The Best Safelists for September 2011

Welcome to September!

Another month down and a whole new month of stats to share for the best safelists and viral list builders out there today.

The big news from last month was the re-release of List Surfing.  This site definitely got a lot of attention and with good reason.  List Surfing does an amazing job of blending the best elements of a traffic exchange with a safelist to create a unique advertising environment.  Best of all List Surfing has brought social marketing into the safelist arena which is something this industry has been very much lacking.

If you missed it I did a video review of List Surfing that you can watch here:

https://www.getrichwithjerry.com/list-surfing-video-review/

Not too much else to report.  I did test a few older safelists that I had joined years ago but quit because they weren’t producing good results.  The results from last month weren’t good enough to put them in the top 15 so I won’t bother mentioning them.  Needless to say if you have any good safelists or viral list builders that you recommend which you don’t think I am member of please send them my way.

On to the stats…

Here’s how it works.  I promote a series of squeeze pages for my ebook Safelist Marketing Tactics on 30-40 different safelists and viral list builders.  I use a tracking service to tell me how many hits I receive from each site as well as how many new subscribers I received.  I do have upgraded memberships on most of these sites which often allow me to send my ads to more members and more often.  I also spend time every day clicking emails for credits which allow me to send my ads to the maximum number of people as often as possible.  Your results may vary.


Hits Unique Conv. Ratio
AdsolutionLine 2799 40.00% 20 0.71%
The Lead Magnet 1186 62.00% 20 1.69%
State of the Art Mailer 4121 77.00% 19 0.46%
List Bonus 1207 81.00% 16 1.33%
Quick List Profits 553 62.00% 13 2.35%
Ultimate Profit List
1228 73.00% 12 0.98%
Adchiever 1673 69.00% 11 0.66%
List Joe 2063 77.00% 10 0.48%
DownlineBuilderDirect 1252 56.00% 8 0.64%
Viral URL 25 92.00% 8 32.00%
List Effects 319 63.00% 7 2.19%
Instant List Empire 537 66.00% 7 1.30%
List Surfing
896 83.00% 7 0.78%
List Adventure 1021 60.00% 5 0.49%
AdTactics 1099 24.00% 4 0.36%

Total August sign-ups from all mailers (including those not listed here): 166

Not a bad month.  Pretty cool to see an old school safelist like AdsolutionLine topping the list.   Makes me wish I earned commissions there but it’s a totally free safelist.  So if you’re not a member, that’s definitely one you will want to join.

Everything else looks about right.  A nice mix of safelists and viral list builders.  It’s not too hard to see from looking at this list which are the best sites to be advertising on this month.

I should mention that List Surfing is a little bit lower on the list than I would have expected.  That’s because the mailer credits are earned by surfing in the traffic exchange side of the site.  Unfortunately I haven’t had enough time to earn enough credits to reach the maximum number of members for every mailing.  That makes it a little harder to compare to the other sites.  I will say that the branding and the social aspect of List Surfing puts it a little bit ahead of the competition but that is something which is kinda hard to measure with these kinds of stats.

That’s it for this month.  Don’t forget that these are my own personal stats based on my own efforts.  Your results may differ from mine.  These stats are provided to give you a starting point for new safelists and viral list builders to try.  The only way to determine which sites work best for you is to track your own stats.  You can get the same link tracker that I use for free from TE Toolbox.

Safelist Marketing Tactics
Click here to receive a free copy of Safelist Marketing Tactics

The Best Safelists for May 2010

Hello and welcome to my latest posting where I attempt to rank the top safelists and viral listbuilders based on my own stats from the previous month.

Before getting into the rankings I like to go over some of the major events in the safelist world which happened during the last month.  Unfortunately, there aren’t any.  No major launches to speak of.  No big changes.  ViralAdStore changed their graphics to make them a little brighter but that’s about it.

I did cut back a little bit last month from some of the smaller exchanges that haven’t been producing well enough for me.  I also either canceled my upgraded memberships or downgraded to a less expensive membership on some of the safelists that weren’t bringing me enough sign-ups to justify the price of an upgrade.  I usually estimate that each sign-up I get to my list is worth about $1.00 so if I am spending $20/month on an upgrade and only getting 4 or 5 sign-ups, it’s probably not worth it.

One thing I started doing last month that I hadn’t been doing much before is taking advantage of safelists that allow you to send more than 1 ad per day.  This usually requires being an upgraded member and spending more time clicking for credits but it has allowed me to diversify a bit and send out a wider variety of ads.  So far the two best I have found for sending multiple ads are Elite Safelist and European Safelist.  Both of these sites are well worth the price for the upgrade.

I also tried out a few newer safelists that launched over the last few months.  The results were poor at best.  Maybe I will try them again in a few months if they are able to attract a few new members.  For now it’s better to stick with the safelists that have been around for awhile and are proven to work.

Ok, stats time!  All of these numbers are a result of advertising my video splash page for Safelist Marketing Tactics.

Total Clicks

Unique Clicks Action Sales CTA CTS
List Effects
1,501 921 55 22 5.97% 2.39%
ViralAdStore 2,240 1,141 64 21 5.61% 1.84%
List Auction 2,021 995 67 13 6.73% 1.31%
ListBuildingMaximizer 1,448 703 36 13 5.26% 1.85%
List Joe
1,848 1,298 59 12 4.55% 0.92%
Adsolutionline 2,719 931 49 7 5.26% 0.75%
Elite Safelist 2,018 818 64 6 7.82% 0.73%
Global Safelist
1,123 524 37 6 7.06% 1.15%

“Clicks” is how many people viewed my splash page.  “Action” is how many people clicked the link on my splash page to go to the main site.  “Sales” is how many people joined my site.  CTA and CTS are “clicks to action” and “clicks to sale”.  I ranked these safelists by sales but it is also important to look at the other numbers to determine how responsive each safelist really is.

As we can see List Effects continues to stay on top however it’s not dominating quite as much as it had been over the last few months.  It will be interesting to see if it can continue to stay on top next month.

ViralAdStore has climbed back to the top of the list after having dropped quite a few places over the last few months.  Maybe those new graphics are working for them after all.

No other real big surprises but it is nice to see Adsolutionline and Global Safelist back on the list again.

Once again I want to remind everyone that these are my own personal stats from promoting my own personal splash pages.  These stats are only meant to be a guide to help you choose which safelists and viral listbuilders to use.  Your results will probably be different from my own but the only way to know for sure which sites work best for you is to track your own results.  You can get a free link tracker from TEToolbox.

 The Best Safelists for February 2010