Classy Ads

How do you know if your ads a flop? Maybe they are where the majority of your traffic is coming from. Perhaps you have a nice healthy balance.

Whether you pay for your ads or only utilize free sites, you are still spending your time. Your time is valuable, don't spend any on something that isn't working. In short, you are paying regardless. You need your ads to give you results, starting yesterday.

Always run at least two ads. Test them relentlessly. Keep the one that preforms better, alter the second. Test again. Repeat this process indefinitely for an unbeatable ad campaign.

Make sure you test the pros and cons of using images. I find I usually get more traffic with some good old formatted text than with images. Sometimes though, in picky cities, only a great image will do the trick.

If you have a decent hosting company, keep track of the ads you post in different cities, and check your reports to see the referring sources. I like to post a lot, with tons of different ads, so I keep track by posting my ad “freeebooksD.jpg” in cities beginning with D. With “freeebooksA.jpg” I do the same thing and so on.
Then switch it up, cities are different and may respond differently to specific ads. If you have one that you really think is a killer, but isn't working, move it to a new place and test it there.

If you're finding that no matter what ad you post, a particular city never clicks your link, abandon it for now. Again, don't waste your time. You can always go back with new ads later.
You can use different pages too. Use a couple different landing page urls, with the same content, and track the traffic to each. Give each page a different ad and watch as some pull in visitors, and perhaps some don't see a single hit. This is slightly time consuming but I've found it very effective at weeding out my ineffective ads. Unfortunately, if you are working off an affiliate link you may not have this option.

Tiny and Short URL work for testing my affiliate pages. I don't make any claims that they will work with your affiliate tracking.

That's about all the testing I've been known do...how do you test your ads' effectiveness?

Craigslist, Backpage, and USAads are spammed with ridiculous promises each and every day. You can write ads quickly and deal with a few hits a day, and if that's fine with you-then you don't belong in this blog.
Or you can really think this out, really get a feel, and the really get some traffic!
You need to make your own ads stand out, and the in the mist of all these scattered letters and dollar signs, get a reaction from your potential customer.

Consider...

Who are you selling to?
Age, Gender, Profession? You can't write the same ad for aging women as you would for professional athletes. Who are these people, what are they're problems-and how are you going to solve them? At least one of them. Make your ad their long awaited solution, that they may or may not have known they were looking for. Remember young men and women may be roped in with fantastic promises (keep them, be true) while an older group might need proof, or a guarantee.

Join the mailing list, make a phone call, buy a product, download free materials? Identify the step and write your ad around it, to your targeted audience. Be clear, direct, and confidant.

Click Here to Witness the Amazing Benefits of XXXX!
An Easy Call Will Lower Your XXXX Bill Forever!
Mailing List Subscribers Receive Massive Discounts – Register Now!
Click Now to See Real Proof That XXXX Does Whatever!

Obviously, make sure there is always something for your potential customer. Joining your mailing just because you want them to won't work. People are naturally thinking “What's in it for me?” Above we are offering proof, discounts, and an opportunity to save money. That's always a big hit-saving money.

These are words that entice the buyer to do just want you want them to, they add a sense of urgency, and work on some unconscious level too.
Some Phrases (I avoid Click Here and Buy Now but to each their own)
Free XXXX (Make sure you let them in on what they're getting free)

Click Here
Call Now
Register Now
Buy Now
Contact Now
Free Trial
Sign Up Now
Limited Time Only
Learn Some HTML

Get your hands dirty, learn some HTML it by heart. You don't want to waist time searching for tags all the time. Or open notepad and keep a copy of your favorites.

You don't have to get too deeply involved, but it's best to learn changing color, size, position, italic, bold, underline and font. This part is all up to you. Don't overdo it, or your ads will look flashy and spammy. Utilize white space as well.

I use green because that's the color my site is in, and denotes money to me. I have a great love of centering everything. I am a firm believer that an ad should be in one spot on the page, not written across the length of it.

Even tips in this article—test it all.
I found I received more subscribers to my mailing list immediately after the layout was changed from red to green. Why? Do other people think of money too, or do I simply look more trustworthy now? A little research on color theory tells me that the color blue is the most common and is associated trust and reliability. Maybe I'll change my theme to blue this winter and see how I fair.

Test your ads over and over again. Keep changing, make a list of your best conversion ads. This is an ever on-going process as the seasons and times change. If you are receiving an enormous amount of clicks and no sales, maybe look at your sales copy.