ezine advertising live · copywriter is writing sales letters, selling emails, and autoresponder...

Charlie Page’s

Ezine Advertising Live!

YYOO UURR EEZZIINNEE AADDVVEERRTTIISSIINNGG

QQUUEESSTTIIOONNSS AANNSSWWEERREEDD!!

The Right Ad The Right Ezine

The Right Offer The Right Timing

http://www.ezineadvertisinglive.com

EZINE ADVERTISING LIVE

© Charlie Page

About Charlie Page

Charlie Page is the author of over 10 eBooks on Internet marketing and the owner of the Directory of Ezines.

The Directory of Ezines is the world's first and best online resource for advertising and article marketing with ezines, also known as newsletters.

He is considered the leading expert on marketing with ezines.

Charlie began his online career as a copywriter. His specialty as a copywriter is writing sales letters, selling emails, and autoresponder

messages that cause readers to take action in record numbers. One of Charlie's sales letters garnered an amazing 34% conversion rate during the introduction of a very well-known eBook about Internet marketing.

In 2000 Charlie joined the Directory of Ezines as a member and began using ezine marketing to grow his business. The result? 18 months later he bought the company!

He continues to teach his DOE members how to create their own success story using ezines.

Charlie has contributed to books in print as well as eBooks, helping Robert Allen complete Multiple Streams of Internet Income as well as working with Jay Aaron and Jay Conrad Levinson (the father of Guerilla Marketing) to create their web and print project called Guerilla Marketing to the Masses.

You can see all that Charlie offers at his main site, Real World Tactics.

Important note from Charlie

Before reading the transcript below please download and print the Success Guide for this call.

The Success Guide is an interactive document that will help you get the most out of

this transcript and help you quickly and easily apply what you learn here.

The Success Guide is free – my gift to you.

You can get the Success Guide now by visiting this link.

http://www.EzineAdvertisingLive.com/guide

http://www.realworldtactics.com/ebooks-by-charlie.html

http://www.directoryofezines.com/

http://www.gmarketingtreasures.com/page

http://www.realworldtactics.com/

http://www.ezineadvertisinglive.com/guide


© Charlie Page

The Eight Ezine Advertising Live Modules

1) Ezine Advertising Secrets Revealed: “Make Ezine Advertising Work for You”

2) The Right Ezine: “Endless Pools of Pre-Qualified Prospects”

3) The Right Ad Part I: “Write a Power Ad & Get It Seen By Millions”

4) The Right Ad Part II: “Advanced Ad Writing Techniques”

5) The Right Ad Part III: “Case Studies and Creating an Ezine Ad Campaign”

6) Track & Analyze Results: “Repeat the Winners and Achieve Real Success”

7) Advanced Techniques: “Expert Methods That Give you an unfair advantage”

8) FAQ: “Your Ezine Advertising Questions Answered By Charlie Page”


© Charlie Page

Hello - I’m Charlie Page – welcome to this call and thank you for being

here. I really appreciate your business, and I appreciate you taking the time

to be on this call tonight.

Tonight we're going to cover the frequently asked questions from the

Ezine Advertising Live series of calls. We've covered a lot of ground. I think

it's something like 16 or 18 hours of audio, and I haven't even counted the

pages of transcripts, but I know that one transcript was 140 pages. So

there's a lot of material here, and I know that my teaching style, for lack of

a better term, is to give a lot of content at one time.

One of the most common comments that I've received, not really a

question, is that, "Wow, I've had to listen to the audio three times to get

everything you said, but I did and it was good and thank you." So I

appreciate that very much. I hope I haven't gone too quickly through the

content. I've tried to be thorough without going too quick or too slow. So I

hope I've achieved that goal.

I want to do a couple of housekeeping tasks before we begin with the

actual questions. We received something on the order of 125 questions

throughout the course of Ezine Advertising Live and especially many

questions in the last few days since I sent out the email to members with

the link to the Ask page. What I've liked about these questions has been


© Charlie Page

that they're not your basic, "How can I download the PDF file?" questions.

You guys are doing a great job, and I want to really commend you, of

absorbing the material and asking the deeper questions.

So that was very encouraging to me, because as a person who cares

very much about your success, I want to make sure that I'm getting the

material through to you. And I know I'm not the strongest vessel to do that,

but it seems to be where we are that I'm teaching this. So I want to make

sure that I do communicate it clearly, and it seems like that's happening

because of the type of questions we've received.

I won't, obviously, answer 125 questions tonight. We'll be together for

about 90 minutes or perhaps a little bit longer. We'll probably not take a

break tonight but rather go right through the material, and I'm going to

answer about 30 or 35 questions depending upon how much time we do use

and how everything goes. I think we've got 32 questions lined up to

answer.

So I hope they're representative of the questions that you have, but I

want to say two things about that. Number one, every question that has

been asked, if it hasn't been answered already, will be answered in the next

four to five days. And number two; I want you to feel free to continue

asking questions. I'm going to create a page inside the members' area of

Ezine Advertising Live so that members can ask questions specifically.


© Charlie Page

And even though tonight is the last call of Ezine Advertising Live, it

doesn't at all mean that the course is wrapped up and now I'm just going to

go on holiday and take a break and never answer another question. We will

be gone in September. We're leaving in late September to go out of the

country because our daughter is going to study abroad. And so we're going

to be in the UK getting her settled in, but I'll have Internet access and still

be answering questions.

And I want you to know that your Ezine Advertising Live membership

is permanent. It's lifetime. Having been online for ten years now, lifetime

with me kind of means more than it does with some other people. It really

means lifetime. We've got Directory of Ezines members who've literally

been members for nine years, ten years. That's how it will be with Ezine

Advertising Live.

Again, I'm just doing a little housekeeping before we get into the

actual questions. When we do Ezine Advertising Live again next year, and

we'll do live calls again next year, you're invited to return at no cost and

attend those calls if you want to grab the new audio files and PDF files. And

at any time, you can avail yourself of the resources within the member’s

area of Ezine Advertising Live. So I hope you feel like you've really received

a good value for what you've spent, because that was my goal.

http://www.directoryofezines.com/members/admin/check_accounts.php


© Charlie Page

And let me cover a few other topics, and then we'll get into answering

some of these frequently asked questions.

The audio and transcripts for each call are going to always be located

on the page for that call. We'll continue to have that little list of Call 1, 2, 3,

4, 5, and you click that and all the resources for that call are going to be on

that page. That includes the audio, the transcripts, the success guide, and

soon the filled-in success guide. We're going to fill in the success guide for

you and provide a completed success guide on the page.

