How To Use Craigslist as an Internet Marketing Strategy

Are Free Classified Ads Effective for Internet Marketing?

I received a spam email today promoting an ebook about Craigslist that described the free classified ad site as a "hidden goldmine."

I had to laugh. While some marketers have had success with Craigslist and other high-traffic classified ad sites such as USFreeAds, keep in mind that with any free advertising on the internet:

• you have to work hard at it

• you have to post a lot of ads on a daily basis

• you have to write effective ads

• you need to follow a strategy or system 

If you are on a tight budget and have lots of time, try this strategy for Craigslist:

For affiliate and network marketers, the main challenge on Craigslist is preventing your ads from being flagged/deleted. Craigslist uses ebots that scan ads for similar text and when they find one, out it goes!

One way around this is to create ads as images. Craigslist ebots cannot see text saved as an image.

Here is a link to a "confidential" video that shows you how to create image ads and post them to Craigslist:

Video: Craigslist Power Posting

Additional Tips for Craigslist

• I don't think it's necessary to register for an account with Craigslist which means that you'll just have to click a confirmation link sent to the email address you used when you placed the ad

• register 10 free email accounts with Gmail or Yahoo

• open up a free image hosting account at Photobucket as described in the video above

• you can convert text to an image file (jpeg) at http://convert.neevia.com

• write 30 subject lines (headlines) for your ad. Tips: avoid using words like “click here”, “look at”, “check out”, “go here”, go to”. Craigslist  doesn't like these words and may block your ad. Put different symbols, numbers or characters (such as: ###; ***) before or after your subject lines to make each one look different.

• using a different IP adress will prevent Craigslist from bumping your ad. Your IP Address is a string of numbers based on the exact location of your computer and internet connection. You can always check to see what your IP address is by going to www.whatismyipaddress.com.

• a convenient way to hide your IP address is by downloading the software at http://www.change-ip-address.com

• post exactly 10 ads per day to Craigslist using different email accounts, subject lines, and ad content (unless you use image ads as described in the video above)

• you may be able to get away with posting more ads if you change your IP address

• follow this format:

Day 1 - Post 10 different ads to 10 cities
Day 2 - Post 10 different ads to 10 cities
Day 3 - Post 10 different ads to 10 cities
Day 4 and on - Repeat the above sequence (you can repost the same ad(s) every 48 hours, hence the 3 day sequence). 

• here are the best cities and countries with the most traffic to place ads:

1. San Francisco
2. Miami 
3. Los Angeles 
4. Chicago 
5. Washington DC 
6. Phoenix 
7. Toronto 
8. New York City 
9. Seattle 
10. Houston 
11. Boston 
12. San Diego 
13. Dallas 
14. United Kingdom 
15. Australia

• TIP:  go to Google Trends and enter the name of the keyword and/or product name you are targeting to discover the search trends by regions/cities etc.

• post your ads mid-day if possible

The best categories to place your ads are: 

  Jobs Offered - Sales 
  Jobs Offered - Real estate 
  Jobs Offered - Marketing 
  Services Offered - Small Biz Ads 
  Services Offered - Real estate
  For Sale - Businesses
  Discussion Forums - Jobs or Money

 

The key to this whole process is writing ads that will get noticed.

However, for now, I suggest looking at current ads for similar products and opportunities on Craigslist, USFreeAds, and Google Adwords.

Notice what perks your interest and would make you want to click on the ad.

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Mark McCullagh is the owner of the NewSuccessOnline blog, one of the top sites on the web for network marketers looking for internet marketing strategies that work.