How to Avoid Getting Your Ads Deleted on Craigslist

The Immense traffic and loyal following of Craigslist makes it an ideal place to put advertisements for your products or business opportunity. Yet anyone who has ever tried Craigslist has no doubt experienced the dismay of the following situation:

After typing out your carefully-worded ad, you insert your product picture, preview it, hit Submit, and sit back. You wait on the edge of your seat for the confirmation, and five minutes later there rolls in an email saying, 'YOUR POST HAS BEEN FLAGGED AND DELETED.’

GAH!

How and why does this happen?

In this article I am going to teach you two important tips for how to avoid this. To begin with, let's look at the two questions we asked above:

Why does this happen? In the words of the great Jim Rohn, "I wouldn't register for that class." Don't spend your time pondering WHY Craigslist operates this way, "It's just the way it is." Instead, consider,

HOW does this happen? In order to serve its readers Craigslist strives to offer as much content that is
a) UNIQUE, and
b) RELEVANT to its readers' interests.
c) NOT SATURATING the same market

If you can submit your ads in a fashion that fulfills these three criteria, you will be able to successfully post Craigslist ads every day. Let's go through each of the three so that you can learn how.

I. UNIQUE CONTENT
Submitting the exact same ad will get your pitch tossed out faster than a strip-club advertisement on an elementary school bulletin board. In fact, it may be bounced as soon as you hit Submit, if the Craigslist database can match it to an existing ad you already have out there. How to Generate ‘Unique’ Content for Craigslist Purposes Without Having to Write Lots of Ads
1) Start a Word Document
2) Copy and paste in any ads that you already have
3) Go to your back office and copy any and all sample classified ads, AND sales letters, and paste these into the document
4) Have your sponsor email you all of his/her classified ads and sales letters, and paste these into the document too.
5) If anyone else’s names or contact info is on any of these ads, Hit CTRL-H to Find and Replace. Type in their info in Find, and Your Info in Replace. This will automatically take out the other person’s info and populate the document with yours instead. Example: If my website is http://yourwealthbeginshere.com/ and the ad shows http://passportmentors.com/, I would fill in the Passport Mentors site in Find and fill in my Wealth Begins Here site in Replace.
6) Go over all the ads in your document and double-check that each has your name, phone number, website, email, or whatever business contact information you want to provide.
7) Add to this list whenever you feel inspiration to write an ad, or when you see one you like and want to copy!

You now have a veritable DATABASE of ‘Unique’ (and by Unique, I mean
Different) advertisements that you can post to Craigslist! You will want to build up a list of at least 30, all with different catchy titles.

Now you will want to start posting ONE per day. Start at the top, and do a different ad each day. That should take you through the month, and at the end, you can just start over at the top!

That’s right. It varies, but generally 30 days is a safe enough period of time for Craigslist to have ‘forgotten’ your ad. If you want to be extra cautious, you can also make a few minor changes, like adding an extra link, putting in a different picture, etc.

VOILA! You now have a source of endless daily Craigslist ads that you can use over and over again instead of having to sit and wrack your brain for a new ad every time you want to post one!

Question?

BUT BUT ROB…I did what you said, I compiled a whole mess of ads, but Craigslist is still deleting them!!

That’s because you just went and started posting instead of reading about the other reasons that Craigslist deletes your posts! Congratulations for those of you who exerted the patience to keep learning instead of running off like that trigger-happy marketer.


II. Content RELEVANT to Channel Posted

Craigslist has many different channels in which to post your advertisements. If you are posting ads for your business opportunity in Beauty Services or Clothing, then Craigslist will deem them irrelevant to the reader and delete them. So not only must you be posting different advertisements, but you must be posting them in the proper channel.
How do I know what the proper channel is?
Let your common sense guide you. If you are trying to sell a sofa, then post your ad in the furniture channel. If you are trying to sell a business opportunity, then post it in the For Sale: Business of Services: Small Biz Ads channels. I alter back and forth between the two and get good results from both.
If it isn’t clear-cut where your ad should go (and it usually IS), just give it your best estimate of what channel interested readers would most likely be found.

OK, I DID THAT, I’M POSTING IN THE RIGHT CHANNELS, I’M DOING EVERYTHING YOU SAID, BUT CRAIGSLIST IS STILL DELETING MY POSTS, ROB YOU @%@!

Calm down, Beavis. Read on for the final secret to finding love on Craigslist (and by love, I mean tons of sales).

III. Content that is Not Saturating the SAME MARKET
Craigslist gives us the option of posting our ads in every major US city and several other countries as well. But, if you keep posting your advertisements in the same city, they will be deleted. Craigslist does not want their readers to have to see the ‘same thing’, even if it is a different ad. So if posting day after day in the same city is out, how do you decide where to post?
Do a little demographic research. A quick Google search should help you. For example, if you are selling weight-loss products, then Google “America’s Most Obese Cities”. If you are selling a business opportunity, then Google “Top US Cities for Entrepeneurs”, or something similar.
Write yourself a list with the top ten or fifteen cities. This will accomplish two things:
a) You will be getting your advertisement in front of a targeted audience
b) Craigslist won’t be deleting your ads!
Post a different ad in a different city every day. When you reach the end of your targeted cities, restart at the top, rinse and repeat!

So, to recap: the secret to success with Craigslist is as follows:

Post UNIQUE content in the APPROPRIATE CHANNELS and don’t saturate the SAME city.

I wish you much success with the incredible marketing tool that is Craigslist. Please feel free to contact me with any questions and I will do my best to reply.

Kind Regards,


Rob Hunter

Passport to Wealth Director

My Internet Business