Testing Your Ad
Now that you have your ad, bonuses, sales letters and follow-ups in place,
you want to advertise. It is vital that you track your ads. You want to see
how your ad is pulling, so you can tweak it and refine it until you have
perfected it. There are 3 things to consider when trying to increase your
response rate. Make sure you try each of these one at a time. This is the
only way you can track your results properly.
1. The title or opening sentence. Changing this can make a huge difference.
Remember, this is the first impression you will have on a potential customer.
If you don't get their attention by then, you probably won't!
2. Pricing. Maybe your price is to low and potential customers think it is
too cheap or maybe your price is to high and people think it's not worth
it or can't afford it.
3. The offer. Try changing your offer. Focus on a different benefit. Make
it more appealing. Use different power words and/or action phrases.
For a list of power words, go to:
http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/powerwords.htm
For action phrases, go to:
http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/actionphrases.htm
Tracking Your Ad
As you are tracking your ads to see which one has the greatest pull, you
also want to know where the responses are coming from. This way you can weed
out bad response places and concentrate on higher yield areas. There are
several methods of tracking you can use.
Email Subject Keying
One way is to key your subject line of your email responses to indicate were
the inquiry is coming from.
mailto:ad@jbmarketingtips.com?subject=AMT would be an example. AMT is your
key, which stands for Advantage Marketing Tips, the newsletter where you
placed your ad.
Autoresponders
Another way is to use a different autoresponder for each ad. I use this method.
I set up a series of autoresponders with the same information in each. I
make a list of them, tools1@jbmarketingtips.com, tools2, etc. When I submit
an ad, I use the next autoresponder available and mark on my list where I
placed the ad. This way I can track my response rate from each ad. I will
even correspond my mirror sites or webpage key with the autoresponder.
tools1@jbmarketingtips.com goes with http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/newslett1.htm
or tools1 autoresponder goes with
http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/newslett.htm?tools1 . I explain further about
mirror sites and webpage keying a little later.
With using autoresponders as a tracking method, all you have to do is check
your log files to see how many responses you received for each
autoresponder.
Mirror Sites
Using mirror sites is another way to track responses. You must be able to
get stats on your website to use this method. Also, IT IS VERY IMPORTANT
that you use a robot.txt file in your root directory to exclude these pages.
Search engines can look at pages with a quick refresh rate at a bait and
switch. You advertise one page but send them to another. Or they will see
a bunch of pages with the same info and remove you for spamming. To learn
how to set up robot.txt files, go to
http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/robottext.htm
.
What a mirror page does is lead in to your main page. You set up html code
to send them to your main webpage with an one second refresh rate or what
ever refresh rate you want. This way, you can check your stats and see how
many hits that page received. Then you can monitor your response rate from
the list you keep of what mirror page goes with what ad.
To learn how to make a mirror page, go to
http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/mirrorpages.htm
.
Webpage Keying
Webpage keying is very similar to email subject keying. You just add a question
mark and your key at the end of your url. Example:
http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/newslett.htm?tools1 . To use this method,
you need access to your website log files. Just take the section of your
log file that you want to check - say April 25-30, copy it, and paste it
in a keyword counter to see how many times your key comes up. In this case,
how many times tools1 appears. This is your response rate for that ad.
You can find a keyword counter at
http://www.ezinefactory.co.za/keyword_counter.htm
If you can't access your log files directly, you should be able to by using
a program like WS_FTP Pro. Just check with your web server. You can download
a free trial version of WS_FTP Pro at
http://www.ipswitch.com.
It's really easy to use. (It would probably be easier to print this, download
the program and follow the directions step by step.) You just enter your
site name and url without the http://. Example would be www.jbmarketingtips.com
. The host type would be "Automatic detect". Enter your user id and password
for your website. Click on ok to create the file. A double window will come
up. The left side is your desktop, the right your website. In my case, my
log files are in a folder httpd/logs. Just select the file, then click on
view to open it up. Copy the section you want to check, then paste it into
the keyword counter. Enter your key and find out how many responses you received
from your ad.
One thing to keep in mind. In my logs, it lists the url
(http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/newsletter.htm?tools1) 10 times for each
response, one time for every hit on that page (each graphic download, etc).
So I divide the number of times the keyword counter counted my key by 10
to get the number of responses. I'm not sure if all server log files are
like this. Just look through yours to find out.
* Written by Barbara Ayres, publisher, Advantage Marketing Tips Newsletter.
J & B Marketing Group has helped 1000's of people profit online. Visit
http://jbmarketingtips.com for marketing
tips, software, web services, business resources and more. No time to visit
the site? Subscribe to our Free bi-weekly newsletter, Advantage Marketing
Tips.
mailto:advantage@jbmarketingtips.com?subscribeAMT
or visit
http://www.jbmarketingtips.com/newsletta.htm
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