Yes... yes, and No.

I urge people to be very careful about building lists with adswaps. It does work, and yes, doing so will build numbers - but don't let yourself just be impressed by the numbers. Quality is way better.

Here's a comment on made recently on this topic elsewhere:

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Often I wonder about the values and virtues of a "good" adswap. I often drop by "Joint Venture Forums" where there really are very few "joint Ventures"... many 90% "adswaps" with people who don't DO joint ventures of any other kind.

OK - food for thought (let's stir the hornets nest - )

... classic example of a poor quality "adswap" list...

Guy has 100,000 subscribers. Says he'll do a solo ad for $250 and will get you minimum 1,000 clicks.

You know yourself that you've got a conversion of about 20% on your sales page which would mean 200 sales.

On a $15 product that would equal $3,000 in sales.

If he said "yes" to your joint venture that would put $1,500 in his pocket on a 50 / 50 split.

But he says "no" to you joint venture because he knows he's got a crappy quality ad-swap list... he know that they're not good buyers (even though he'll tell you otherwise) - truth is they're only clickers - they're just curious. He'll blame poor sales on your sales copy, your website or your product.

He's built his list pure and simply to SELL solo ads. It's a sh*t list and he knows it - that's why he never takes on joint ventures. Because if it was a good list...

He'd always take the $1,500 over the $250.

Wouldn't you ??

Moral of story - NEVER do an adswap or run a SOLO ad with someone who's not prepared to do other JV promotions because chances are it means they've got a sh*t list.

Ouch

Paul Barrs