I'm looking into making some sites that can build optin email subscriber lists, by giving away free stuff that has value.

This concept is nothing new, but the problem is that often the product being given out is on an exposed download link, which means that other people can get it without opting into your list.

The twist I am working on is that I only hand over the incentive once the person has confirmed their email AND the download link they get is limited to a time expiration and # downloads.

This secure download ability is provided by a powerful digital product delivery system called DL Guard. It can be used to deliver products sold via Paypal, Clickbank, and several other payment systems. It can also handle free products as described above.

My preferred email system is Aweber, and so what I needed was a way to have people optin on a "squeeze page", get registered in DLGuard as a free product customer, confirm their email, and then be given the DLG link to download their gift.

I managed to get it all working with a proof-of-concept site, which you can also experience here for free. The download I am handing out is a brief explanation of how to set this up yourself, and some php code you'll need to add to your server, so that aweber correctly integrates back to DLG after the subscriber confirms their email.

The end result is that there is now a way to set up mini sites which can be tiny list building generators for you, as people are always searching online for free information. By adding some followup emails to your autoresponder sequence, you can then offer them related products as an affiliate, or upsell them to a pro version of the product you gave them for free.

The monetization ideas are endless, but you need to get them on your list first, and giving out free products is one way to do it.

--- (Edited on 11/15/2011 12:53 pm [GMT-0600] by Peter) ---