked to enter your name and email address to collect your free gifts.
It sounds almost too good to be true doesn’t it? BUT why would these successful webmasters and Internet marketers be giving away all of their top products for free, what’s in it for them? Hopefully in this newsletter I will be able to answer that question for you.
The first thing to notice is that before you can get anything for free, you are asked to enter your email address. That’s the first thing the webmaster gets from you, entering your email address automatically subscribes you to the webmasters mailing list so they can send you further offers or promotions. That’s the first thing they are getting out of the “free” giveaway, I often set up a free email address at hotmail or yahoo and use it solely for joining these giveaway sites.
The second, and probably the most important part of the giveaway happens after you submit your email address. Instead of being taken to the free gifts page you will see a “One Time Offer” or OTO as they are often known. These offers are supposed to be special products, at a discount price that as the name suggests, you will only see ONCE! To be able to get your free gifts you need to scroll all the way through the sales page and either purchase the OTO or click on a small link at the bottom of the page that says “No Thanks”. Don’t be put off by these offers though, granted some will be crap but others really will be great offers that you won’t be able to find anywhere else so it is always a good idea to read through the sales pages.
After you have got past the OTO page you will then be taken to your members are where you can download the free products you were offered on the first page of the site. However, that’s not all! You will then be able to see a link that says, “Affiliates”. If you click on the link you will be given a unique affiliate link that allows you to promote the product for the webmaster, if any OTO sales are made then you will get a commission paid directly into your affiliate account.
My Personal Opinion
Now that you know exactly what the webmaster is getting from these “Free” giveaways you might think twice before you sign up to any of the sites, HOWEVER please read this section carefully, I will be giving you my own personal thoughts about the giveaway sites.
Please don’t think that I am putting down any of these sites, I still think they are a great way of obtaining top quality products for free. The problem at the moment is that these sites seem to be springing up left right and centre, all of the genuinely good giveaways seem to be getting lost amongst the crap!
Let’s take a look at one of the best giveaways I have come across. The giveaway belongs to John “Planetsms” Thornhill and is called Free Monthly Websites. As part of Johns giveaway you receive a FREE brand new google adsense website each and every month. When you sign up for the giveaway you will also see his OTO, at the time of writing he is giving you the chance to own every adsense website he has ever created in the past for a discount “One Time” price. I can honestly say his giveaway is worth signing up for, if only for the OTO alone!
However, compare that with other giveaways that will be offering you a small selection of worthless e-Books for your email address and it’s probably not worth it. If you are careful and only sign up to those giveaway sites that offer real value then you can still find some great deals.
To help you I decided to add some of the best free giveaway sites to my Blog. If you look to the links at the top of the page you will see a section called “Free Offers“, if you visit that page you can see a small selection of the good giveaway sites with a brief description. I also added a contact form page so you can get in touch with me, so as always if you have any comments on this week’s newsletter, or if you would like your giveaway site added to the page leave a comment or drop me an email.
Until next week,
Dan
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TBH, Dan, I am getting sick of all this BM sites. You are right, most of them offer you trash! And then they expect you to promote their trash! No thanks.
Thank you for putting this in exact order. I found it very heklpful.
Claire Bone
Hi,
I think it`s great that somebody at last is showing the truth
about these sites.
I must say that I and millions of others must have fell for these
and then you spend the rest of your life reading and unsubscibing
from hundreds of emails.
Never again.
Thats very true Geoff,
Thats why I recommend using a sepearte email address for all of the giveaway sites, that way you aren’t inundated with offers to your primary email address.
Some do give you valuable info (Dont want to blow my own trumpet but I feel mine does!) but a lot of others will just send you tons and tons of “amazing” offers that you must buy!
Yo Dan,
What is yours?
Dan
Oh and another thing:
You disagree with all these sites and say that there is no point in anyone just launching them. I am just wondering why you are giving away a script that could run one of these sites?
If you read the article you will see that I don’t disagree with them. I disagree with those that give away the crap that has been floating around the internet for years, however I also say that you can still get valuable items for free from the better giveaways. Read the “My Personal Opinion” part of the article.
Hi Dan,
You have given wonderful information regarding cloaking affliate links. It will help many non-technical user like me. But one thing I am not clear about it is that each affliate link should be cloaked and saved in saperate .php file or multiple links can be put in a single file with relevent links? Best of luck for your business.
anil nigam
Hi Anil,
All of your links must be in a seperate file.
Basiclly all the PHP file does is redirect the user to the link inside the file (you affiliate link), adding more the one link to a single file wouldn’t work.
What I meant Dan was that anyone could get their hands on the script and just make some crappy giveaway!
But on the other hand someone could get their hands on the script and makes the worlds greatest giveaway?
Anyone can get their hands on a copy of frontpage/dreamweaver but it doesn’t mean they aren’t going to make the next Million Dollar Home Page 😉
Hi Dan,
Thanks a lot for reply. I take you as my one of the best advisor. keep it up. God bless you.
anil
Very interesting article, I agree. Thanks for the advise
Hi Dan,
I am new to this internet world and I want to think you for telling it like it is. I have been scam a lot since I have started in this internet world. Thanks for the info, and You and John Thornhill are the most honest people that I have met on the WWW. Keep up the good work.
Thanks
Eugene
Houston, Texas