In a perfect world, the advertisers/sponsors would want you to use only your main email address all the time… this is simply not practical for you though if you want to get credited consistently and maintain minimal control over the excessive amounts of spam you may be set up to receive. After a few times of giving that same email address then your crediting success may (most likely) start to dwindle.
There are “techniques” you can employ to deal with the email address issue (and still maintain integrity):
If you own your own domain(s) then try setting a “default” or “catch all” email address (in your hosting and/or domain control panel) That way you can make up whatever email address’ you want at that domain and have all of it point to your main address (simple) This way you can be superman56@mydomain.com, wonderwoman38@mydomain.com, etc. etc. Technically,
they are ALL your own valid (and most certainly as “unique” as you wish)
email address that will get checked often. P.s;, you can buy domain names for pennies on eBay
In most case you don’t even need hosting to set catch-all forwarding up for free (directly from your domain registrar.) (also, don’t buy a domain with any suffix other than .com, .net, or .org for use with this email technique for offers – most offers will reject other domain suffixes (like .info, etc.))
After a few weeks or months of entertaining all that spam the sponsor has been sending you then with this technique you have the option of simply shutting off the catch-all email forwarding for the domain thereby shutting the spam switch to off gracefully After all, as time goes by (months to years), the sponsors will most likely blacklist all email addresses at your domain once they figure out that all of those email addresses are referencing the same person – time to invest in a new domain name
I find this a much simpler and more graceful solution to the “offer email issue” than resorting to registering multiple “junk” email addresses at free email providers, using the gMail “dot trick” (don’t ask, I won’t elaborate!), using “disposable” or “short term use” email addresses, or purchasing email addresses in bulk from unscrupulous email dealers. <– these all fall way below my particular standards of practice and actually sit on the fence of approaching the big ‘F’ word – (Fraud!)
If you use the domain based unique valid email approach you are still satisfying the sponsor’s need for honest exposure and consideration while protecting yourself from the spam abuse perpetrated by a minority of unscrupulous sponsors. You are still receiving all the communication access the sponsor has paid you for while maintaining control over how much email based abuse you will allow. A win-win in my book. (there is only so much Viagra, Nigerian scam, outright deception, identity theft attempt, outright lying sneaky SOB, etc. email abuse that I will devote any further attention to)
REFERRALS:
The domain name usefulness doesn’t stop there. Set up “forwarding with masking” to point your domain to your referral link here – then promote that domain name to search engines and rake in some referral cash while you are at it.
When you master this technique then take it a bit further and set up sub domains each pointing (with masking) to a different referral link. Promote these sub domains. No hosting required ! (the “masking” allows you to specify your own custom title, description, and keywords (META tags) – and it shows the site to your prospective referrals without them knowing obviously that they are being referred )
If you are creative and masterful enough with your META tags and promotion then your domain’s search engine rankings may actually surpass that of the site(s) you are referring to (as I have several times.)
