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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