So resources that are specific to a particular call will be on that call's

page. Resources that are more general in nature are going to be on the

resources page. If you've logged in over the last couple of days, you've

noticed a new button which is the video button. That's going to point to,

and points to now, a page where the video training will take place. Those

videos are on their way very soon. In fact, my programmer has several

right now to put on the site.

In addition, I'm going to create what are called viral PDFs. Now this is

going to take a little time to create, but look for this on the resources – or

the affiliate page, rather, of Ezine Advertising Live. These are going to be

PDF documents that you can brand with your name, as in this document

written by me but brought to you by with your name, and then your affiliate


© Charlie Page

link will go in the document. And you can give this document away freely.

They'll be good quality documents. We're not talking three pages, but we're

talking about good quality documents that people will really get benefit

from. It will help you build mailing lists. It will help you in many ways.

Specifically it will help you if you want to promote Ezine Advertising Live.

So with those little bits of housekeeping done, we're going to get into

our first question, and that is, "How does ezine advertising compare

with other paid traffic generation methods like pay per click, social

ads, and classified ads?"

That's a very, very good question, because we covered in one of the

calls recently that there are literally a dozen ways to drive traffic to a

website. Ezine advertising can be thought of as one of the pillars, one of the

foundational elements that you can use to drive traffic to your website. I'm

not advocating now nor have I advocated that you use only ezine

advertising, but I am advocating that you use it as one of your primary

methods and as a foundational method.

Now that being said, how does it compare to other paid traffic

generation methods? We did this actually in Call #2, as I recall, so you

might check that transcript if you want more information than I give you

tonight. Here's what I like about ezine advertising, and please bear in mind

I use all forms of advertising. I place banners. I buy pay per click ads. I


© Charlie Page

place ezine ads, of course. I publish my own ezine. I write and distribute

articles and more. So I've used viral marketing, all forms of marketing.

What I like about ezine advertising is this. I find it to be more

targeted than almost any other form of advertising, because I can see an

ezine before I buy an ad in it, and I can determine what the content is of

that ezine. I can ask "What is the content of this ezine? Is it about sports?

Is it about medicine? Is it about anti-aging? Is it about social issues? What

is this ezine all about?" And I can make a very thorough determination of

the type of person who it going to read that ezine.

So, that allows me to do two things that other forms of advertising, in

my opinion, don't do. Number one, it allows me to target the audience of

the ezine, and number two, it allows me to target the audience based on

content. Let me draw the definition there. If there's an ezine that is read

primarily by women and I have a product that is consumed primarily by

women, even if the content, even if the subject matter of the ezine isn't

about the product I'm promoting, I'll promote in that ezine, because I know

that the audience is the right audience for me.

Now, the best-case scenario is when you can say, "Yes, the subject,

the content of the ezine is harmonious. It matches up with my product;

therefore I know the readers are interested in that product type, that type of

product." That's your best-case scenario.


© Charlie Page

But there's a second type of targeting that I think people often

miss, and that is to consider the reader of the ezine. It may be that the

reader in the ezine would be interested in your product even though the

content has nothing to do with your product.

Let me give you a couple of examples. I like to play golf. No big

mystery or secret there. I think everybody who's listened to these calls

knows that I make golf references, and here's what I've found.

I've found that golfers have discretionary income, and they do certain

things in common. One of those things is travel. They travel quite a bit,

because they like to travel to places to play golf. They go to tournaments.

They go to watch tournaments being played. Sometimes they go to

participate in tournaments. Sometimes members of a club will band

together and take a road trip and go play scenic or historic golf courses.

So I have found through experience that travel products work well in

golf ezines. Why is that? It has nothing to do with golf except that it's

supplementary to the golfing lifestyle. People who golf often travel. People

who play golf often will have resources also in excess of the Average Joe,

shall we say, because golf is an expensive hobby.


© Charlie Page

So people who play golf often will have some disposable income. That

means that they will do certain things that other people simply can't afford

to do. Part of that is financial planning. Therefore, insurance products have

worked very well in golf ezines, because these golfers are people who have

the type of money that they want to protect (an estate that they want to

protect) so they might do some estate planning.

What are some other examples just from this one little slice of the

ezine world, the golfing ezine? Well, these are people who participate in an

outdoor activity, and so it's a sport. They want to be healthy, so often

health products, particular products that will enhance some kind of stamina

or endurance, because golf is a sport that takes three or four hours to play,

to compete, or complete rather. Sometimes people get tired on what's

called the back nine, the second nine holes of a golf course.

So you see there are different ways to target with ezines than just,

"This is an ezine about marketing on the Internet or making money at home.

I have a making-money at home opportunity. I'm going to place an ad."

That's perfectly fine, and that's good targeting, but there are layers. There

are levels of targeting that can be done with ezines that can't be done as

effectively with other methods.


© Charlie Page

To be completely candid, you can do some qualifying by using other

methods. One of the things that I've taught my consulting clients is to

qualify people in their pay per click ads by using terminology like "for left-

handers only," "available in Ohio only," or "California residents only can

apply," or "doesn't apply to California residents," or these types of things.

You can use some of that language.

Some of the language you use in your ad can be qualifying or

disqualifying when you use pay per click, although pay per click you're

limited to so few characters it's difficult to do that. Still it can be done, not

as effectively, in my opinion, as ezine advertising. So I like ezine advertising

compared to other traffic methods primarily because it's very, very targeted.

Another thing is that it generally costs less than other methods, and

when I say that it costs less, I'm talking about an overall cost. Obviously if

you're paying 25 cents per click, one click on pay per click costs less than

any ezine ad could possibly cost. But when I purchase ezine advertising for

$200 and generate 500 or 700 clicks, now my cost per click from that ad is

very low.

So I find that the costs are less with ezine advertising, and solo ads

often cost $80 or $90 versus $200 or $300. So in a sense what you're doing

with a solo ad is you're renting the entire mailing list of that publisher, and

you can do that sometimes for $80. There are some big publishers that


© Charlie Page

charge a couple thousand dollars, but even so, if you look at it on a cost-

per-thousand basis, it's just a tremendously cost effective way to reach a

highly targeted audience.

Now those are powerfully charged words, "a highly cost effective way

to reach a highly targeted audience." Cost effective and targeted, those are

starting to hit my hot buttons. So I like ezine advertising for these reasons.

I'm not saying that it's superior to every other form of advertising, but these

are the reasons originally that I became involved with ezine advertising.

I find, too, that if you fashion the right offer to the right audience,

using the right ezine, and using the right timing – now those are gates you

must pass through – but if you get it right, it can create much larger results

than most other forms of advertising. I just don't see other forms of

advertising, other than sending out ads in ezines that can generate large

numbers of clicks. So I think that's another advantage.

