Sometimes, website owners will allow you to display your ad on their site and only pay for that ad when a visitor to that site takes a certain action that you identify.  This is called Pay-Per-Action or PPA advertising.  And one of the most effective PPA tools is co-registration (co-reg).

Co-reg is a method for generating targeted subscribers onto your mailing list.  Basically, you, as the newsletter publisher or product author, place a short ad for your newsletter or product with a co-reg service, and that service shows your ad on a variety of sites in their network.  Usually, there will be a checkbox beside your ad so that prospective readers can click the box to indicate that they want to receive information from you.

It’s called co-registration because your listing is placed along with other offers, so when someone signs up for an offer, they get the option to sign up for multiple newsletters without having to re-enter their personal information.

As an example, when someone signs up for a free e-mail account with Hotmail, Hotmail displays a page that says, “Hey, do you want to get some free stuff?”  That person can look through the list and put a check mark next to anything of interest to them.  Once they hit submit (or whatever button is there), the co-reg service sends that person’s name, email address, and other sign-up information to the right publishers.

You, as the publisher or advertiser, pay the co-reg service for each subscriber they send to you.  So basically, you’re paying for a targeted opt-in subscriber.

Co-registration can be a very effective tool in your arsenal.  It allows you to build your list of subscribers very quickly.  You’re able to set it up and let it run on auto-pilot.  The co-reg service does the work for you.

Additionally, co-reg can be much less expensive than pay-per-click and other forms of on-line advertising.  At the same time, your business will gain wider exposure because chances are your ad will be placed on sites you might not normally have access to as an advertisers.

It’s not all smooth sailing, however.  Co-registration does come with some challenges that you’ll have to deal with if you decide to use it in your marketing strategy.

First, sometimes people will sign up for your newsletter and forget that they did so since it was on a page with a lot of other offers.  This can lead to spam complaints and cause problems for you with your web host.

Also, some of the major autoresponder services do not allow you to add co-registration leads to your autoresponder campaigns directly from the co-reg service.  What that means is, you would have to use your own autoresponder tool or one provided by the co-reg company to follow up with those leads.

Of course, you could then use your creativity to get your subscribers to go to one of your regular opt-in pages and join your normal mailing list.  And this isn’t an issue if you run your own autoresponder software or if your autoresponder service allows you to use co-registration.

Once you’ve decided that co-registration is a good tool for you, here are few things to keep in mind:

•    Select a co-reg service that delivers your leads immediately.  You want to be able to follow up with your new subscribers as soon as they subscribe so they remember who you are.

•    Use a co-reg service that permits you to require double opt-in for your leads.  This will reinforce to your new subscribers that they joined your list, and will help you be sure you’re building a list with valid e-mail addresses with real people at the other end.

•    Talk with the co-reg service and be sure they target the market you’re interested in.  Be sure you understand all of the costs up front.

•    Make sure your description targets the people who would be interested in what you’re offering.  The more focused your ad is, the better the chance you’ll get responses from the people you want to work with – plus, you’ll minimize your un-subscribes.

•    As with all of your marketing efforts, you need to test and track your results.  If something is not working, fix it so you are profiting from the time and money you’re putting into your advertising.

Co-registration has somewhat of a negative reputation among some internet marketers, but it can be extremely productive in terms of getting you subscribers quickly and allowing you to test your marketing system.