When it comes to making money from affiliate marketing or a product launch, very little is better than having an up to date, targeted email list. When attracting traffic from search engines or social media, there is a variety of people from different countries, searching for different terms, which are not always related to the product which you’re aiming to promote. If it’s possible to collate a list of the email addresses of people who are interested in buying the product then the percentage of visitors buying the product would be far higher. Additionally, email lists can be used again in the future when running a similar campaign or promoting a similar product, rather than starting from scratch as you normally would with any other form of marketing.

However, building such a list is not an easy task; there are lists of email addresses available all over the Internet, but these are not targeted, and are likely to have received so much spam that any marketing emails are immediately deleted, if the owner of the email address hasn’t already given up and started using a different email address instead.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t some easy ways to build targeted email lists though; one of the easiest ways to build a targeted email list is to offer free products, where the user must confirm their email address in order to access the download, which can be anything, as long as it’s related to products which you plan to promote, otherwise your list will not be targeted. Ebooks, Software and tutorials are some of the most popular freebies to offer with this method. There is, however, one major drawback to building a list through offering free goods; many of the people who will give their email address to access the download are actually only interested in free products, and will never convert into sales when you start sending out emails promoting paid products. Additionally, some users will simply use a temporary email address to register for your download in order to avoid receiving spam emails in the future. However, this is still the quickest way to build a large email list quickly.

One way to build a list of people who are definitely interested in paid products is to take advantage of the hype surrounding an upcoming product launch. You can set up a blog and post some news and discussion related to the product, and offer an email newsletter which will contain details of the launch itself, even promising a discount code if one is likely to exist. This will mean that everyone who signs up to your email list will be interested in buying a paid product, and will use a real email address rather than a temporary one, so when it comes to sending out marketing emails, you know you have a list with excellent potential.

It’s important to remember not to send out too many emails to your list, otherwise they will end up unsubscribing. Be picky about which products you promote, and your success rate will be higher.