Here's another thing to me is that you can say more in your ads

than with any other medium. Now, granted article marketing gives you the

ability to send out 700, 800, 1,200-word articles, but we all know, who have

done article marketing, that article marketing must be very subtle. It can't

be an overt pitch for the product. It has to be a three or five-point helpful

article that then leads the reader to think, "Hmm, I need more information


© Charlie Page

about this," and the resource box at the bottom, which is generally five to

seven lines long, about like a fat classified, is where you do the selling.

So I don't think that's an accurate comparison, but that being said, I

think you can say more in your ads than with any other medium, particularly

if you're using a solo or a top sponsor ad. So I like that. I tend to be

expansive, as you know when I explain things or talk about things. ;-) And

so I like the expansiveness of a solo ad. I find 350 words to be just about

the right length for a solo ad. I sent a solo ad to my mailing list today of

350 words and had tremendous results with it. I had actually pared that

down from 650 words, so find you have room to express yourself.

I also have questions about some of these other forms of advertising

that this person suggested. And by the way, I'm not using anybody's name

tonight because I didn't really get permission to use people's name. This

person said classified ads and social ads and pay per click. I think I've

covered pay per click. I want to talk for just a moment about social ads

and classified ads.

First of all, classified ads in ezines and classified ads on

classified ads or on websites like Google AdSense are two different

things. I don't find classified ads to be highly effective in any medium if it's

your primary marketing tool. I do find classified ads in ezines to be highly

effective if they're supporting an ad campaign. If they're your primary ad


© Charlie Page

method, not so much. If they're supporting an ad run as we discussed in

Call 7 of advanced techniques where you're placing solos and sponsors and

classifieds in order to repeat your message, then classifieds can be very,

very effective.

They can also be effective if you're giving away free merchandise.

That's a very effective technique. Classified ads on websites, AdSense type

ads, can be very effective if you've targeted the website your ad displays on.

That's a whole different discussion than we're having tonight, but it's one

I'm going to be covering in the near future, and it's something that's very,

very effective.

But in general, free classified ads don't work. They work for testing.

You can test and place free classifieds. It takes very little time. Test a

couple of headlines. See what you get, but you won't make sales that way.

So; free classifieds simply don't work to make sales.

Social ads do drive traffic, no question about it. My question is do

they create buyers? Do those visitors buy? I have friends galore who live

on YouTube and live on Facebook and live on these other sites and spend

lots of time on them, and it generates a lot of heat. It generates a lot of

activity. Does it generate any sales? I'm really not sure about that,

because the one thing, I think if I had to make a list of five things I've

learned online in ten years, one of the things on that short list would be


© Charlie Page

traffic doesn't always mean more sales. Not all traffic is created equal, so it

creates traffic. Does it create sales? I'm not really sure.

So I hope that answers that question thoroughly enough. That's

comparing ezine advertising with other paid traffic generation methods.

Now, question number two, "Is ezine advertising effective for

localized products and services, such as a local workshop?”

That's a very good question. The answer is not really. Ezines are not

the first best choice when promoting something that is geographically

sensitive.

You know, I've been honest with you through the entire ezine

advertising process about what works and doesn't work based on my

experience, and I find that ezines are not the first best choice for localized

products and services. The reason for this is that ezines are generally

subscribed to from websites and anybody in the world, generally, can access

any website and subscribe. Certainly we have subscribers from many

countries around the world, and I'm thankful for that. But it would do me no

good to send a message to them about a seminar taking place in Houston,

Texas, or Atlanta. So they're not really targeted that way.

We are researching this at the Directory of Ezines, and we have found

some situations where the ezine publisher is trying to be geographically


© Charlie Page

specific. There's one group that I'm talking with right now who claims that

their ezines are read by over 50 percent of the people in a particular

country. That's a pretty strong claim. I want to investigate that further.

That being said, I do think there are some situations like that out

there, and we're investigating that. I think pay per click with geographic

targeting and renting mailing lists remain the most effective methods of

doing localized or geographically sensitive products and services, like global

workshops, seminars, a drycleaner, whatever the case may be.

Of course, publishing an ezine is very helpful for local residents, but I

think pay per click with targeting in the ad to say for San Antonio residents

only is one way to go. Renting lists from companies like Postmaster Direct is

a very effective way to do geographical targeting. And a method that a lot

of people miss is to do purchase AdWords ads and the equivalent on Yahoo!

and other networks, and have them targeted by country. But that is very

broad. That's not Ohio or Dayton, Ohio. So I hope that answers that

question.

Question number three, "Do you think it's still possible to do an

ezine campaign for affiliate programs without your own website

when starting an online business, and if not, should you have your

own website or blog for affiliate programs or try to develop your

own product first?"


© Charlie Page

This is a great question and one that we received quite a few times, so

let me answer it this way.

I don't think trying to develop your own product first is a good idea

before you do ezine advertising. Ezine advertising is wonderfully effective

for affiliate marketing without your own website. I used ezine advertising

when I first became a member of the Directory of Ezines to do this very

thing, and nothing really has changed in the process.

The process is that you have a product you want to promote. You

write an ad that you believe will create curiosity and sell the click, because

the ad's job is to sell the click. You place that ad in ezines where the

audience or the subject content or both match up with the product you're

promoting and you drive traffic to a site. Whether that's your own site or

whether that's an affiliate site, a product that you don't own but you sell on

a commission basis, doesn't really matter to the reader. So yes, it works

tremendously well for affiliate marketing without your own site.

That being said, there are big advantages to having your own

site, and I do recommend that people have their own site if they can. To

my way of thinking, the main reason to have your own website if you're an

affiliate marketer – now I want to narrow this down. If you're a person

who's doing affiliate marketing and the question becomes, "Should I have

my own website or should I not in order to market this affiliate program?" to


© Charlie Page

my way of thinking, the advantages to having your own site are these.

Number one, you can track better, because you can install an ad tracker

on that domain, and you can then use that ad tracker to determine how

many clicks you get and more. So that's an advantage.

The second advantage is that if you're doing marketing beyond ezines

– and I'm trying to be comprehensive here in my answers. So if you're

doing article marketing as well as ezine advertising, then it's advantageous

to have your own website, because many article directories won't allow

you to place an affiliate link in the body of the article like you might

want to do.

And then the third and probably more important reason is to build

your own mailing list, because it's very important to have your own

mailing list if you can. It's just a super powerful way to develop a rapport

with a large group of people who then begin to trust you and will accept your

recommendations, because your recommendations are made in earnest.

So can you do it without a website? Absolutely. And if I were starting

over today, that's how I would start. Is it better to have your own website?

