Gift Cards and Coupons

A significant portion of people using the internet are always complaining that marketers are constantly after them for contact information.

To a marketer contact information is better than gold, since with contact info they can begin and run a marketing program directly targeted for you.

Marketers, being the desperate people they are are willing to pay money, sometimes quite large sums, for your contact information.

Strangely people on the internet don't understand how much power they have over the marketer. They have the one thing that the marketer needs
yet they are all hot and bothered when the marketer comes a'callin.

Instead, look at it this way, you have a valuable commodity which you can exchange, or sell to the highest bidder not once but many times over for cold hard cash.

Think of it like this: the marketer, using your contact information, wants to build an ongoing relationship with you so that in the future you may buy a product or products from them.

What tactics can a marketer use to try to get you to share your contact information, whether its just your email address or the whole package: name, email, physical address. Over the years many ways have been developed with one of the most popular - offers of free gift cards ranging from $25 upwards of $2,500.

These are legitimate gift cards from reputable merchants such as REI, Best Buy, Wal Mart, food cards, gas cards, travel cards and as many others as you can think of.

How can marketers afford to give away so many free gift cards?

When asked the marketers will tell you the truth "We get paid to give out free gift cards."

Why? "Merchants look at this as advertising and they pay us a commission for our advertising efforts on their behalf." And, "We drive targeted traffic,the type of traffic the merchants want, to their websites."

So here's your takeaway: shop around, do not be afraid to get the most bang for what you have to sell - your contact information. Do it once, see how it works for you and then repeat over and over. Happy spending.

Fred Freeman is a serious student of the online free gift card industry. He has spent a lot of time and resources researching and trying to understand how online marketing works and how the consumer can benefit by using the internet to exchange the thing online marketers most desperately want, your contact information, for cold hard cash.