Forum Solo ads Strange subscriber behavior

5.0 (6)
8 posts / 1 like

I bought a solo and got a good opt-in rate, in fact, unusually high. The ip's seem to be well distributed. I don't want to jump to questioning the integrity of the seller, but there is some behavior that I consider strange.

What I find strange is that the verifications came in a burst and NONE of the follow up messages have been opened. Out of 50 opt-in's, I would expect some verifications to be almost immediate, some in an hour or so, some never. I would expect some opens, maybe some unsubscribes, but its just absolute silence.

I would like to get some thoughts on this. Does anyone else think it's a bit strange?

5.0 (56)
37 posts / 12 likes

I too see this as a big issue.

5.0 (4)
15 posts / 8 likes

Report it. I have had this too from a certain seller. But let's do some deduction first. 1) have you tried running some of the emails through Facebook and seeing if real people come up? About half of them should show up. Google the rest and most of the rest should show up in some shape or form. If not, then you might be getting fake emails. 2) Of those that do show up on Facebook, they could have been subscribed without their knowledge and that's why they're not opening your emails. Assuming you're not using double optin, that is very easy for a rogue seller to scrape some emails then use them to optin to your offer. It might be worth sending some of them a personal email (outside of your autoresponder) and seeing if they are aware of opting in. Word it tactfully though. It's a crying shame that buyers have to do this in the first place though, borderline criminal.

5.0 (815)
94 posts / 106 likes

From what you have reported here, it seems like you may be the victim of a fraudulent seller. If all of the confirmations came in a big burst, and nobody is opening any of your follow ups, it is an indication that the subscribers are not real and the seller is most likely using bot software to imitate real human behavior.

You definitely need to report this to Udimi support. They are very good at investigating these type of issues and I can tell you that they have ZERO tolerance for this type of click fraud.

Another trick that I often employ is to copy some of the IP addresses and do a Google search on them. Do them one by one. The search results will often reveal whether or not these IPs are from proxies and or/blacklisted/spam IPs.

5.0 (1527)
239 posts / 246 likes
Charles Larson
Charles Larson on 29 Jul 2015 at 18:50

I bought a solo and got a good opt-in rate, in fact, unusually high. The ip's seem to be well distributed. I don't want to jump to questioning the integrity of the seller, but there is some behavior that I consider strange. What I find strange is that the verifications came in a burst and NONE of th

Your gut instinct is correct. I wouldn't jump the gun. Too many variables involved here. It is my personal opinion buyers RUN WAY TO FAST TO FRAUD CLAIMS. And it is generally because they do not understand how email works.

1. What autoresponder are you using?

2. When you say "verification" you need to be really precise here.

a) Are you using double optin? b) Are these verification emails that someone opted in?

If your answer to number 2 is B then there a couple possibilities other then FRAUD here.

1a) Your autoresponders smtp/MTA couple be backed up or having issues. 2b) Your email provider could be having deliver ability issues or could be DEFFERING emails cause there are too many the same coming in. So they hold off delivering until they determine it is not spam. Then release them in a batch.

Here is what I would do to better diagnose.

a) Send an email out titled "10 Dollars to First Person Who Writes Me Back"

And then send the first person who writes you back 10 bucks to their PayPal..

Wait at least 24 hours to see if you get someone to write you back.

b) See how many of these emails bounce.

c) Go to your autoresponder and look at the ACTUAL TIMESTAMPS of the optins. If the optins are squentional in time your ABSOLUTLY have a problems. But if they are spread

One other thing to keep in mind. If you see your HOSTNAMES as Comcast, SBC, Timewarner, Tmobile, Verizon. It is really hard or next to impossible to SPOOF these unless the optins are part of a massive malware scheme where your using zombie computers to send spam.

That is just my 2 cents. Hope it helps.

5.0 (6)
8 posts / 1 like

Heather, I absolutely agree. That's why I didn't mention names. But let me give you a little more info. I had double opt in enabled for 1/2 the solo. When I had it on, those verified but never opened the first message. When I turned it off, only the first message got opened. No one ever opened the second. I think all the verifications came in a burst a few minutes apart, but I need to get that data sucked out into a report.

On the other hand, the IPs were widely dispersed. That makes it hard for me to believe that someone could be running that big of a network and it seems like more work than would be worth it.

I plan to do more solos and will check how the results compare with other solos. My landing page sucks and I need a SLO after it. Once I fix those things will test again.

Thanks to everybody for the feedback.

5.0 (1527)
239 posts / 246 likes
Charles Larson
Charles Larson on 31 Jul 2015 at 21:21

Heather, I absolutely agree. That's why I didn't mention names. But let me give you a little more info. I had double opt in enabled for 1/2 the solo. When I had it on, those verified but never opened the first message. When I turned it off, only the first message got opened. No one ever opened the s

Double optin will mess everything up. I would run a new solo with it turned off and see what the results look like. Do NOT use verification emails as a measure of anything. Again, you want the actual timestamp.