When using classified advertising for your product, it is a good idea to use a key to track your product. By using a key in your ad, you will know exactly where each inquiry came from. By tracking your ads, you will be able to determine which ones make you the most money.
A key is simply a special code that you put in a classified ad. By using this key, you can know exactly which newspaper or magazine the response came from, and the date along with the exact ad you used for a particular promotion. Using a key is really easy to do, and can be done in a few different ways, see details.
The most simple way to track your ads with a key, is to add a special code to your mailing address. If your address is 1234 Main Street, you could key your ad by using your address as 1234 Main St., Dept 22. The Dept 22 is the tracking key that you are using. If you place this exact ad in the Sunday paper at your local town, you’ll know that each response with Dept 22 that is received, came from the Sunday paper.
If you use a dept key with numbers or letters, it should be alright to do with your local post office. However, you may want to ask them if you can use a dept key, just to be sure you can do this.
Another way to use a department number when keying an ad, is to use it for a telephone number. Make sure you ask the person to give out the department number, after calling the telephone number listed in your ad. When a telephone taking service, or you answer the calls, you will know exactly where that person looked at your ad.
You can also use a key for your website. In your ad you can use a special code number or dept number, for someone to enter on your website. For example, you could ask a customer to fill out a form on your website, where they send you their name and address. You can add a box on the form asking for a dept or code number to track the classified ad.
Another way to track your ads could be to use different colors of paper. Let’s say you come up with a two page sales letter and put it on white paper. If you want to test two different mailing lists, you could use one list with white paper and the other list with a different color of paper. You can now track the responses from the two different mailing lists.
To keep up with all these special methods for tracking, create a file folder system to put responses in. You can use a different folder for each different response you want to track. By tracking all of these results, you can decide which ad or sales letter you want to keep using. Use all of these key tracking methods, to make the most money from your classified ads.