Welcome to The Truth About Internet Marketing - Internet Marketing Solution

While ad testing is not a new strategy, I’m amazed by how few Internet marketers test their ad copy. To me, this is a very vital part of marketing whether it is an online business or not. Just because you think that you have a winner ad doesn’t mean that you do. There is no way that any marketer can know how well their ad will do without testing it first. All successful marketers test their ads before running them. That’s one of the reasons that they are successful. If you are going to pay someone to run your ad, you want to get the biggest bang for your buck. The keyword here is, TEST! TEST! And TEST some more. Don’t pay any serious money until you know which ad pulls the best.

What you will want to do is write several ads for the same product. You can write one ad and make small changes to it such as the opening headline. I would however write at least 3 different ads and then begin to make small changes to them and use them as separate ads to test.

When you finish writing your ads you will need a way to track them. There are several scripts that will do that for you. I use ‘Ad Tracking Script’. This is a very easy script to use for tracking your ads. You can find it here. http://www.clickitpro.com/portal/free/track.html The ‘Ad Tracking Script’ will allow you to track all of your ads to determine which one will do the best. This script is really easy to get up running on your server because you setup the script variables on their website and then the script is emailed to you along with instructions on how to use it. The only thing that you will have to do is upload the script to your cgi-bin and set the permissions. This is a free script. Again, you can get the script here. http://www.clickitpro.com/portal/free/track.html

There are many free scripts out there that will track your ads for you. If you don’t want to use the one that is provided here, you can run a search by clicking here to find a different one. Don’t spend any of your hard earned money on advertising until you have tested your ad. You will save and make more money by taking the time to test.

When writing an ad copy, there are some things to take into consideration. While this article will not tell you how to write a sales ad it will give you some insight to what a sales ad should contain to be effective. Implement these ideas in every sales ad that you write and you will end up with a good ad copy that will sell. The first thing to understand is that most products sold on the Internet are impulse buys. For the most part people do not search for a product to buy online. They look for information not something to buy. Even if you are selling information it is still considered a product and what web surfers are looking for is free information not information that will cost them money. A good sales ad should contain the following.

Curiosity

Credibility

Believability

Trigger an emotion or desire

Create a sense of urgency

Put a time limit if possible

A call to action

Curiosity
In the opening of your ad copy you want to create a bit of curiosity. Creating curiosity right from the beginning in your headline will hopefully draw the reader into the body of your ad copy. There are many ways to make the reader curious. I’ll give you a couple here to get you started. One way may be to use reverse psychology. Here’s an example using reverse psychology.

If you like wasting countless hours submitting your website to the search engines read no further. This is not for you.

Can you see how this would catch the reader’s attention? It’s like when someone tells you not to look makes you want to look all the more. You think to yourself. Don’t tell me not to look. I’ll look if I want to. You’ll get the same reaction telling the reader not to read any further. Here’s a more positive headline.

We have the solution to your SE woes. Let us help you save time and money with one click of a button. Learn how we can put you on the fast track to getting your site listed higher on the search engines.

In the above example the reader is given enough information to hopefully peak his or her curiosity without telling he or she what it is that is being offered. He or she will have to read the body of the ad if he or she wants to know what will help them with their search engine woes. Curiosity will catapult the reader to the body of the ad which is what will ultimately make the sale. You will however, need to get them to the body. Curiosity will do this very well if written properly.

Credibility
You must be a creditable source in your sales ad. In other words you must be knowledgeable about what you are selling and be a trusted source. You must lead the prospective buyer into a mindset that you know what you are talking about and that you are an authority on the subject. If the reader feels that you cannot be trusted you will lose them forever. Do whatever it takes to build credibility. Use testimonials if you have to. Use whatever legitimate means to make your prospect comfortable with you. Create a I’ve been there done that scenario. Giving your reader a sense of familiarity will go a long way in building trust. Tell a true story about yourself that fits in with what you are trying to sell to bring a point across. The main focus in building credibility is to get the reader to relate to what you are saying.

Believability
Make what you are saying believable. Always tell the truth. Don’t ever say that a product does something that it doesn’t do. Whatever credibility that you have established will go out the window if you do. You can put a spin on what you are selling and make it sound like it is something that he or she can’t do without as long as you are being honest at the same time. Don’t say something that can’t possibly be true. Make it believable and more importantly, tell the truth.

Trigger an emotion or desire
As I said earlier in this article, web surfers are impulse buyers. This very fact really puts you in the drivers seat when it comes to selling online. If you can trigger an emotion or a desire in them you will be able to sell to them. There are a variety of ways to do this. If it’s a product that solves a problem or will make a hated chore easier, you can put a spin on this and put their emotions and desires into overdrive. It could be a product that saves the reader time or money. You must take the most important feature of your product whatever that may be and spin it in a way to evoke the readers emotions and wanted desires. The biggest thing that will stay in your readers mind is what is in it for me. Unless you tell them by working on their emotions and desires you will lose them. Don’t describe what a feature of your product does instead give the benefits of a particular feature. Here is an example of the right way and wrong way of triggering an emotion or desire in your reader.

Our SE software will send your submission to all of the search engines.

Our SE software will send your submission to all of the search engines with a click of a button saving you time which will enable you to work on the important things, like your website.

I don’t think that I have to tell you which one gives a benefit of the product. The thing to understand is that people don’t care about features. They care about what the product will do for them. Make sure that you tell them.

Create a sense of urgency
Create a sense of urgency. This doesn’t have to mean that if the reader doesn’t buy now that the product may not be available at a later time. If there is truly a time limit or you are only selling a limited quantity, then that would be the best way to spin it. You would only spin it this way if it’s the truth. Always keep credibility in the forefront when writing your sales ad. If there is no time limit or a limited quantity to be sold, going back to the most important benefit and spinning that is the best way to go. Putting urgency on the most important benefit may sound something like this.

Don’t spend another day submitting to the search engines manually. If you continue to do this you will be losing something that you can never get back. Your time. As they say time is money. Stop wasting both.

See where the urgency fits in? The above statement implies that if the reader continues to waste time he or she will lose money. If that doesn’t create a sense of urgency, I don’t know what will. Another idea may be to set the product at a lower price for a limited time or for a limited quantity. However you do it, put a mindset of buy it now in the readers mind.

Put a time limit if possible
Putting a time limit on the product falls in line with creating a sense of urgency because the time limit will put in the mind of the reader, if I don’t buy now, I may lose out. I separated the two because the seller may be selling someone else’s product and may not have the authority to do this. If it is your product this is a great way to close the deal right here and now or you will lose out on this great product. Time limits are generally put on high ticketed products. If you have a high ticketed item that is your own, putting a time limit on it is a great way to go.

A call to action
Of course a call to action has to be placed in order to seal the deal. The call to action is simply a button or hyperlink that tells the reader that it’s time to buy. I like hyperlinks as a call to action and have found that having a hyperlink that says ‘click here to order now’ has worked the best for me. If your sales ad is long, you should put a call to action more than once in your ad copy. I always put a call to action after I have consciously triggered an emotion or desire. This is the place where people are most apt to buy if they are not going to read the whole ad copy but have already decided to buy.

Follow these guidelines and you will find that you have created a killer ad copy that will sell over and over for you.