Affiliate marketing is one of the top opportunities for entrepreneurs to pursue. It allows you to make money while promoting someone else’s products. It also enables you to focus solely on researching and marketing certain products. So one wonders, is advertising via Craig’s List for affiliate marketing purposes an effective route to take? 

Jared Lansky has a few thoughts on this route. He feels if you want to succeed with affiliate marketing, “you have to be able to find a target audience and consistently advertise on sites that are worthwhile.” Lansky suggests Craig’s List is the perfect place for entrepreneurs to promote and post ads for their affiliate programs. There are a number of reasons why: 

Craig’s List is separated into specific categories so visitors can quickly find what they are looking for. This gives the advertiser a chance to post ads in the exact category you are seeking a connection to. So instead of wasting your time marketing to thousands of people who could care less about your program, you can aim for a specific group of people. 

Also, the more ads you post in these categories, the more familiar visitors are going to become with you and your ads. The result will be people who are truly vested in a particular topic then visiting your website or affiliate program page. If they are satisfied with what they find, they will be eager to make a purchase. 

Something that can be difficult as an affiliate is getting the right amount of exposure needed to generate sells. It can be a challenge to determine where the right places are to promote in order to reach the target audience. With Craig’s List, you can be rest assured that your ad will see a large amount of people. And the more people from your targeted audience that see your ad, the better chance you have of generating sells. 

To be continued…

Despite the digital world already being highly developed, every year there seems to be a number of new and enticing pieces of technology and software invented. ADTECH NY gives you the prime opportunity to showcase what you have found in the form of digital marketing. While there are other events you can exhibit your stuff at, there are a number of reasons why you will want to exhibit at ADTECH NY.

The first reason you will want to exhibit here is for the exposure. There is no denying the fact that the competition on the internet is becoming outlandish. It takes a great deal of effort to get you and your products in front on the internet because of the hundreds of thousands of people you have to compete with.

More and more ad dollars continue to shift to new marketing platforms. But despite this, the competition continues to grow between the different vendors. ADTECH NY presents you with the perfect opportunity to get you and your brand the exposure it needs to succeed.

The second reason to exhibit at this digital marketing event is to connect with existing clients. There is nothing quite as powerful as a friendly conversation and bonding with prospects and customers. The internet can be difficult to build this relationship and trust because you never get to actually talk in person to your customers. Says Jared Lansky, and he should know having been in the business for nearly a decade. But this event gives you the opportunity to open up and show who you really are.

Just by taking the time to talk with people, you will come off as someone who is looking to help people and not just make another sell. This is something that is extremely difficult to do online. Take this opportunity as the chance to meet new people, entertain, and bond with customers and potential future customers. You’ll find good advice like this and more at the blog of AdBuySell

ADTECH NY is a huge event among the digital marketing industry. Because of this, you will get the chance to meet a plethora of new people. This is the perfect opportunity for you to showcase what you have to offer and meet new clients. It can be difficult marketing online and finding your target market. But at this event, you know that people are there for a reason. Approach different people and let them know what you are all about.

The last reason to exhibit at this event is by far the most obvious reason of all; to display your new products and market them. The industry is constantly evolving and growing with new products, forms of technology and software. “This is your chance to show people what kinds of software and technology you have to offer.” Jared Lansky

By: Mark A Briody
For any business coming online it’s imperative that you have a successful internet marketing plan. This is an integral part of your existing business plan. For unless you take the time to develop a working plan your success online simply won’t happen. Here are 5 steps to creating a successful online marketing plan.

1. Assess Your Business
You need to step back for a minute and remove your business owner hat replacing it with your marketing hat. What does your business sell? How is buying the products or services from you better than from the competition. Don’t be modest but don’t oversell your self. Be realistic because by doing so you’ll be able to develop an internet marketing plan that will have you outperforming the competition online. Remember, what was once a localized market that you were competing against in your community, is now a global market with a not only more potential customers but also more competition.

