Traditional Media Strategy on Craigslist

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Imagine that you are on your favorite website; you visit it everyday, sometimes two or three times in a day. You have your favorite sections, content channels, etc. What if one day you logged on and all day, everyday all you saw was the same ad in the same areas. It may have intrigued you the first few times you saw it, but after that it's just brutal to even notice it - so you don't. In some cases you might even begin to feel disdain for this advertiser - constantly boring you with the same spam ad. This is something professional media buyers know. If you find a place you like to advertise, eventually you need to come up with a creative strategy for not creating banner blindness or hatred among buyers.

This is called ad cap, meaning you cap the number of impressions in which the same ad creative or message is used. We do this so that users see something fresh or it appeals to a different sensory experience. This applies to any website where you advertise, Craigslist included.

As you can imagine I spend a lot of time on Craigslist. As a user I visit a few times a day and I often see the same ads over and over again. As a marketer I can't help but wonder if the people placing these ads are thinking they will see fresh eyes. The reality is that ads stay on Craigslist for many days; in some less active categories an ad placed weeks ago can still be found today. This means often your potential new buyer is finding your ad many, many times, which means you are a spammer. They do not want to buy from people who exploit the system. They want to see something genuine.

So how can you avoid turning off your buyers, but not sacrifice your posting schedule? It's simple; create a marketing plan for your product/service. Identify solid differentiators, points of interest or separate it into types of service or product categories. Pick something new to promote with every post and change it up. Change your titles, copy and even your link if you can.

If you work with a posting service, just make sure you do all this on the upfront and provide them with all your campaign info and a schedule for what you want posted and when.

This is just one of the great tips you will find in my book, at just $19.95, it’s a great value with some real world advice for every Craigslist advertiser.