Ad Swap Partners – Tips For Approaching

I built a 6 figure income using ad swaps with joint venture partners.

Every week, I approach new potential joint venture partners and every week I have many people wanting to partner with me. Over time, I have developed definite preferences in the types of joint venture partners I deal with.

So I decided to write this article to give tips to others looking to do joint ventures as to what works.

Work With Compatible Audiences

My own list consists of people wanting to learn how to make money online. So I would burn my list if I started sending them info on unrelated topics like weight loss, quitting smiling or credit score products. So before you approach a potential partner, look at their web site addresses to see what would interest their subscribers. This will keep you from wasting both your time and the partner’s time.

Build Your Own List First

To be brutally honest, I don’t need to promote your product to my list. I earn 1,000s of dollars each month promoting affiliate products but places like ClickBank have an unlimited supply of products for my niche. So I am not looking for more products to promote to my list.

What I AM looking for is to get my products out to more people. So if you have a list of people who are interested in products like mine, we can talk.

But be realistic. If you tell me that your new “system” for making money online is fantastic but it has only managed to get you 100 subscribers, you have NO credibility with me. Why would I tell my list of 75,000 subscribers about your product in return for you emailing your 100?

So build your own list first and work with smaller list owners while you build until you get a substantial list of your own. I do understand what it is like to start out, so I will work with lists as small as 5,000.

Have A Good Alexa Ranking

I have many people claiming to have very large lists wanting to work with me. But how do I know if it is true? Well, I ask them for their list size and the url where their subscribers sign up.

Then I check their Alexa ranking. Alexa rankings are based on the activity of people who have the Alexa toolbar installed. It isn’t a perfect tool, but it is reasonably accurate in the Internet marketing field because of lot of people in the Internet marketing field have it installed.

The lower the Alexa ranking, the more popular the site is. For example, at the time of this post, Google is #1, American Express is #585, Well-known Internet entrepreneur YanikSilver.com is 68,702 and my own FreeTrafficBar.com is 28,526.

Recently I heard from a person who claimed a list of 50,000 in the Internet marketing field, but his Alexa ranking on his subscriber signup page was over 1.3 million. This didn’t seem to match, so I declined the ad swap.’

So install the Alexa toolbar (I put mine at the bottom of my browser out of the way) so you can see your Alexa ranking and work on building your traffic.

Have A Unique Product

One of the annoying things to me lately is that a lot of the ad swap proposals are all for similar products. Everyone seems to have a new “system” for making money online and they are all starting to blur together and sound alike.

My niche online has been to focus on creating unique products. My Free Traffic Bar,Screen Swarm, Internet One System and Resale Rights products have only 1-2 competitors each. So they don’t compete with all the other systems out there.

Make your product approach unique and I am much more likely to want to offer it to my members.

Have An Affiliate Program

While I have an unlimited supply of Clickbank products I can earn money on, I would also like to earn money on the ad swap I do with you. So you should have an affiliate program I can join so I earn commissions when I promote your product. I pay a 50% commission to my ad swap partners, so it would be nice to make some money in return. And if your product is a ClickBank product, that works tool\.

Free Plus Upgrade

My audience is a lot of Internet marketing newcomers who are just learning how to make money online. So they are very interested in valuable “free” reports, ebooks, videos and other tools. Definitely add an upgrade or one time offer so we can both earn month, but adding something of value for free gets them into your list and gives them a great first impression.

Strong Landing And Offer Pages

Since part of the reason I am promoting your product is to earn money, I always look at the landing page where I am sending my subscribers. Does it look professional? Does it clearly explain the offer? Is it compelling? Do I think it will convert well? If you have a free offer on the front end, I would also like to see your back end offer as this is the part where I make money.

Offer Bonuses But Automate Them

I really enjoy it when my partners can offer bonuses, BUT I need them as automated as possible.

I don’t want to have my staff getting support tickets and having to scramble to get our subscribers their bonuses from you.

On my first big ad swap, I spent 3 days adding the bonuses manually to my new members accounts! I swore never again.

So, I had my programmer design an automated coupon system where I could give away blocks of free advertising credits. This has worked very well for my partners.

I Hate Prelaunches

Maybe it is just me, but I hate prelaunches. Usually the page I am supposed to send people to has almost no information about what they will be getting.

It is ok to have joint venture partners sign up ahead of time to submit bonuses and get material ahead of time, but usually, I just wait for the actual launch to promote.

I Hate Short Notice

My solo ads are on a schedule and I have many projects on the go. So I can’t drop everything to try to pull together bonuses and a solo ad for you when you give me only a couple of days notice. If I am a valuable partner to you, let me know about your upcoming projects weeks ahead of time and I can work with you on them.

Conclusion

So these are my thoughts and rants about ad swaps and joint ventures. I hope you will think of these as you build your own online income through ad swaps.

Hi Garland

I am a beginner at ad swapping having just started in January.

Thank you so much for your honesty and openness in the article you wrote for us.

I hope I will be able to build my list to a size where you would consider me for an ad swap

Thanks
Ian Middleton

Hi Garland,

You are definitely right about building a list first. It is one of the most basic rules of adswapping.

By the way, I like the Alexa cross checking technique you presented here.

Aira

Hi Garland, useful tips here, cheers

Thanks for taking the time to share your experiences. I am surprised you take Alexa ranking to be that much of a factor. As you hinted at, it is inaccurate...in my opinion, extremely inaccurate. Not to mention there are way to manipulate it as well. Also, people do build lists using multiple websites, so checking the Alexa of their "main" domain might not such a fruitful exercise. Regardless the rest of your points make a ton of sense!