Bob's Home Business Blog

Ad swaps are being touted as one of the fastest ways for new Internet marketers to build their email list. This process involves seeking out other home business owners online and proposing that you send their advertisement to your email list if they reciprocate by doing the same.

By doing this both parties involved have the opportunity to attract new subscribers from their partner’s list and perhaps make additional profits from the venture.

Sometimes people are so anxious to arrange one of these endeavors that they overlook some very important facts about their prospective partner and their enterprise. This can produce disastrous results as far as adding new members to your list is concerned and can also place your business in a very precarious position by being associated with an unsavory element within the Internet marketing community.

In order to avoid this predicament here are 4 blunders you should avoid when you’re looking for ad swap partners on the Internet:

1. You should always ask your potential partner for documented proof of their list size and their click through rates from recent email campaigns. Legitimate and honest entrepreneurs online will have no problem producing this information. However, if there’s any hesitation on your potential partner’s part or worse an outright refusal to cooperate then you should decline the proposal.

2. Conduct your due diligence by investigating anyone who appears overly anxious for you to enter into an ad swap arrangement. Do they have a reputation for being an honest and trustworthy person on the Web or have they been involved in less than appropriate behavior related to their business practices and activities online.

Being associated with anyone or any enterprise on the Internet with a poor track record of performance will negatively reflect on your home based business and you as the owner. This could result in a loss of customers and future profits for your venture.

3. Some unsavory Internet marketers may try to take advantage of a newbie by asking to be paid in exchange for agreeing to the ad swap. This is unacceptable because this type of agreement should be cost free for both parties involved and if anyone proposes such an arrangement you should refuse them immediately.

4. You should also make sure your partner sends out your message to their email list at the agreed upon time. This is one of the most common complaints from marketers who have been duped into mailing their partner’s ad to their list while they see little or no results from their solo ad being mailed.

Unfortunately, as in all walks of life, there are Internet marketers who are less than trustworthy who are always waiting for a chance to take advantage of any situation that could benefit them. Therefore, always be mindful of who you’re dealing with for the sake of your online home business and your reputation on the Web.

Bob Withers

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When you’re just starting out online with your home based business it’s sometimes very difficult to get started building your email list of prospects and customers. Ad swaps are a very popular list building technique employed by many Internet marketers for adding new people to their growing lists. This tactic is very simple in principle and involves you sending your partners advertisement to your list while he or she sends your ad to their list.

The problem for new Internet marketers is they don’t have a big enough list to attract a partner to agree to this proposal; so now what do they do? One answer to this dilemma is called banking clicks and this is how it works.

Internet marketers with large lists can help you build yours by allowing you to send your product offer to their subscribers in exchange for you sending their offer to your smaller list over a period of time thereby allowing you to accumulate more clicks than you could with one mailing.

Then as you meet your goal of a pre-determined number of clicks over a set period of time your business partner will send your message to their list all at once in order to match the number of clicks you sent them. This may be a little easier to understand if we use some numbers in an example.

If you have a list of 200 subscribers and your ad swap partner gives you a 50 click bank you would have to send more than one message over time in order to send your partner the 50 people who have clicked on her offer. When you’ve upheld your end of the bargain your cohort then sends your message to her list all at once and you receive your 50 new members simultaneously.

It may be difficult to find someone with a large list to agree to this swap arrangement because of your small number of subscribers and because they usually like to swap with people with larger lists. However, they are out there and one place you may be able to track them down is at Internet marketing forums. If there aren’t any offers posted in the chat rooms to bank clicks then simply look for a large list owner and submit your proposal to them.

You may be surprised at the response you get because these more experienced marketers are always looking for new list members, especially if they’re newbie’s because these people are usually anxious to learn and to buy new products. Also, some marketers have arranged so many swaps online that they’re running out of people to do business with and therefore they may be anxious to take you up on your offer.

By arranging several of these click banking arrangements you can build your home business list very quickly and eventually reach the point where you can compete with the big boys and other Internet marketers will be approaching you with ad swap proposals.

Bob Withers

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Ad swaps have been re-introduced from the offline world of advertising to the online realm of Internet marketing and with tremendous success. Ad swaps have been a function of offline marketing for years and have been adopted by marketers on the web to help them build their email list and increase their website traffic and sales.

This business agreement involves two enterprises, with the same niche topics, agreeing to publish an ad from each others websites with the intention of increasing the size of their email list. The basic idea involves agreeing to promote each others advertisement with the hope their own email list numbers will increase because they will be attracting people to their Internet enterprise who already have an interest in their niche market.

To make this technique work for your online home based business you need to seek out the right Internet ventures who have similar subscribers as yours and who are interested in adding new members to their list. Another key to being successful with this Internet marketing technique is to approach more webmasters, as your list size increases, in order to form similar ad swap agreements.

The more of these affiliations you’ve arranged the more subscribers you will attract to your list and the more members you have the easier it will be to arrange other swaps in the future. Persistency and consistency are also two key ingredients to any successful campaign.

Some Internet marketers are very protective of their email lists and may not be too receptive to your offer; however you shouldn’t let this dissuade you from approaching others because there are many Internet business owners looking for these types of arrangements.

There are several advantages for your online home business to be garnered from ad swaps including increased exposure for your website and your products and the resulting additional sales as well as, the main objective, which is an increase in the number of people who have signed up to your list.

When deciding to employ this tactic you need to take the size of your current list into account. This is particularly important if you have a small membership because you should then approach business owners who have a similar number of subscribers. Internet marketers who have a list numbering in the thousands aren’t about to do business with someone who has a directory of 100 prospects.

One other important factor you need to take into consideration is to ensure the Internet marketers you approach aren’t in direct competition with your online venture. Each of your products needs to be complementary but not competing for customers.

Ad swaps, when approached correctly, can produce major benefits for both parties involved. This arrangement can increase your website and product exposure, boost your sales and  accomplish your original goal of increasing the size your online home business email list.

Bob Withers

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