2. Your Online Marketing Plan Objective
The object of your internet marketing plan is to find new customers that you can provide services or products to. You’ll need to bring the visitors to your site, educate them, and market to them. It’s important that you have a goal and budget in place. There are several ways you can do this. You can offer newsletters, forums, and even a social network community. Take time, analyze how other similar businesses are achieving this objective, and then come up with a solid marketing objective for your business.

3. Brand Your Business
It’s great to get a URL (domain name) that can assist you in making your site, products, and services memorable to the consumer. This is called branding. Think of McDonalds, IBM, or Microsoft all of which have done an excellent job of branding their products and services. If you have a domain registrar that’s full service it will allow you point and mask your domains. Try to choose domain names that represent your products or services. For example, if you market an e-book called how to stop smoking, then try purchasing the domain name StopSmoking.com or HowToStopSmoking.com. This can play an important role in your branding campaign. Your branding needs to also have a clear call to action. Ask your visitor to subscribe to your email, offer them a free e-course, whatever it takes to create action by your visitor.

Here are some branding tips to keep in mind with your internet marketing strategy.
Make sure the heart of your message is “benefit orientated.” The sooner you realize people don’t buy a service or product, but rather they buy the benefit it offers, the more successful your internet marketing will be. “What’s in it for them?”

Develop a message that’s powerful and compelling. Why should visitors buy from you? Your message needs to be void of clutter. You need say your message well and say it often.
Use imagery to enhance your message. Your branding will be much more successful if it combines a message with an image.

It’s critical that you develop a unique value proposition. If you are not able to do this on your own work with a marketing professional. Then incorporate this in your branding. Don’t make the mistake of focusing on what you want to say rather than what your potential customers want to hear.
Build value and for heavens sake don’t bore them to death. Your branding as part of your internet marketing needs to call your visitors to action.

4. Your Internet Marketing Strategies
You need to decide how you will create a traffic flow to your website. There are all kinds of methods that you can utilize such as payer per click, organic search engine ranking, keyword marketing, email newsletters, article content, directories, blogs, link exchanges, press releases, video advertising, to name just a few.

5. Build A Working Team
You can’t do it all on your own even if you’d like to. There are just too many specialized fields when it comes to internet marketing and you need a team of pros to carry out all of your various components. For example, a writer to do your content a copy, a website designer to design the best website possible, and an SEO expert. That’s just a few of the members that might make up your team.

There you have it 5 steps to creating a successful internet marketing plan. You’ll be a force to be reckoned with a successful entrepreneur if you incorporate these steps.

By: Mark A. Abrahams
Online advertising ppc can be very profitable if you know
how to do this successfully. Unfortunately most people who
use this method of advertising are actually spending more
money than what they are actually making. Now the reason
for this is that they think all they need to do is get
visitors to their website and they will make money. Most of
the people who use this type of method for online
advertising actually lose money on the first sale, but they
have a back end in place where the visitor receives many
follow up emails and this is when they actually start
making a profit. Very few people actually have a profitable
back end system in place.

When you start using ppc for your online advertising
campaigns I suggest you start with the smaller ppc search
engines. The reason for this is that Google Adwords can be
very tricky to master. The most important thing is to write
adverts that get people’s attention. Boring adverts simply
will not attract clicks. It is very important that you
track and test your campaigns so that you can optimize your
copy for better click through rates. Good ppc search
engines to start with are Overture, MSN Adcenter and Miva.
There are a lot more smaller ppc search engines. If you do
a search on Google you will find these.

Usually when I advertise with Google Adwords I use the
following quick and dirty tactics that get me results
instantly. The most important being that you do your
keyword research and make a note of all the negative
matching keywords. These are keywords that have your
keywords in, but are not directly to the product or service
that you are advertising. This will waste a lot of your
money if you bid on these keywords as they are unlikely to
convert very well on your web site. Also create relevant
landing pages. Google uses an algorithm which scores your
landing pages and you pay more per click for bad landing
pages. Also make sure that you get lots of incoming links
to improve your landing page quality score.

