subject: Can Advertising With Ezines Still Work? [print this page] One thing that every affiliate marketer is wholly aware of is the fact that traffic generation, or lack of it, can make or break an Internet business. In the past, many turned to Ezine advertising as an almost guaranteed means to generate traffic but recently, many arguments have raged on online forums and blogs over whether or not this medium of advertising still works.
This usually sparks off a huge debate and the answers will be dramatically opposed to one another. Many will argue that readers very soon switch off from the daily emails they receive from a multitude of sources and only scan and choose to pick out the ones that have a headline of interest to them, even when they have personally chosen to include themselves in the list of the sender in the first place. It is often the view that it's just easier to delete your mail than it is to unsubscribe, so many messages are deleted if they appear to offer the same content.
So is there anything that you can do to promote your affiliate products effectively in E-zines?
I have come up with three ideas that may help.
1 Create an Intriguing Solo Ad
Use cheaper E-zines and purchase some solo ad space. The E-zines should be responsive but have a slow subscription rate. Test the general conversion rate against the affiliate product and then once you have an idea of your profit margin, try and market your solo ads in bigger publications, targeting at those with subscriber rates over 100,000. The costs can be expensive but the profits arising from it will be much greater assuming you have done your homework correctly.
2 Target Specifically Affiliate Product Related E-zines
Again, purchase a few sponsor ads but this time in reputable E-zines to send those that are interested straight to a download page where they can get your free viral report which is, of course, not only related to your affiliate product, it is also embedded with your affiliate link to help generate sales for that product.
3 Using High-end Online Publications For Your Ad
Many of these do not usually include their sites on E-zine directories, for instance authority sites who publish their own PDF version on a monthly basis to their own customers. These sites will generally have a much higher response rate and will draw the biggest traffic provided you are careful to use them correctly. Usually, a solo ad is between 200 and 300 words and is placed in the very center of a page. Their obvious placement draws plenty of attention from readers and therefore, it can be an excellent investment if you have the funds available as long as you have taken care to prepare the ad using extensive research and decent copywriting skills which can take time to learn.
Many marketers consider that solo ads are 'old school' but there are just as many who feverishly support the idea and consider that solo ads do, in fact, bring in huge profits as long as they are engineered perfectly and the correct solo ad distributor is selected.
