How to Use Ebay Classified Ads for Affiliate Marketing and Building Lists

eBay classified ads make up less than 1 percent of all listings on eBay. These classified ads show up alongside regular auctions and get just as much exposure as a regular auction except classified ads have a one-time fee, no final value fee, and runs for a minimum of 30 days.

In fact, if you still want to continue selling eBooks on eBay, it’s the only format in which you can still sell eBooks. But eBay classified ads are still very much under the radar and not utilized to their fullest potential.

The 2 best uses of eBay classified ads for internet marketers are list building and/or affiliate marketing. However, the rules of what can be placed in a classified ad are very vague, but you can still have things in a classified ad that you can’t have in listings that use other formats.

For instance, you can place links from websites outside of eBay with the item you have for sale, you can have an opt-in box in your ad to build your list, and often you can get away with having your email address in a classified ad.

As with everything on eBay, this too will be a numbers game. Obviously the more views your ad gets, the more opt-ins and/or sales you will make.

So the most important part of your classified ad will be your title. If people aren’t searching for the keywords that are in your title, chances are people aren’t going to find your ad or not many people anyway.

Another thing to consider with your title is how popular the keywords are in your title are; meaning are there a large number of people searching for that keyword or a small number. A way to find out what the popular keywords are on eBay is to check out eBay pulse.

eBay pulse tells you what the most popular searches are on eBay. But something I like even better than eBay pulse is the site at auctioncloud.com. Although it’s not as up-to-date as eBay pulse this site goes into more detail about the most popular search terms on eBay.

With eBay classified ads the number of people viewing your ads is very important so using information from eBay pulse and ‘Auction Cloud’ can give you ideas of what you need to have in your title.

But to be certain about how many people could be potentially viewing your ad you should check out a few completed listings with the keyword(s) in the title. A lot of the completed listings will be 7-day auctions but by checking out how many views a few of those completed auctions get and multiplying that view count by 4 (4 weeks in a month; ads are 30 days) you get a rough idea of how many views your ad will get.

Ideally you want your eBay ad to get a few hundred views in a month’s time but a eBay ad can still be successful even if it doesn’t get a whole lot of views in the course of a month.

Real life example:

A guy named Warren decided to promote the ClickBank product ‘Fat Loss 4 Idiots’ using an eBay classified ad with 5 tips on "maximizing your weight loss goals" and an opt-in box that offered a FREE 2-week diet diary with tips if you signed up. The following are his results with the ad:

• 114 views

• 29 people opted in

• 6 sales

Total commissions earned: $207.18

A 30-day ad costs $9.95 not including extras like subtitle, bold, border, etc. There are 60-day, 90-day, and 180-day eBay ads but its recommended you test your results with 30-day ads first.

Also, something that gives you a competitive edge with your eBay ad is when you can find keywords to put in the title of your eBay ad that gets a lot of searches, thus possibly getting you a lot of views, but keywords in which there are not many results for, anything with less than 100 results is great.

In conclusion, eBay classified ads are a great way for internet marketers to build their list(s) and promote affiliate products but before doing that do a little bit of research and then try using an eBay classified ad.