Advertising Is Not a a Magic Bullet.
I come across people all the time that seem to have the expectation that once they start running online ads, their bank account should somehow magically fill to overflowing with $100 bills. It’s not entirely their fault. A lot of scammers, fools, and con-artitsts are out there running ads that make it look like our industry actually works that way.
Let’s Be Clear:
Advertising Does Not Get Results
EFFECTIVE Advertising Gets Results
What are the critical elements that make any ad an EFFECTIVE ad?
- The Offer: Let’s face it. Your offer has to be something people actually want or need. (There is some wiggle room on how we define “want” and “need”).
- The Copy: The job of your ad copy is to get people to want to know more. If your ad copy isn’t emotionally appealing, your ad isn’t going to do anything.
- The Call-To-Action: You have to TELL People what to do, how to order, how to learn more.
Some of this is a little bit of a mixture of science and art. This is why we constantly talk about Split-Run testing.
But some of this stuff should be obvious.
If your ad copy, banner copy, email copy, etc… doesn’t do SOMETHING to make prospects want to learn more, you’re kidding yourself.
NOBODY wakes up in the morning and says, “Ooooooooo … I hope I can find some links to click on for no apparent reason.”.
It is your job, as the ad creator and copy writer to make the prospect say, “I have to know more about this!”
We’ll all received those emails with nothing but a link in them, or maybe a “click here to get rich” line of nonsense. What do you do with them? Delete, of course!
Any time you are writing ad copy or designing a banner ad, keep this one thought in mind:
YOUR READER HAS ONE QUESTION: “WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?”
If your ad is giving them a compelling reason to find out more, your ad will get people to click on it. Maybe the compelling reason is a free sample, free trial, free download. Maybe the compelling reason is a solution to a problem they are facing. NOTE: “How To …. ” subject lines work very well. Show people how to solve a problem or make life easier, and they take a look at your offer.
If your ad is not giving them a compelling reason to find out more, your ad will be very lonely.
Here are some more common sense things to be aware of:
- Check your Spelling! How do you expect people to think you’re a professional if your ad has a bunch of spelling mistakes?
- Don’t Lie! If your ad claims you can make tens of thousands of dollars in 25 minutes, everyone knows you’re not telling the truth.
- Double Check Your URL! I see ads all the time where the URL is either missing or incorrect! Even if someone does click, you lose them!
- Be Patient! Make a point of actually treating your advertising like a valuable business resource. Test your results. Run your ads repeatedly. Make changes and test again.
If you are serious about using advertising effectively, take the time to step back from the emotional part of why you are in your business. (Nobody actually cares about that but you). Put yourself in the position of your prospects. What do THEY want to know? What will help THEM? What can get THEM to ask for more information?
Begin by writing your ad copy from that perspective. Test for results. Make changes. Test again.
Any successful advertiser has been through that process time and time again. It’s what we actually do, folks.
You are so right and I want to thank you for giving us these tips. They come in handy for newbies such as myself.
I do want to say that this is the first time that online advertising has ever worked for me so I will be staying here hopefully for a long, long time.
TheOnLineNetwork is working for me and I haven’t really paid that much attention nor effort into it yet but I will.
Thanks Brian,
Your Message makes a lot of sense, as I having great trouble getting sign up’s even following the instructions from the my back office!
Keep the tips coming…
Ed
Brian,
I agree with you 100% but it would be perfect if there were someone to sub my advertising out to. When I started out in my online business I assumed that there would be thousands of companies that could get people to view my website and, if the website was persuasive enough, people would sign up. However, the reality seems to be that there are thousands of companies that quite are happy to take my money and give me “visitors”, but I still have to do the advertising myself. I have to come up with the ad copy, videos, e-books, offers, downloads, etc. leaving me with no time left to focus on my business. I will be the first to admit that I am not an advertiser. My background is in Mechanical Engineering. So I have to stumble along hoping that I’m doing something right and that somebody somewhere will click on my ad. It’s no wonder that 95% of people with online businesses fail.
Sorry about the rant,
Ken
Sounds like the perfect reason to do split-run testing!
Ken,
There are plenty of Ad Agencies that will do that kind of work for you if you have deep pockets.
The good agencies will interview you enough to know how to promote your product as best possible. Still, YOU are the one who knows your product and hopefully your market better than any agency ever could.
There are lots of tools out there you can use to formulate the best ad.
Best thing to do is find out what your ideal prospect is asking and looking for so you can craft your message appropriately to them.
Many marketers will tell you the money is in the list. And, that is true to some extent. But, which would you prefer? a list of millions who only occasionally buy something; or a list of thousands who always buy something? The Smaller list wins! It’s easier to control, cheaper to mail to and when they are engaged with what you are offering you and they win more often…
Keep on testing and tracking; eventually it can pay off.