When you know how to use ppc with your online advertising
campaigns properly you can make a lot of money. The
advantage of this method is that you could be driving
hundreds or thousands of visitors to your web site within
minutes of implementing a ppc online advertising campaign.

Would you like to know more about the magical marketing techniques that have helped me to quit my day job? I have just completed my new guide.

By: Michelle Grace Tapire
The internet can be used for communication, recreation and most importantly trading and commerce. The form of advertising goods with the use of internet is referred to as online advertising. This type of advertising has so many methods such as SEO optimization, newsletter and email advertising, banner ads, website copywriting and other interactive advertising that allows customers to get more information about the business.

How does online advertising work?

As we all know, there is a large number of surfers that utilize the internet everyday. In view of this fact, there is a big chance for your online business to convert a website visitor into a customer with the use of proper tools and strategies. This is where online advertising becomes useful! You have to find ways on how you will be able to effectively make your goods known and create a need for people to take advantage of them. May it be a product or a service that you are offering; it should answer a human need for people to patronize your business.

How would you know if your online advertising method is working?
At the end of the day, there is only one factor that will help you know if you have an effective online advertising method. Results will be evident with how much your sales have increased after you have implemented your promotional campaign. You may be able to drive traffic towards your website but without closing a transaction, these will all be useless. Below are factors that you need to consider when engaging in online advertising.

• You have to determine how much you are willing to allocate for the online advertising method that you will use. Keep in mind that there are risks involved so always weigh your decisions and go for the wise choice.
• There are so many online advertising strategies that you can use. However, you have to find the most excellent one that can give you optimum results. To know which one would probably work, you can start doing a study and analysis about various techniques. You may also consult friends who are knowledgeable about online advertising and ask for their advice.
• If you are hiring the services of another company to take care of your advertising campaign, be sure that you are working with people who are trustworthy and reliable. Bear in mind that you are entrusting an important part of your business with them and they have to deliver good results.

Online advertising provides so many benefits because it is not expensive to implement. Apart from that, you will be able to reach a large volume of consumers since almost everyone could secure internet access. You just have to be careful because a campaign that could never help you achieve your business goals is of no good. So you’d better find it right the first time so as not to waste money and time.

By: Kirthy S

Electronic Catalog Marketing: make use of electronic catalog marketing to promote your products and services. Utilise the e-book or auto responder forms. Offering a complimentary copy of a catalog would be a great idea too. Also in case of direct mail, you have a much better opportunity to address all important points about your offer. A brochure or a special report gives you a lot more to present your headline and proof elements than you get on a web page or in the subject line of an email blast.

However, online advertising, is said to be much cheaper than direct mail advertising. Not to forget there’s not much money required to operate an online business. It is so easy for someone to click on a text link ad, a banner or a pop ad and place an inquiry, isn’t it? If an online user makes 10 inquiries it means that each company has 10% chances of closing that lead. Assuming that it is a serious inquiry! You al have only few of them shooting back a mail to you.

Whom do you want to target at is your next best thing to consider?

Do you want to target a specific geographic area? Is there any particular age group you are targeting at?
Figure out to whom you want to sell your products, ideas, services, etc. Then after you’ve jotted this down (yes, keep records), start experimenting with the different avenues available to you.

Before you start experimenting, be absolutely certain that you have an excellent tracking program available to track your advertising efforts. This is mandatory so that you find where your campaigns work the best. The object here is to work smarter, not harder.

Make use of Flash technology, marketers are able to make interactive ads that look like mini home pages and in most cases those ads have much better Click Through Rate(CTR). Ads made in Flash can be seen on many popular portals like Yahoo! and MSN.

Banner ads? Banner ads are banners placed on top of the website, advertising your product or service. Their ad charges differ and it can be placed in blogs too. The more popular the site is the higher the banner ad charges will be.

