The great attraction to Craigslist is that you can use it at no cost. Posting ads on Craigslist is done without charging the poster any fee for the posting. This makes this form of advertising very affordable to everyone. Craigslist began in 1999 as a nonprofit corporation but has since switched over to a for profit entity. How do they make their money? Well certain fees are charged for ads placed in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York plus you will pay if submitting a brokerage apartment ad in New York City.
Craigslist has around 300 websites. And with all, or most, of those postings being free, you can see the volume of people who are using this innovative site each day. But, as with any sort of advertising, you should be careful in posting your ads so as to obtain the best return on them as possible.
WHY NOT CHARGE FOR CRAIGSLIST?
Craig Newmark is the owner of Craigslist. He has been approached about running banner ads on Craigslist which would carry a charge. He turned this idea down, however, because he wanted to keep the sites non-commercial. Several points in the Craigslist mission statement make it clear why this is a free service.
- To get the word around about everyday items and services in a fair way for all
- Make the internet a bit more human than it is otherwise
- Try to be honest and keep things easy and understandable
- Stay away from the big time intimidating look of other sites
- Making the site available and affordable to everyone
- The sites are made of many communities, so to speak, instead of one huge unit
CRAIGSLIST AS OPPOSED TO AFFILIATE
Affiliate marketing is very popular and many businesses make use of it to a profitable extent. The only problem is that payment and profits depend on a certain action taking place. No money is made unless a click through is made on Pay Per Click, or a sale is made on Pay Per Sale or a referral is made on Pay Per Lead. This can sometimes leave a marketer up in the air.
With Craigslist, however, none of that needs to be a concern. You can advertise on Craigslist at no cost and receive a lot of traffic with your ad. And with this amount of traffic the chances are good that you will receive some traffic to your website as well.
BUT FREE IS NOT ALWAYS THE ANSWER
Free advertising can be a problem, however, if you have a product or service that Craigslist doesn’t support in a category. In this case you must place it in a general area and are likely to not get the traffic that will lead to sales. Being lumped in with a bunch of unrelated listings can sometimes hurt you rather than help you. Another problem on Craigslist is if there is a glut of ads on the site that are the same as yours. In other words, too much competition can also hurt you.