This is Part 4 of Your Website Needs to Get a Job.
Get caught up with Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3.
In Part 3, I mentioned IP addresses. Ok, now we’re getting into tech speak a bit, but let me explain.
Think of an IP address like the street address for your home. It’s the street and number – the identifiers – that have been assigned to where you live so that friend, family, emergency personnel, mail services, etc., can locate you. Same deal with an IP address. The IP address is the identifier that has been assigned to where your computer lives on the Internet. And, just like no one else has your exact same address, no one else has your IP address. It’s a bit like a fingerprint in that way.
Who Cares?
Let’s say, I sign up for your thai chicken. I conveniently forget that I’ve signed up. The next bit of information I get from you doesn’t ring a bell. I mark it as spam or I complain to your hosting company that you’re sending me unsolicited information. How can you prove that I indeed DID sign-up to receive information from you?
You can’t. Unless you have my IP address on record. Most top-level intenet marketing services offer IP address grabbing as part of their service. What happens is, I request your ‘thai chicken’ and immediately, my IP address – my computer’s identifier – is stored in your account with the internet marketing service.
It’s never shared with anyone and usually you never have to do anything with it. It just hangs out. But, if I ever say that I didn’t make the request to be on your list, you can reply, “Yes, you did. You did it on this date and oh, by the way, here’s your IP address to prove it.” How powerful is that?
In fact, this is one of the problems I have with Constant Contact. I really like their service, but new businesses tend to get caught up with their fancy templates and colors and lose sight of the functionality they need to run their business. The last time I checked, Constant Contact DOESN’T collect the IP addresses of people who request your ‘thai chicken’. This can leave you in a bit of a lurch if you ever had to, beyond a shadow of a doubt, prove that the person really did request the information. Not good. (They also don’t let you do split tests, etc., but that’s another story.)
For so many reasons, I much prefer Aweber. Yes, the learning curve is a bit steeper, but with the ability to do split tests, use timed autoresponders, grab IP addresses, manage multiple mailing lists and segement those lists….you just can’t beat Aweber.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 9:53 am and is filed under E-Business, Internet Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.Leave a Reply