I think it's better because it gives you more options. Is it necessary to have

your own website? Absolutely not. I guarantee you, you could drop me

behind my desk tomorrow, take away all my websites, and let me have


© Charlie Page

access to the Directory of Ezines and a little bit of money, and I would start

affiliate marketing immediately and have no problem doing it.

So that's the answer to that question, and I hope that was thorough

enough.

The next question, "Does ezine advertising work for certain types

of affiliate product or all types? Example – information products,

software, physical products, vitamins, handbags, etc. And does the

product have to be unique with fewer affiliates promoting it?"

I'm going to answer the “fewer affiliates” part of this question a little

bit later much more thoroughly, so I'm going to talk now about the other

question which is does it work for certain types of affiliate products or all

types?

I haven't found anything yet I can't sell using ezine advertising. I've

made that statement a number of times over the years and gone back to

check my records to make sure that I was telling the truth. And I can't find

anything so far that I haven't been able to sell successfully using ezine

advertising. Sometimes you have to be a little creative in how you do it, but

I have been very successful selling almost every product, including

handbags too, using ezine advertising.


© Charlie Page

So I believe that it works for all types of products. The key, again, is

to match your product to the content or the audience or both of the

ezine. Sometimes you can match both but not always, and I think we've

covered the matching of audiences and subjects just a minute ago. So it

works for all types of products, and I haven't personally found any product

that it doesn't work for.

Let's move to the next question which is, "Is doing classified

advertising in ezines effective today or should we stick more with

solo ads?"

I wanted to take this question, even though I spoke a moment ago

about classified ads, because I feel as though there's a somewhat

dangerous mindset out there, and that is that only solo ads are effective.

I've been testing this, as a matter of fact, in the last few weeks and found

nothing could be farther from the truth.

Sponsor ads are tremendously effective, and classified ads, as a

supplement to an advertising campaign, are very effective as well. I use

classified ads in ezines to keep a presence in an ezine. In other words, I'm

running solo ads and sponsor ads and, if possible, publishing articles in a

particular ezine. I want to have classified ads in there, because I know there

will be people who won't read my solo ad who will kind of skip past my

sponsor ad but will read the classifieds. There are people who do that.


© Charlie Page

There are people also who skip the classified altogether, don't really pay too

much attention to the solo ad, but they really look at that sponsor ad.

So the best case scenario for me, if I'm in an ezine that's really

working for me, is to have a presence in there with all three types of ads and

other marketing, too, like article marketing, so that I can reach everyone.

That's what I think classified ads do best. For a low cost, they give you a

very broad reach.

That being said, if you're going to use classified ads as your primary

method because that's all you can afford or that's the choice you want to

make, then make sure to focus on providing something free to the person

who responds to the ad.

One big mistake I see made in classified advertising is trying to take

a solo ad and squish it down into a classified ad. You just can't do it. A

classified ad is a headline and a benefit statement and a call to action, three

elements – headline, get their attention; benefit statement, make them want

what you have; call to action; tell them what to do to learn more. The best-

case scenario, in my opinion, is if you're giving away something free,

because people who like free things often will focus on the classifieds.

Now, that's a chicken and egg proposition. Is it because classified

often contain offers of free things, or is it because that's the nature of the

person? Nobody knows. I have no idea, but I do know this. When you


© Charlie Page

place classified ads, if you place one that's trying to sell a product and

another one that's offering a free gift just for a visit, that second add will pull

better.

The next question is, "Where are classified ads posted in the

ezine? Is there a special page for all classified ads?"

At first I didn't understand this question, but then I received it four

other times, and I think that's there some confusion out there about

classified ads in ezines as opposed to other types of classified ads, so I

briefly will cover where they're placed.

There's usually a section at the bottom of the ezine where classified

ads are grouped. Very rarely will you see a publisher who spreads classified

ads out through the ezine. That's the position of a sponsor ad, at the top,

the middle, or the bottom of the ezine, but generally speaking classified ads,

just like in your newspaper, will be congregated.

They'll be gathered together in one location, and that's generally at

the bottom of the ezine. Don't confuse classified ads in ezines with classified

ads on a website. They're totally different.

Here's another little tip. I think I covered this in the advanced

techniques call, but I'll give it to you here. If you see an ezine that you're


© Charlie Page

interested in and it runs more than six classifieds per issue, I would consider

thinking twice about placing a classified in there.

There's just a certain length, a certain depth, after which people stop

reading or stop paying attention. An ezine that runs three to five classified

ads is perfect for placing a classified ad. If they run six or more, they run 20

or 12, I would avoid them generally speaking. If it's the perfect match to

your product, you can make an exception to that.

The next question is, "How do I determine which ezines to use?"

We covered this in Call 2 in great depth, and I would suggest taking a

close listen or read to the Call 2 content. But essentially the process comes

down to a few steps. You match the content or the audience or both of

the ezine to your product. So if you have a health-related product, you want

that health-related product to either go to an ezine where the subject

content is about health or longevity or anti-aging or recovering from disease,

whether it's prevention or cure, or you want it to go to an audience you feel

will really benefit from that product or both.

So you match your product to the content of the ezine or the

audience. You determine the costs. You choose the type of ad you

want, and you place the ad. It's really as easy as that. Determining which

ezines to use comes down to what is the ezine about and who reads it,


© Charlie Page

because ultimately readers are the people who buy your products. Readers

are the people who click the link.

So I've placed ads in ezines before that were just completely

counterintuitive. I'm not recommending that as a primary strategy for you,

but it does sometimes work. If I have an ezine that I know is read by men

of a particular age, and I have a product that appeals to men of a particular

age, even if the subject content has nothing to do with what I'm selling, I'll

often try an ad in there.

If you think about television for a minute, you'll see that programs on

television often have ads that are aimed at the audience of the show in

question, but sometimes they are also tied into the show in question. So in

a like way, you can target a couple of different ways when choosing ezines.

Let's change now to a couple of questions about writing ezine ads. "I

have a question concerning the six parts of a solo ad. Should solo

ads always be in this order?"

In the call about writing power ads, super ads, I talk about the six

parts of a solo ad – the headline, the claim, the benefit statements, the

reason why, the proof, and the call to action.


© Charlie Page

What I didn't say as thoroughly as perhaps I should have, and this

question points that out, is that these don't all have to be in each ad. In

addition, they don't have to be in that order.

But my goal in giving you the six parts of a solo ad was several-fold.

First, I wanted you to understand that the solo ad can be easily divided into

separate parts. It just makes it easier to write if you think about it that way.

If you think, "Well, okay, today I'm going to really gather up my benefit

statements and make they're as strong as they can be. And later this

afternoon, I'm going to write my call to action." Now you knit these pieces

together, and you come out with a good solo ad.

