As the subscriber voluntarily submits his email ID, it is understood that there is mutual consent between the website and the subscriber. This is why opt-in emails are not considered as spam mails. Opt-in lists can be effectively used to dispatch a whole number of useful and informative materials such as catalogs, newsletters and other promotional offers.

The percentage of Internet surfers who subscribe to opt-in lists is small, so therefore it is imperative that your mails to this small community must be meaningful, informative and entertaining. If your communication with your small community is run-of-the-mill, then your list will shrink. Teasers, promos, entertaining snippets and short bursts of informative news will keep them coming back to your website for more.

The prime objective of maintaining a list is to sell your products and services, and these sales will generate normal profits. You have to make some extra cash out of your list, which is highly possible, if you have a sizeable database of subscribers. Here are seven great tips on how to make extra money using your opt-in lists:

1) Sell advertisement space: Many companies want to advertise on lists that have a genuine and a sizeable database. If you have one, you can easily sell ad space on your mailings. Just one thing: Do not forget to place these ads at spots where they won't irritate your subscribers. You can place several ads in a single mailing and this can be quite a money-spinner.

2) You must tie-up with websites who dabble in products or services that are related to your industry. Then you must evolve a CPC (Cost Per Click) marketing strategy and announce it to them. If they are interested, they may place CPC links on your list and pay you only on a per-click-basis. This is also called P4P or pay for performance.

3) You can strike deals with companies who are willing to sell their products to your list on a commission basis. Even if you're only able to get a few sales, it's money for jam.

4) You can also sell other companies' products to your list on a consignment basis. Consignment sales pay more than commission-based sales and you will be expected to give these products more prominence in your newsletter, highlighting them, placing descriptions, articles and photos of the products. Again, if you are able to make a sale, it's just more jam on the bread.

5) You can also try your hand at selling digital products such as e-books. Manuals, DIY and how-to articles are in great demand and their publishers pay a hefty commission – sometimes as high as 75%! Just take care to ensure that the e-book you're going to hawk on your newsletter is related to the content.

6) Network your list. Ask people to refer their friends and relations. The larger your opt-in list, the higher your revenue will go, as sales and advertisement rates will soar.

7) Turn some of your subscribers into your partners by offering them an incentive if they are able to resell your products or services. Remember, this is Internet marketing, so the more resellers you recruit, the higher exposure you will get.

In the end, remember that an opt-in list is no ordinary means of communication – if planned and executed correctly, it can boost your business to unimaginable levels.

It is easy to set up an advertising campaign under these programs, but one must be cautious and make good business decisions about the campaign. The intent is to make money rather than pay Google, Yahoo, or AdCenter more than you make.

When evaluating the potential profit from a PPC program, you will only be charged for the times that the user clicks your ad. However, there is another variable that you must consider which is called conversion rate (CR). This is the number of users who click the ad divided into the number of users who actually buy the product. A rough rule of thumb for CR is five (5) percent.

You need to project the economics of the campaign before you launch it. If you have a low cost per click (CPC) and the commission from your affiliate company is high, you can afford a campaign with a low conversion rate. On the contrary, if the commission per transaction from the affiliate company is low, and the CPC is high, you need a conversion rate that is high.

It is a matter of simple math to project the results of a sales campaign.

Profit per click = ($ per sale X Conversion rate) - (Average cost per click)

Let’s plug in some numbers and see how this works. Assume that the selling commission is $5.00, the conversion rate is 5%, and the average cost per click is $.10. Multiply the selling commission ($5.00) by the CR of 5% to get $.25. Subtract the cost per click (CPC) of $.10 from $.25 and you get a profit of $.15. This does not seem like a lot of money, but the Internet is viewed 24/7 so if you have 1000 clicks per month and convert 5% of them, you will make $150 for setting up the campaign and then monitoring it occasionally. If you set up several of these campaigns for different key words, you can make a nice supplemental income.

In summary, always do your homework and make solid assumptions about your campaign. Do the math so you are not surprised by a campaign that costs you money rather than making you money.

To get started with this link exchange concept you will need to create a links page on your site. Decide up front whether you want to put text links, or image links. Image links require banners and may make your links page load slow, while text links load faster and often don't take away from the overall look and feel of your site. I would suggest text links. In order for this free internet advertisement scheme of ours to work you need to find sites you would like to place your link / or ad on. It's always best to put your link on a page of similar content. The reason for this is simple; If you run a website for "Beach Volleyball Lovers" and you put your free advert on a site for Russian Hockey Fans you probably aren't going to get many people clicking through to your site. So find a site that is similar to yours and contact that person via email and say something like hey I run such and such site, and I would like to exchange links with you. The more people you contact the more internet advertisements you get.

Once you have that Free Internet Advertisement / Link exchange stuff down to a science it may to time for you to purchase some cheap or affordable internet advertising

Cheap Internet Advertisement

My 2 personal favorites on the way of internet advertisement companies are the 2 giants; Yahoo and Google.

Google Adwords and Yahoo Publisher are my current solutions to internet advertisement on the cheap. Yahoo currently has a .10 CPC(cost per click) minimum on all ads. Google on the other hand does not. It's possible to put ads on Google syndicated searches for .01 CPC That is as cheap as it gets. However if you want the ads on their search engine search results I believe there is a .05 CPC minimum. Either way Google seems to be the cheaper of the two companies as far as the advertisement goes.

Another concept I would like to touch upon is "branding" or getting the name of your company out there. If you sell antiques and put an ad on Google, it may be displayed 1,000 before it is clicked. That means your banner or ad with your Sites name was displayed 1,000 for .05 cents. Well.. dam that's a deal. Eventually people will start to associate your sites name Bubbas Antiques with quality quality antiques. Believe it or not people branding is what sells. If you are thirsty and see 2 pops (sodas) on a table one says Pepsi and the other says Bubbas cola you are most likely to buy the Pepsi.

So again there are many ways to get internet advertisements cheap or free. All you need to do is get out there and do it.