Sincerely,
Bruce Nelkin
I have a unusually different problem when it comes to writing ads.As we all know,every
product or service being offered on the web has it’s own lead capture page/ad,this is how we ,as sales people get paid for our services; but what happens when your ad is actually better than the product/service ad or lead capture page.Well I’ll tell you from my experience,your ctr is through the roof,but your sales suffer severely.I don’t believe in selling false hope such as (Retire in 30 days),however I love to expand on specific qualities of a product or service that gained my interest,for example (Unlimited Quality Advertising)I’ve heard a few complaints about how some people are posting 5 or 6 ads and are receiving poor results,how about posting 5 or 6 thousand or even million, after all,this is a (Unlimited Adverting platform).I only wish I could promote TOAN on this platform because I haven’t had my first sign up yet,but never the less,(promote,promote,promote)this is a numbers game and the law of average say’s
(success is only obtained by the driven),if you don’t give up,you eventually win.For those of you who would like to check the quality of your ad subject lines check out
(),this will work wonders on your text ads,
as well as creating your own banners.Remember (YOU CAN DO IT)
Brian,
Thanks so much for your follow up letters; they always make me think about what I’m advertising on TOAN, and how I could make it better.
Am really pleased with my advertisng results already and though I’ve never split tested before, I’m getting started now!
Thanks for keeping me motivated!
Sue Collier
I agree with most of what “bznesman101” posted earlier. In my mind, Toan is a good offer and lends to easy ad copy promotions. I mean come on. You need leads and get a payday bonus for promotions. What’s not to like? So in less than 3 weeks in Toan I’ve been posting mostly on Facebook and 3 free classified ad sites promoting Toan like crazy. I’ve had over 2000 impressions with about 300 clicks, or more; but only 1 sign up. So I agree; the ads are prompting the action I’m advertising. But the conversion is only .003.
Brian does great video, better than most, believe that. But 15 days of trial time for $1 should be converting much better. No? My ads don’t lie, hype, overstate, blue sky, misrepresent or defraud. Basic 3 line copy. So is “bznesman” right? Is the ad better than the product? Or what do folks who are searching in the correct category really want if they don’t want the deal that solves it? There’s a missing link here somewhere and I’ll be darned if I know what it is. Maybe I need 20,000 concurrently running ads to get me 10 deals? Whew!!
Kenny
“15 days of trial time for $1” isn’t a factor in ad conversion.
Relevant factors include:
How many times the ad is seen.
Where the ad is seen.
What happens after the ad is seen.
Are you directing ad responses to a capture page or straight to a pitch page?
A pitch page gives you one shot at closing the sale.
A capture page gives you multiple shots at closing the sale.
Capture pages? Sure, on TrafficWave.Net. I follow what you teach to a tee… pretty much.
Why wouldn’t a 15 day trial matter? It sure beats asking for $19.95 right out of the chute? Doesn’t it? It’s what drew me in for sure.
The 15 day trial won’t have any impact on your results.
When people are looking at your ads, and your capture pages, they aren’t asking, “Does this person have a 15 day trial?”. They are asking the one question everyone asks when they look at any ad, which is, “What’s in this for me?”.
Ok … so you’re getting people to a capture page, which is good.
How many people have filled out the form on your capture page?
[…] * Why Your Advertising Doesn’t Work * Network Marketing and the New Economy * What do Network Marketing Professionals Actually Do? […]
Great advice Brian. Your guidelines are good but sometimes advertising that breaks the rules does good too – that’s why testing is so important. Things that go against what everyone else is doing often stands out and gets results. But generally the WIIFM (What’s in it for me) is the single most important thing to be thinking about when you design any advert.
Also, how you measure is important. An ad can have 100% click through but zero conversions (e.g. the ad says get $5 for clicking this). Ads are generally blind (they say nothing about the business, they just pique curiosity) or they can be more specific. More specific ads get clicked less but convert better in my experience. There are so many factors that it all comes down to testing.
Very well said, Troy. Couldn’t agree with you, more.
Hello bznesman101 🙂 .. Yes you can advertise TOAN on TOAN 🙂
TOAN places ads at sites accessible to the WWW, not simply a particular membership base.
Please also realise, that the number of people responding to your advertisements will be very small and those that actually purchase will be fewer again.
From my experience, those that stay focused and actually build with the tools they have are an exceedingly small percentage of the whole. therein lies the high ‘failure’ rate of businesses online. people keep chasing the next ‘pipe dream’ or ‘Next Big Thing’.
People do not usually ‘fail’ online, they simply give up or never focus.
My ‘2 cents’ worth 🙂
Peter Watson aka surgreen
Hi Brian,
Sometimes, I forget that I am a consumer and I respond to ads. What really makes me respond to one particular ad versus another? The headline usually grabs my attention first and compels me to want to know more. Therefore, as we write our ad copy, become the consumer that you are and and write from that perspective.
trying to figure out how to down load my banner url’s i have always copied and paste.
Hi, Rob. I highly recommend watching the video tutorial included in your back office.
Hello, I signed in TOAN in January 2017 and since in this time I have collected 24,160 clicks for advertising my TOAN Links. All my TOAN Links are cloaked by bit.ly.com so I have a very good overview for the clicks, and got not only one signup.
Now I am very curious about your answer.
What is the question?
What is the question ?
My affiliate link offering YOUR project TOAN. The 24,160 clicks without one subscription tell me some stories, maybe the main story is nobody purchase that from a women.
In your second post some minutes later I received I can not find an answer from you. Sorry
I can’t even imagine how your gender became an issue. Your ad panel doesn’t show anywhere near 24,160 clicks. What system is showing you that many clicks?
Our stats show 25,352 impressions and 145 clicks for the ads you are running in your TOAN Ad Panel.