I am not sure when I first saw email autoresponders used in Internet Marketing but I am guessing it would have been about 1995. This was simply an a reply that was triggered when an email was sent to that address. It seemed like magic at the time but seems very unspohisticated by todays standards. Next came the "Follow-up Autoresponder", this could be set to send out emails at intervals automatically and could even allow personalized responses. Now this really was magic!

It seemed like an Internet Marketers dream to be able to send pre-programmed email responses, and has since become an essential tool in the Internet Marketers arsenal. As any marketer will tell, you it is all about the followup, the autoresponder just makes that process a lot easier by automating it. The fact is that very few buyers decide to buy on the spot with the first view of your offer. Most simply go away and forget about your offer.

Whilst I don't have any hard figures, it is safe to say that your conversions, from visitor to buyer, will increase greatly if you make use of a properly setup Autoresponder. I have seen other Internet Marketers reporting increases of 30-50% increase in sales. Suffice to say it is a very worthwhile increase in conversions.

Two of the most popular companies who supply Autoresponders are aweber.com and getresponse.com. Both of these companies have been around for years and now offer very sophisticated Autoresponders with the sorts of features that are extremely helpful for Internet Marketers. Things like a comprehensive statistics packages that allow you to keep a track of the effectiveness of your autoresponder campaigns and also send file attachedments and well formatted emails with embedded videos. They sure have come a long way since I used to edit plain text files on the server in 1995. There are also large number of Autoresponder programs that give you similar functionality but allow you to install it on your own website. I guess the main benefit here is that you usually don't have the monthly costs associated with the using a third party service provider. The down side is that they can be complicated to install, use and maintain and usually don't offer the number of features you find on aweber.com and getresponse.com.

How to Integrate Autoresponders into Your Website

Once you have worked out which Autoresponder program or service you are going to use the next thing to do is to intergrate it into your site. The most common practise these days is to use some form of "PopUp", to engage the visitor and prompt them to signup for a special offer or free e-book. If you are adding a Pop-Up to your website here is a very handy application to make the job a lot easier. It is all about building your list so you need to get a little creative about how you manage to get the details of your prospective clients.