Creating classified ads, locating the best websites, Ezines, or newsletters to place them, and managing your budget for advertising are all important parts of your advertising campaign. But in the midst of it all, don’t overlook and dismiss the value and importance of evaluating the ad’s effectiveness. You can’t assume that an ad is working or not working just based on your assumptions. It takes a little time and effort to fully evaluate ad effectiveness.
There are many ways to test your ads and to find the best possible ad, you must test various options. Remembering that the headline is the most important aspect of a classified ad means that testing your headline is essential. You want to ensure that your headline is attracting enough attention to pull people into the body of your ad before you assume that ad content is the culprit.
A recommended method of testing your classified ads is outlined below:
First of all, write 3-5 small classified ads and ensure they are grammatically correct and professionally written.
Use different headlines for each classified ad, focusing on short, succinct powerful headlines.
Place the ads in some low-cost Ezines or newsletters where you can test their effectiveness.
Track the results of the hits from your ads. You can do this simply by having each ad direct visitors to a specific web page (landing page) or by using traffic tracking software.
If one of the ads received better results than others, then test it on the other sites or publications.
If none of the ads resulted in increased traffic, adjust headlines and replace words with more powerful, commanding, or energetic keywords.
You may consider testing your headlines and body content word by word. Change only one word and then test its effectiveness.
Change not only the words, but change the font or style of the headlines and content to test different formats.
Stay focused on the same websites, Ezines, or newsletters until you’ve thoroughly tested various versions of your headlines and content. Find ads and headlines that work well.
Track the ad effectiveness over time – for example, the first time your ad appears you may see minimal traffic increase. But after 3 or more times of having your ad displayed, you should see increased traffic over time.
As you test effectiveness and tweak your wording, always remember to appeal to your target audience’s emotions. For example:
“Calendars for Sale Cheap” might not be nearly as effective as “Organize Your Life Quickly and Easily”
“Pots That Are Easy to Clean” isn’t nearly engaging as “Cooking Miracles That Scour Themselves”
You get the point now! Make your headlines engaging, exciting, and unique. The ‘ordinary’ doesn’t attract attention – go for the extraordinary instead.
The rule of the Internet is simple. You don’t have but a precious second or even less to capture attention. Use your words and your time wisely and create classified ads that work for you.
You’ll soon enjoy the benefits of increased traffic and higher conversions.
Classified advertising has been around for a long time offline, and it didn’t take it long to hit the online market either. Classified ads are an economical or free way to promote your business on the Internet. There are a variety of websites where classified ads can be placed and there are thousands of other places that offer opportunities to post classified ads next to relevant content.
Your advertising dollars need to be carefully utilized and closely monitored as you unveil and implement your marketing campaign. Your campaign will succeed if you do some homework ahead of time and monitor its effectiveness throughout the life of the ad.
However, there are also many ad campaigns that fail as a result of poor planning, inadequate tracking, or inattention to what is happening. Making some of the mistakes that cause an ad campaign to fail can be avoided by paying attention to some simple guidelines and basic facts.
The reasons that many classified advertising or other types of ad strategies fail include:
Lack of focus on the customer as the most important person in the process. Ads that focus on the company or its owners or founders will turn customers away quickly. People want to know about products and benefits – not your company or your product features.
Not knowing the customer is a major flaw for many advertisements. People will create ads without truly knowing what their customer’s value and they never take time to put themselves in the customer’s place. Potential customers see through this quickly – especially since they’re looking for “what’s in it for me”. If they don’t see that immediately, they’ll ignore your ad and move to someone who knows them better.
It’s all about benefits and not features. As stated above, people aren’t interested in features. They’re looking for something to make their lives simpler, easier, and less complicated. If you can show them how your product can do that, you’ll have a potential customer that becomes engaged and converted.
Placing a single ad and then moving to another site to place the ad and continually hopping around the Internet won’t gain you any customers. People typically need to see, hear, or read something 7 times before it really sinks in. Your ad campaign should run long enough on a single site for readers to take note and take action. You may get some immediate traffic, but odds are that the majority of your traffic will arrive after consistent advertising on the same site.
Not tracking the progress and effectiveness of your campaign can lead to failure every time. If you don’t know how well the campaign is doing, how do you know if you need to make adjustments or changes? No response to your classified ads after the campaign has run for about 6 views to the customer, then maybe your headline is ineffective or your content is confusing. Without tracking, you don’t even know something is not working and you’ve wasted time and possibly money.
Placing ads on classified advertising sites or in Ezines or other publications that are not relevant to the product being promoted is a real killer. You won’t find traffic you want and desire with this strategy – you’ll just waste your time and the website’s space.
Creating ads that promote so many products that it’s hard to discern what’s being sold can cause a campaign to fail. Keep your ads focused and promote a single product (or no more than two) with your ad. The less ‘noise’ you include in your ad, the more likely you are to succeed.
Misleading and deceiving your clients is a sure ringer for failure. Don’t make promises, commitments, or offers that you can’t fulfill. Not being truthful is the quickest way to your demise.
Providing poor customer service after the potential customer reaches your website can turn visitors away quickly – negatively impacting your conversion rates. Make sure you have the technology and resources to provide optimal customer services after the ad runs or you’ll fail miserably.
Planning ahead and preparing for a successful classified advertising campaign is essential your long-term success. Short term gains mean nothing if there are no long term plans to support your campaigns. Keep the above in mind as you prepare your advertising campaign and stay focused on your objectives.
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