PPC ads - These pay per click ads are placed along side the search results in a search engine. While those in the search results are not paid for, ppc ads usually appearing on the right side of the search result is paid for.

You can also opt for E-newsletter, place ads in your newsletter and send your newsletter to different people. Publishing a blog and having ads in rss feeds is another online advertising option to be considered.

By: Alan Lim
Establishing a strong presence online is one of the first and foremost criteria for any website. To do this, most sites employ the usage of online advertising techniques which help to spread the word and propagate the business effectively.

Classifieds

If you thought classifieds were ubiquitous pieces of textual ads which never did any business good, you’re wrong. Classifieds represent great online advertising tools which are sure to boost revenues. The best thing about these is that they are completely free of cost. So you get to access large scale publicity without having to spend a dime!

Improving conversion rates

Your businesses’ success online depends on the sales conversion statistics. If you have a large influx of traffic but not much sales, it can really wreak havoc on your business. The key is to find strategies in online advertising which help convert that visit into a sale. It is all about ensuring greater visibility and reach online. If people don’t know about your site, you can forget about sales.

Targeted traffic

It helps to leverage online advertising methods which attract targeted visitors to your site. If you have large numbers of visitors to your site but no sales, it can eat into all the investing gone into improving traffic to your site. When you advertise to a niche and specific audience, you greatly improve your chances at ensuring higher sales. It’s because relevant traffic is always partially interested in your products. This way you don’t have to try really hard to convince them to buy. That’s why targeted online advertising methods work best.

Large scale propagation

While it is true that niche advertising works best in attracting relevant traffic, it is also true that large scale online advertising can help you reach far and wide. Such advertising methods target literally thousands of sites which in turn boosts the volume of traffic reaching your site. On all these sites you could place backlinks to your site which will bring about a boost in traffic.

Work smart

In the world of online advertising success is all about working smart instead of working hard. Thus through clever and innovative ways you get to propagate your business while also attracting large scale traffic into your site. There are plenty of techniques to generate traffic for your site without compromising on the quality of traffic.

PPC

While PPC may remain as a fairly expensive online advertising tool it certainly helps bring in the traffic. With every click you can receive virtually thousands of customers every single day. However you do need to shell out large sums of money for each click made on your site.

Banner ads

Banner ads are another great option to online advertising. These are the flashy advertising strips you see on the top and bottom of most sites. Very distracting and attention-grabbing, these never fail to bring in traffic. Most of the times, such ads are very interesting and generate a lot of curiosity, which makes customers anxious to want to know more about your site.

As the internet has evolved, the methods of finding targeted traffic have evolved as well.  Today, behavioral targeting is the way to find the people you want to come to your site without wasting your time on people that have no interest.  The goal is to find potential customers whose surfing patterns and behavior show a distinct interest for what you have to offer.  And there is a wide array of behavioral targeting software out there to help you accomplish this.

If you want to succeed with your business, you want to give the consumer as much relevant advertising as to what they are looking for as possible.  In order to do this, you must start with the right data.  What you want to do is focus on a collection of high-value data points.  To focus on these data points, you must realize that the pages that visitors click on and where they go from there will give you a pattern of what they are interested in and looking for. “Retargeting clickers while limited in reach is a powerful way to reach your target audience” declared Jared Lansky.

While you can learn about a person’s patterns by observing where they go from site to site, repetitiveness tells a lot as well.  Looking at what sites people go to over and over can be a big indicator for what they are looking for.  After looking at this, you can understand whether it is worth your time to approach them or not.

This is not the easiest thing to identify, but with the right software and the proper awareness you can find out what people are searching for.  From there, you can place your advertisements in places that can be seen from these people.

Obviously, if a person returns to a particular site over and over you will want to place an ad at this site.  If someone has a trend of sites they typically search on, you can pursue placing an ad on these sites.  The goal is to get your ads seen by as many interested prospects as possible.