It's a really great place to start to use the six-part formula. The key is

to make sure you ad reads well if you skip one of the elements. If you're

going to skip adding proof, and most solo ads unfortunately don't have

proof, and by proof I mean some form of testimonial generally works best as

proof. So if you're not going to put a testimonial in there, "Joan in River

City, Oregon says this," or better yet a note from Joan, as proof in your solo

ad, then that's okay. You can still run a great solo ad.

A lot of my ads don't have proof in them, but I know that that ad will

work, because I read through it, and I know what to look for in an ad. And I

can see that it is complete and it flows and feels complete without the proof

section.


© Charlie Page

So if you want to mix and match these sections, take some out, put

some in, that's fine. Obviously the headline has to be there every time, and

the call to action has to be there every time, and the benefits have to be

there every time. But otherwise, you can play with these elements and see

what you like and how you like to write ads.

Again, most of my ads don't follow this format today, but all of my

ads followed this format when I invented this formula. Many years ago, all

of my ads followed this format, and they were very successful. So it's a

great place to start, but don't be constrained by it.

The next question is about super ads. "Writing a super ad sounds

simple, but in reality it appears to be a combination of factors like

tracking, testing, modification, doing it again. My question is this.

What are the steps, checklist, or summary of the process to super ad

status?"

Good question.

First of all, what's a super ad? A super ad is an ad that works almost

every single time, and when I say "works," I mean it creates profit almost

every single time. I know a very few of any ads that work every single time,

but I do know of ads, and I call them super ads, that work almost every

time.


© Charlie Page

I sent an ad out today for my 123 Ad Writing package, and that ad

was written two-and-a-half years ago. I've tested and tweaked it and

tracked it and massaged it and turned it into a good ad. And I've tested

every single element of it. I consider it to be a super ad.

You may have received it today. The headline is "Better Ads = MORE

Visitors!" and you'll notice "more" is in all caps, and the equal sign is there

instead of the word "equals." Those are things I tested. The reason it's a

super ad is my headline started out "Do More Visitors Equal More Sales?" I

found that asking it as a question wasn't very effective, so I changed it

around, and I said "Do Better Ads Equal More Visitors?" And then I changed

it again, and then I turned it into a statement instead of a question. And

eventually I came up with "Better Ads = MORE Visitors!" and an exclamation

point. That works very well.

So the steps I used on that were that I wrote the ad. I placed the ad.

I tracked the results, and because it was profitable (if it's not profitable, I'm

not going to consider it to be material worthy of being a super ad) I ran it

again, and I changed one element. And that element was the headline. I

did that several times. Each time, I want to be clear, the ad was profitable,

but it was increasingly profitable because I was changing the headline up.

So I changed the headline until I felt I had the best headline I was

going to get, and then I started working on the other parts of the solo ad. I


© Charlie Page

started working on the claim. I made stronger claims and lighter claims. I

found that a certain claim worked better. I tested my benefit statements. I

made a long list of benefits and a short list of benefits, and I placed the ad

and tested it both ways.

Now, again, underpinning all of this is the fact that every time I placed

the ad it was profitable, and by profitable I mean I made more money than I

spent.

I tested out the reason why. I tested out the proof. I tested out the

call to action. In this particular ad I deleted the proof. I didn't need it, in

part, I think, because I'm known as somebody who writes pretty good ads,

and so there's that credibility there. I didn't really need that third party

proof, that third party testimonial, and I found it created more words than it

needed to. So I cut it out, but I kept other elements because I had tested

them.

So this is really a very important question. What is the process of an

ad becoming a super ad? A super ad is an ad that works almost every time,

and the way you make a regular ad a super ad is you write it, you place it,

and you track the results. And then if it's profitable, you change one

element at a time until you have that element, the headline, the benefits,

and the call to action, as strong as it can be, comparing result against result,


© Charlie Page

and then you end up with what's called a super ad, or some people call it a

control ad.

A control ad is the ad you run all the time. You know the results it's

going to get, and when you change one element, you compare changed

results against the old results. And if you want to change the ad again, the

new one becomes the control. So don't let the terminology through you off

too much. Basically it's a great ad. It's an ad that works all the time, and

you feel like you you've fine-tuned it to the point where you're confident

when you send it out it's going to do well.

Okay, the next question, "How do I prepare a plain text hybrid

ad? How do I physically set up on my computer so I can do a plain

text/HTML hybrid ad?"

First of all, what is a plain text/HTML hybrid ad, because that's a

mouthful there? Well, it's an ad that's created in an HTML format so it can

be sent via HTML-enabled ezines and read in email programs that can read

HTML, but it looks like a plain text ad except that it has some special

formatting. You can used bold or italics or you can underline. Or you can

have links that don't say "click here." They don't say http:// and all of that

but rather they simple say "to save $500 today click here."

That's what I call a hybrid ad. It's plain text looking but created in

html. In order to create such an ad, you'll need an HTML editor. Now you


© Charlie Page

can use Word. You can type up an ad in Word and you can go File>Save As

and choose a different file format, choose the HTML file format, because you

see HTML is essentially just a type of a file.

You know that a spreadsheet is different from a web page, and a web

page is different from a Word document. And a Word document is different

from a PowerPoint presentation.

But what makes these things different in large measure is the type of

file that they are. Of course, they program they're created in is important,

too, but the type of file, they have different file extensions – .html or .doc or

.txt. They're different types of files.

So creating a hybrid ad is really just typing up a plain text ad in Word,

applying the formatting you want, and then saving it as an HTML format.

You can do that in Word.

You can also do it in what's called an HTML editor. These HTML editors

run the gambit on price. The one that I like and that I recommend to my

clients is called Coffee Cup, just like you drink coffee in the morning,

www.CoffeeCup.com

They have a free trial version, and if you buy the buy the product I

think it's like a whopping $35 or $45. It's really not expensive, but I find it

the easiest to use for people who aren't really well versed in HTML editors.

http://www.coffeecup.com/


© Charlie Page

You probably wouldn't want to start with Dreamweaver or FrontPage. Those

are tough to use if you're starting out. I find Coffee Cup to be pretty easy to

use, so that's www.CoffeeCup.com

Here's another question about writing ads. "I'm having trouble

distinguishing between a claim and a benefit. I feel pretty sure I

understand benefits, what's in it for me, but after reviewing the

transcript, the language sounds similar." Okay, that's understandable.

I talked about the parts of a solo ad a few minutes ago, and one of them

was benefits and one of them was a claim. So how is that different? What's

a claim, and what is a benefit?

Well, a benefit is what a product does for a person as opposed to a

feature which is just what the product does. So if your product helps a

person do a thing, that feature needs to be tied into a benefit that really

matters to them. These benefits are generally associated with what we call

super motivators, a fear of loss or a promise of gain. We talked about this

extensively in Call #3 and Call #4.

