When it comes to advertising, I have tried just about everything. I tried free classified ad sites, I tried FFA sites; I have also tried banner exchange programs.

The results? Not much.

I was tired of hearing that the Internet is the largest market in human history. Maybe so, but how could I reach those millions of people?

The answer, my fiends I discovered, is ezine advertising.

Ezines are sometimes called 'opt-in' lists because everyone who receives an ezine has chosen to do so.

And that is why ezine advertising gets results. People read ezines and they will read your advertisement. And if you have matched the ezine to the product you are selling, you have reached your target audience.

There are currently around 90,000 ezines being published every month. So whatever you are selling, there is more than likely an ezine that will take your ad straight to the audience you want to reach.

Ezine advertising is not only effective, it is cheap as well. A 5 line ad in an ezine that goes to 3000 people will cost you between $5 and $20 per issue.

As a rule, you will always get back at least the cost of the ad, and usually much more. So there is very little risk.

But there are some tips for successful ezine advertising. Here they are:

1. The first and most important rule is: "Track your Ads!" Say you place an ad in 5 different ezines and get a hundred responses. If you do not track your ads, you will not know which ezines were pulling responses and which were not.

But how do you track your ads?

The simplest method is to place a key or a code at the end of your email address:

yourname@yourdomain.com?subject=ezineA

Then, when you get a reply with 'ezine A' in the subject field, you will know which ezine it came from.

For a URL, it is the same principle:

http://www.yourdomain.com?ezineA

However, if you are going to code your URLs, you will need a good webstats program to track the coded URLs. These two programs are excellent and they are both free:

Here is another way to code your URLs: for every ezine ad, create a duplicate of your homepage and name the page after the ezine that your ad will appear in. So, if the ad is appearing in Ezine A, you’d place this URL in that ad:

http://www.yourdomain.com/EzineA

2. Target your audience. It may seem obvious but some advertisers overlook this. If you are selling a web-marketing course, do not advertise in an ezine that deals with stock options; they probably will not be interested.

Use the 'subject categories' in any ezine directory to find ezines that relate to the product you are selling. You can find a list of 56 ezine directories in 'The Free Directory of Ezines' at:

3. Once you have chosen a number of ezines that target your audience, subscribe to them and examine the ads closely. If you see an ad that keeps repeating issue after issue, you can be sure that it is getting results. You have found a good ezine to advertise in.

4. Check to see how many ads are in the ezine. You probably will not get much response from an ad in an ezine that has 15 or 20 ads per issue. Readers of those ezines have become hardened to the ads and have learnt to skip them.

5. Check to see if the ezine publisher has a policy of never running ads for two similar products in the same issue - your ad will be much more effective if it's the only one of its kind in that particular issue.

6. Small ezines Vs. Big ezines: bigger is not always better. The big ezines with thousands of subscribers tend to have more ads than the small ezines. Also, small ezines with only a few hundred subscribers often have a much more targeted audience than the big ezines.

7. Repeat your ads. Research shows that off the Web, an ad has to be seen about 21 times before someone acts on it; on the Internet, it is about 9 times. If your budget allows, try and have your ad repeated at least three times in a particular ezine. Most ezines offer discount packages for bulk advertising.

8. Email address Vs. URL. The advantage of giving an email address is that it gives you the opportunity to send a powerful sales letter to the person who responded to your advertisement. It is also much easier to track your ads with an email address than a URL.

9. Offer something free in your ad copy. It will often tip the balance between a response and no response.

10. Keep your ads short, even if you are not using the number of words you are allowed. Short ads are more likely to be read. Keep your sentences short too; they pack much more power. Use the word 'You'. Do not describe your product but tell the reader what your product can do for them.