Some of the companies and software you can use to assist you with this process include Right Media, AdECN and AdBrite.  Right media created an open media exchange that has opened the door for more efficiency, value and standardization for interactive advertising.  Much like this, AdECN guarantees its members the best possible liquidity including fewer ad campaigns going unfilled and less inventory going unsold.

The goal to every business is to generate a high amount of targeted traffic to turn as many visitors into customers as possible.  Behavioral targeting has changed the way people look at advertising for the better.

By: Guest Editor
Online behavioral targeting has been the new craze on the internet because of how easy and effective it is. It allows you to find out where people are going and then track them down by placing your ads where they go.

The subject of concern is whether or not this crosses the line of privacy. While it does not give people personal information as far as home addresses and bank information, it still is a bit intrusive. People can identify all of the sites you go to, keywords you search, and content you read. “Users have to understand websites need to make money but it’s also the responsibility of websites to find what is acceptable and what is pushing the line” concedes Jared Lansky.

Because of this, many online users and advocacy groups are concerned about the various privacy issues. This is something that the behavioral targeting industry has been looking into. They are constantly providing education, advocacy product constraints to keep all personal information non-identifiable. In addition, they are looking to make it so people can look at personal information through opt-in log-ins and password security.

For the most part, this information is just used by entrepreneurs looking to get their ads in front of interested buyers. But there are those that take advantage of this marketing technique. Because of this, we have to be aware of what sites we go to and what we read knowing there is a chance someone is following. It is a scary thought, but certainly one that is worth worrying about.

If you are looking to include this marketing strategy into your online campaign, be smart about how you use it. The last thing you want to do is take advantage of the people you are tracking down. Of course you want to make the most of all of your marketing methods. But there is a difference between using this strategy to your advantage and using it to better your business.

The best way to look at it is if you were on the other end. Would you really want someone to know every site you go to, every article you read, and every keyword you search for? “There is a major difference between knowing what tennis racket I bought and knowing what medical information I’m seeking out” says Jared Lansky.

This is not to say that this is a poor marketing strategy. Actually, it is an extremely smart marketing strategy. Just use it correctly and do not take advantage of people on the internet. You can even go out of your way to introduce yourself to people you find. This will make them feel much more safe and secure.

By: Guest Editor
Mobile marketing is becoming very popular because of the many people that own cell phones. You can easily use this form of marketing to interact on a personal level with consumers. Everyone knows about text messaging, which can also be known as SMS or short message service. Text messages can now be sent by different companies so that the cell phone owner receives their ad. Guidelines are important to have because of the history of mobile marketing and Jared Lansky explains why this is important.

In the year 2000, mobile marketing started in Europe. There were many businesses that started gathering mobile phone numbers and sending texts to those numbers. Most of the times the messages sent were unwanted and people started complaining about receiving them because it was a lot like getting spam.

Over the last few years, text messaging has become a very legitimate way for businesses to advertise. Mobile marketing is done with the use of a wireless service. This gives advertisers a way to keep track of the messages they have sent. Plus, because of the problems in Europe with this marketing method, different agencies have come up with guidelines to make sure that you only receive these messages if you want to.

In the beginning, mobile marketing got negative media coverage because of the spam like content being sent. This is why Jared Lansky wants you to understand that guidelines have been put into place so that this form of marketing is becoming more effective and is only going to the people that want it. This is why this marketing is becoming more popular all the time now.

There are many people that have started using mobile marketing by sending text messages and they have started adding this type of marketing into their advertising budgets. With the new guidelines in place, consumers can now opt in to the service if they want to receive ads but they can also opt out by texting the word stop via text. Most of the mobile operators will now require double opt in to make sure that the messages will be welcomed instead of causing problems.

If you are going to be using mobile marketing than you are going to have to know these guidelines. You can easily find them because they have been established in the MMA Consumer Best Practices Guidelines. All mobile marketers understand the importance of following these guidelines and they are being strictly followed by marketers in the United States.