Here's the difference. A claim is the specific thing you are saying

your product will do for the customer.

Let me give you an example. "If you take this pill, you will lose

weight." That's a claim, but it's not a benefit. Living longer is a benefit that

ties into the fear of loss, the fear of losing your life. So the claim is, "Take

http://www.coffeecup.com/


© Charlie Page

this pill. You'll lose weight. If you're obese, you need to lose weight. So

take this pill. You'll lose weight and live longer." So living longer is the

benefit. What they do with that longer life, they play more golf, they see

their grandchildren graduate, they take a trip to Europe, they run a

marathon, those are all things that you can weave into the copy. But the

real benefit is living longer.

Here's another. More energy is a benefit that's tied into a promise of

gain. So you're selling a weight loss product, for example, not necessarily a

pill, but any weight loss product. "Use this product and you'll lose weight."

That's a claim. You're claiming that if they use your product they'll be able

to lose weight more easily. It's not a benefit. Losing weight on its own is

not a benefit, but the benefit is more energy. That's a promise of gain

associated benefit, because it's the gain of a better life. It's a gain of a

better lifestyle.

Do you see the difference? I really want to draw this again. So we

have a product that claims it will help you lose weight if you use it. That

might be a juice, a pill. It might be a powder. It might be a patch. It might

be an exercise book. It might be a number of things. Let's say that losing

weight is the thing. We claim that our product will help you lose weight

more easily.


© Charlie Page

So why would a person want to do that? Well, they might want to live

longer. They might want to have more energy. If they want to live longer,

then our approach is that we're selling the, using a fear of loss approach or

what's called a negative approach, we're saying, "Don't risk your life. Don't

be in fear of losing your life. Live longer by losing weight and being

healthier."

Or we could sell them using a promise of gain approach by saying,

"You could have a better life. Imagine the energy. Wake up feeling

refreshed. Feel like you felt 25 years ago. Be the peppiest guy at your high

school or college reunion," whatever it may be. So there can be many

benefits, but only really one claim in an ad. When people start claiming too

much in an ad, too many claims, then that's when confusion sets in.

If you need more on this, I encourage you to revisit Calls 3 and 4.

Here's another question. "Should I change the prewritten solo or

sponsor ads provided by the network marketing system, as there are

hundreds of people vying for the same ezines?"

Oh, yeah, absolutely a thousand times yes. Change those ads.

Don't run the same ads as everyone else by all means. The reason you're

taking this training, the reason that I offered to this group my 123 Ad

Package when it was off the market, the reason I offered to review ads is


© Charlie Page

that the quality of the ad makes all the difference. And if you're using the

same ad as everyone else, you really put yourself at a great disadvantage.

Let's move to the next one, and that is, "Who do you recommend

for marketing my product? I've tried a hundred thousand mailing

lists, etc., with not one answer. I feel like they're ripping me off. To

me this is the biggest problem. I need your help."

I get this quite a bit, too. This is a person who bought either – now I

haven't spoken to them, but I feel confident that they've either bought

leads, or they bought one of these 100,000 mailing lists on CDs for $25.

Obviously the CD for $25, the mailing list is totally a rip off, and you

wouldn't want to do that.

Buying leads can work in some businesses, but more and more we're

hearing that it really doesn't work and that people spend a lot of money

buying leads. Now the reason buying “leads” doesn't work so well is this.

The people who gather these leads, even if they're ethical, even if they're

gathering them using a double opt-in process or the people have to fill in a

form and then click a link in the email verifying they want the information,

these leads are often sold to many different people.

So the professional marketers, the people who already have their

systems in place, they'll buy these leads, and they'll drop these leads into a


© Charlie Page

system that is ready to go right now, and it's going to start firing emails off

every day, every day, every day to these people. And they're going to

become inundated with emails.

Now, if you buy such a list and it takes you a few days to figure out

how to send to them, and it take you a few more days to figure out exactly

what to say to them, and you wait more than three or four days or worse yet

you wait a week or two weeks to send anything to them, they have

probably received 100 emails in that week, because that lead's been

sold to 20 different people who have been sending emails every day for a

week. So that could be a lot of email.

So if you're going to buy leads, have your marketing in place by all

means up front and realize what you're really getting. And always ask how

many people are getting these same leads that I'm getting. Now, that

doesn't mean that I'm complete opposed to buying leads, but I am saying

more and more I'm seeing evidence that people are getting hurt by buying

leads.

His real question was, "Who do you recommend for marketing

your product?" And here is my answer.

Only you can market your product effectively online.


© Charlie Page

That's just the bottom line. I've seen thousands of people come and

go in ten years in different programs, doing different things, many of them

saying the same thing, and that is they buy into this, "Just buy my program

and we'll do all the work for you thing." And that really just doesn't work.

You've got to learn how to market online.

At least you have to learn how to advertise, because advertising is

what drives visitors to a website, and that's the missing element.

You notice that none of these programs today are offering to send

visitors to the site for you. They'll do everything else. They'll have the

autoresponder, and they'll do this and that. They're not sending the visitors,

because if they were going to do that they'd send them to the site for

themselves. That's perfectly understandable, but ultimately you've got to do

it yourself.

Now, on Call 7, the call we did last week on Ezine Advertising Live, I

talked about what's called a private ad partnership, and that's a very

powerful way to combine with other people who have similar interests and to

do some very specific marketing.

And in that scenario, you can have other people do some of the work

for you. I'm developing a private ad partnership right now, and for those


© Charlie Page

people who participate with me, I'll be writing the ads, placing the ads, doing

a lot of the work, so that's kind of doing the work for them.

But ultimately, even those people in the partnership with me, they're

going to need to know what's going on, and they've going to need to

understand everything that's happening, because that's just the way

business works.

This is not like Madison Avenue where you can go with your checkbook

in hand and say, "I've got this widget, and I need to sell it. Can you create

the whole advertising campaign for me?" The Internet really doesn't work

that way, because unfortunately, most of the people who do that aren't

doing a great job or there are some other problems. So ultimately, you've

really got to do this work yourself.

Next question, "Can we ask the ezine publisher for a small test,

for example a solo ad to a portion of the subscribers before going

out to the full list in order to save money and test that ezine? Is

that a good idea?"

That's a great idea. It's a very good idea. You should know that only

larger publishers will be able to handle this request because the technical

part of that is that it's very hard for a smaller publisher to send to a subset

of his or her list.


© Charlie Page

In other words, a publisher who has 50,000 or 70,000 subscribers is

generally not going to have the technology in place to where they can pull

10,000 out and send it.

Usually larger publishers can do that, and they often say that in their

media kit that they can do this. You want to consult their media kit. I've

put a few media kits in the resources page of the Ezine Advertising Live

members' center so that you can review them and get used to them.

A couple of things about doing this, you're not going to be able to send

1,000 and test that way. You'll probably need to buy multiple thousands.

These larger publishers often cost $2.50 or $3.00 or $6.00 per thousand to

send, so they're not going to, for $6.00, handle an ad buy.

But if you want to buy 20,000, sometimes they will, and that's a

smaller investment on a larger list. So it's a great idea and something that

should be pursued.

The next with is, "How would I know whether the ezine I've

chosen really works before putting in any ads?"

Well, that's a very good question and something we covered in some

depth on Call #2. I would begin by saying there are just no guarantees with

any type of advertising online.


© Charlie Page

There are people who will say they guarantee results, but I haven't

seen that work out too well, so there really are no guarantees. It's a matter

of, as with all things in business, analyzing the risk versus the reward and

determining whether you're a good candidate to take that risk.

But I would say that there are things that you can do to help minimize

the risk, and that is look for testimonials on the publisher's website.

If the publisher had happy advertisers, successful advertisers, they're

going to want to put those people front and center. So take a look on their

website and see do they have testimonials. If they don't, contact them and

ask them for references. Ask them for testimonials, and ask them if your

type of product works well in their ezine. Now, often you'll need to use a

contact form on their website for this, because a lot of publishers will change

up their email addresses fairly often, because they get lots of spam.

So contact them and ask. Look for testimonials, and that's a great

way to know in advance whether the product you're promoting might work

in that ezine.

Here's a question that we've received probably more than any other,

and it is about saturation. "I'm wondering if it's common, and if so, how

common, for advertisers for a particular opportunity to over saturate

an advertising platform such as ezines. In my case, I'm involved with

this particular product. I'll decline saying which one it is, and I know it's


© Charlie Page

very popular with thousands of people all looking to ezines as a method for

success. Should I at all be concerned, and what is your best advice to

separate myself from the pack if outspending them is not an option for me

at this time?"

Well, outspending them would be a poor option, because you're return

on investment would be so low as to make it not advisable. But here is my

answer, and it's an important one. I think it's an important question.

It is not possible to saturate an advertising medium.

You might feel like it is because you're subscribing to certain types of

ezines or you're in a community of people who are promoting this product as

well as you are, but it's not possible to overwhelm a type of advertising with

one particular product.

These products that are out there today, they generally have three

initials you know, they're popular, but let me tell you -- I've been doing this

for about ten years now, and I've seen products come and go that are much

larger than these products.

There have been programs that have been much, much larger than

today's most popular programs, even though the people on the Internet,

even though there are more people on the Internet now than there used to

be in the old days, and I say that old days like six or seven years ago, there


© Charlie Page

were some products that it just seemed like everyone was involved with.

And advertising in ezines still worked very well for those, because you can't

saturate it.

But if you're in such a program, you must use unique ads. That is

one of the keys. You must use ads that are unique and are different. The

medium doesn't get saturated as much as the affiliates or associates who

overuse the ads don't do well.

Again, it's not the medium. It's not a particular ezine or ezine

advertising or pay per click advertising or any one medium that gets

saturated. But the mistake that gets made and blamed on that is the

mistake is using the same ad as everyone else, because the person reads

that ad, and then they immediately prejudge, "Well, I'm not interested in

that program."

So you have to stay away from the same language. The key is the ad

not the program.

The next question is similar to that question, and that is, "Is it

possible to run out of fresh ezines to advertise in or to saturate

them?" Again, a similar question but not identical.

The answer is no, and I'll tell you why. People mistakenly think that

they need a list of 150 ezines to choose from in order to succeed with ezine


© Charlie Page

advertising, when the reality is that they only need three or five good

ezines, well-matched ezines, in order to succeed, to do very, very well.

It's true if you have three or five that are very well suited to your

offer, and you run in those frequently, you will do better than if you

spread that same number of ads out among a wide variety of ezines.

Now, why is that true? It's true for a number of reasons. Number

one, the ezines are very well suited, as I said. Number two, repetition is the

mother of learning, and when people see your ad in an ezine several times

they begin to trust you because they begin to recognize that. And they

begin to feel more comfortable.

Now, let me say this, that I would never advocate running an ad more

than once if the ad wasn't profitable. I only repeat profitable ads. I'm not

going to take a loser and run it five times thinking, "Well, the fifth time's the

charm," because that doesn't work.

If you run and ad and it doesn't get results, then something's wrong

with the ad or the match between the ad and the ezine or another factor,

and you can begin to analyze that. We talked last week in Call #7 about

how to diagnose problems with an ad.

But I think you only need three or five good ezines to of very well, and

the key is to find those not to find 100. So finding fresh ezines to advertise


© Charlie Page

in, the question carries within itself the premise that you need a lot of them

when you don't. Also, another consideration is that offline publishers are

coming online in waves. It's huge. More and more we're seeing offline

publications come online and start publishing online newsletters which are

ezines.

Some people say ezine, that's fine with me, but to fact of the matter is

online newsletters, ezines, are green. They're environmentally friendly. No

paper involved -- just little digits that get sent over the computer. And

because of that, offline publisher are going online much more aggressively.

Going online for an offline publisher means they can repurpose their existing

content. They slash their costs to almost zero. It's ecologically friendly. It's

green, and that's very popular right now, and it's easy to do because they

have staff and they can farm out if they don't. They technology is proven.

It's reliable.

So I would absolutely say that running out of fresh ezines to advertise

in or saturation or these types of things just are not real problems.

It's like being concerned about taking the same article and putting it

on five article directories. I hear this from time to time. "How much should

I change my article before I submit it to a second article directory?" The

answer is “don't change it at all”. The same article, if it's a unique well-


© Charlie Page

written article, placed on three or five or 20 article directories does not

create any form of problem for the person who wrote the article.

It's when you take these private label articles that are exactly the

same, put your name on it, and 1,000 other people are doing the same

thing. And then everybody in the group is sending it out to 20. Now you've

got a problem, because many people are claiming authorship of the same

content.

If you've got original articles, you don't have a problem.

If you want to do ezine advertising, you don't have a problem. There

are lots of them out there.

Here's another question. "I'm selling a popular product." Again, I'm

going to decline to mention the product, and upline of this person has

recommend that they sell the product without mentioning its name because

people reading the ad might Google the name and see negative reports

about it. That's perfectly understandable. I know this product, and it's a

good quality product. So it's not a pyramid scheme. It's not a problem

product, but it's a product that's popular because it pays a high commission.

And so any time there's money like this involved, it's a contentious thing

sometimes.


© Charlie Page

So the question is, "Should I mention the product in the ad or

not?"

The answer is absolutely not.

Don't mention the name of the product in the ad, and the reason for

that is twofold. Number one, if you mention the name of the product in the

ad, you break the curiosity. You satisfy the curiosity you're trying to build.

The point of the ad is to do what? It's to sell the click.

The only way you can sell the click is to make the person want to know

more, and the way you make them want to know more is to make them

curious. That's the primary method. It's not the only method, but it's the

primary method. Mentioning the name of the product absolutely quenches

their thirst. It absolutely takes away the curiosity and works against you, so

don't mention the name of the product.

Here are some steps you can do, if you're in a popular program, to

avoid this problem. Review the ads that have been sent to date, and if you

can at all determine which ones have been very profitable, consider taking

some elements from them if these ads are available to you freely to use, but

if not, don't use any of them. Don't use the same approach at all. Find a

new approach.


© Charlie Page

I believe it was in Call 3 that we talked about ways to create ad ideas,

ideas for your ads. There are an unlimited number of ideas, a huge pool of

ideas available for you for advertising any product with a new twist. The

techniques I taught in that call will absolutely put you in a position to be able

to quickly come up with 15 or 25 ways to sell any product, so don't use the

old approach. Find a new approach.

Try to use curiosity as much as you can, but don't use the name of the

product, because that satisfies the curiosity. You job is to build the

curiosity.

The next question is, "It would be really helpful to have some kind of

benchmark to know when it becomes time to go from a small ad budget to

a medium ad budget and a large ad budget. It's one thing to get clicks but

another to convert, so is there a measure of," he put ECP, and I'm not sure

exactly what that means. I think it means ezine cost per thousand, "that

can be used as an indicator?"

Let me answer this question. Let me rephrase the question which is,

is there a benchmark that you can know that you can use to know

when to spend more money to go from a small budget to a larger

one?

Well, it is purely profit that drives these decisions.


© Charlie Page

If your ad is profitable, then reinvesting part of those profits is very

wise. I don't reinvest all the profit from an ad, because I'm doing this for a

living. So if I'm an affiliate marketer, let's say, and I spend $100 for an ad

and I earn $400 on that ad, if I'm trying to rapidly grow, then I might take

that $400 and reinvest it. But you know, I've probably got a bill to pay, so

I'll take half of that and reinvest it, and then do that again and again and

again.

Those are decisions you can make depending upon your

circumstances. But profits absolutely drive these decisions. I mean, if you

gave me a dollar and I handed you back $5 or $50, how many times would

you do that? Well, you'd do it as often as I'd let you, so the question sort of

answer itself in the respect that if you've run and ad and it's profitable, why

would you not repeat that ad very quickly?

But there's one thing inside his question that needs to be addressed,

and I know you've heard me say this may times, and that is that clicks and

sales are different. Only a website can make a sale in general. There are

very few exceptions to this, and only the ad can get the click.

The job of the ad is to get the click. The job of the site is to sell the

product, to close the deal, so it's a one-two punch. It's a left and a right.

The ad creates curiosity, gets them to take action, which is clicking the link

in the ad. Now the website takes over. Its job is to satisfy the curiosity,


© Charlie Page

convince the person it's time to act now, close the deal and get them to take

action to purchase the product. It's a very simply one-two back and forth.

Here's another question, and we only have a couple left. "How

would we best proceed on a truly minimal budget?"

Unfortunately, she didn't put down how truly minimal it would be. I

would say this. Sponsor ads can be purchased in large ezines for as little as

$25. If your budget is less than that, certainly it's not time for you to be

doing ezine advertising just yet.

But I would say that you can use sponsor ads instead of solo ads. you

can do article marketing instead of ezine advertising for the time being and

wait until you can afford it, or you can find a partnership where you can

partner together with people and then your ad dollars go farther, because

you can afford to buy larger ads in larger publications.

What I would recommend doing is I wouldn't recommend trying to

trade time for money by placing a bunch of free ads or that type of thing.

So if you have a truly minimal budget, and again, they didn't delineate what

minimal means, then I think you look for a smaller ad type or smaller ezines

and go with that approach.

Next question -- "How best to track results of any given ad?"


© Charlie Page

We talked about ad tracking in detail in Call #6, and I would say

always to use an ad tracker, absolutely always.

You know, I learned a lesson on this, this week. Or I didn't learn. It

was reinforced this week, and I'm so glad I use an ad tracker. I woke up

one morning just full of inspiration that I had come up with a new set of

keywords for my pay per click campaign, so I rushed to my computer and I

grabbed my Google AdWords account and added these keywords just fully

convinced that I'd found a hidden treasure.

Fortunately, because it's my habit, I put a tracker on every one. 250

clicks later, nothing. I mean nothing. It's fine. It was a minimal

investment. It was no problem at all, but let me tell you, I missed it. I

mean, I swung as hard as I could. The ball went through the strike zone,

and I was out of there.

I would never have known that if it weren't for the ad tracker.

I would never have known. Sure, Google would have said, "You've

received this number of clicks," and that's fine, but I went in my shopping

clicks, and I could see that although I had received clicks, I had made zero

sales.

So my moment of inspiration was something different. I'm not sure

what it was, but I absolutely think that every ad should be tracked.


© Charlie Page

Now, here's another question. "I was told by a couple of ezine folks,"

not sure who those are, "that an ad would have to run six or seven

times before I'd get any response. Is there any truth to this?"

Oh, no, absolutely not.

I hope I've made clear throughout all of Ezine Advertising Live that the

goal is to measure twice and cut once, and by that I mean you take care in

choosing the right ezine. You take care in writing the best ad you can. You

take care in not spending too much of your budget, and then you go for it.

You place the ad. And those ads should be profitable. The first ad should

be profitable.

I would never, ever, ever run an ad six times if it weren't profitable. I

would never run that ad a second time. If I have an ad that gets no clicks, I

contact the publisher and say, "You know, you've got a great publication. I

like it. I read it. I see ads in it. I ran an ad, and I got nothing. And I'm not

sure what happened. Would you be open to the idea of running this ad

again at no cost? And if you do and if it works, I'm going to be buying more

ads from you." Now, they won't always do that, but sometimes they do, and

often I would say they do.

And then I'm going to provide them different ad copy. I'm going to

change my ad copy around and bring that call to action way up top in the

ad, use a very strong headline, and now I'm going to see what happens.


© Charlie Page

But six or seven times before any response? Absolutely not. I would

disagree with that with every bit of my experience, and I could disagree

more strongly.

Well, my friends, that's it. That is the last question for tonight. This

has been Call 8 of Ezine Advertising Live. I'm Charlie Page. I really

appreciate you being here, and I hope you have a great night.

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