Tips on How to Sell on Craig's List

Posted by David  •  Oct 26th, 2008 11:41:11 pm - Subscribe | Mood: heartburn | Music: The New Amsterdams - TURN OUT THE LIGHTS

I found this ebook online so I thought I would share the contents of it with the web. It's called how to Get Your Ads to Stick on Craigslist…Every Time! But I like to call it, Tip's on How to Sell on Craig's List.


There are a lot of myths out there about posting on Craigslist. Don’t listen to them. After spending the past year trying every technique I could, I finally compiled this list of techniques that are guaranteed to work and get your ads to stick on Craigslist. Ready to find out what they are? Great! Let’s rock and roll!

First things first…let’s talk about….

Tips on Headings on Craig's List

The biggest myth I’ve heard about headings are that you need a unique title for each of your ads. This is positively not true. For me, my customers routinely ask me to post 100-200 ads per day on Craigslist, and I use about 3-5 different titles, evenly distributed among all of the ads, and I’ve never had a problem. There are some words out there that Craigslist filters, but for the most part, you can use whatever you want. Just test out a few titles, and if they work, go to town with them!

Tips on Ad Content on Craig's List

You can use text ads if you want, and I’ve heard of people successfully getting their ads to stick by using them, but I personally never use text ads. This is simply because Craigslist has far too many ad content words that will raise red flags, and if you have one of these words in your ad content, your entire post will disappear. Instead, use a picture! You can include flashy graphics in it if you want, or, you can just include black text on a white background, making it virtually impossible to tell that it’s a picture. To do this, open up Paint or Photoshop or a similar program, and create a text box over a white background. Type in your ad, then save it as a .JPG file. Then, upload it to a photo-sharing site. I prefer Photobucket because I’ve never had a problem with Craigslist blocking Photobucket links. However, don’t use the exact same link and account for every ad you post. If you post 1000 ads in a day, create 3-5 different accounts, and upload the same ad 3-5 times in each account. This will give you a decently-sized pool to pull ads from, and will result in Craigslist not deleting your ads!

Tips on Craigslist Accounts / Email Addresses on Craig's List

Let’s start by talking about email addresses. If you want true success, you need a bunch of email addresses created. My ratio that works is to have 1 email address for every 10 ads that I post. Because of the amount of ads I post, I create upwards of 50 new email addresses every 4-5 days. I’ve heard of people using 1 email address for every 100 ads, but that’s a big risk to take, and could result in a lot of your ads being deleted. Better to be safe than sorry. Oh, and be sure that every new email address forwards to one main address that you can check. This will save you hours and hours of work.
The same logic applies to Craigslist accounts, too. You’ll want to create fresh accounts every few days and use them for every new batch of ads you create. This can take a bit more time, but the upside is that you don’t have to check your email address to confirm an ad posting like you do if you just post an ad without an account.

Tips on IP Address Rotating on Craig's List

Okay, folks, this is the most important step here, so pay attention.

You must rotate your ip address on a regular basis if you want your ad posting to be successful.

This can be done in a variety of ways. First, you can use a proxy, like Tor, that’s integrated into your web browser, you can reset your cable or DSL modem and get a new IP assigned, or you can get one of those Sprint Wireless cards that plugs into your USB port. It costs $60/month, but because it gives you a new IP every time you reset it and it only takes 10 seconds to reset, it’s worth its weight in gold. I use these as my primary method of IP rotating. I started off with one, but now I’m using 3, since I have 3 different computers that I post with. Trust me, folks, these things are worth it. I make back over 5 times what they cost per month – every single day!

Tips on Links in Your Ads on Craig's List

There’s a lot of talk going around about whether you should have links in your ads, and whether or not links cause your ads to get deleted faster or not. I, personally, try to stay away from links in my ads, primarily because I focus on picture ads. I can put the link address in my ad and then make its font bigger, brighter and more stand-out-ish. If you make the link stand out, and it’s a short one or one that’s easy to remember, people won’t have any trouble typing it in, and people who will type it in are more likely to actually purchase something from you. If you can, stay away from links in your ads, because the risk of getting your ads deleted just isn’t worth it. Oh, and if you absolutely have to put a link in your ad, don’t use TinyURL or any kind of other link-referral service. Craigslist has all of them banned already.

Tips on Flagged Ads on Craig's List

Yes, your ads will occasionally get flagged. It happens. Sometimes I think that there are people who get off on flagging postings. If it happens, don’t worry about it; just move on to another city. Test out posting to different categories to see where your ads stay up the longest, and experiment with different types of ads every day. If you have an ad run that’s getting flagged and deleted left and right, stop for a few minutes and take inventory of what’s going on. You’ll be able to spot the problem, fix it, and be back up and running before you know it.

Tips on Posting Your Ads on Craig's List

Great job reading through all of this; now you know how to post ads on Craigslist that will stick! But there’s one last thing to learn – how to post all of your ads automatically. Instead of posting hundreds or even thousands of ads on Craigslist by hand, use an easier approach, like I do. While there are many different auto-posting software packages out there (and I’ve tried them all), the one that works best for me has been Craygo. They have stellar support, and I’ve never had an issue or problem that they haven’t been able to fix or help me out with. They really are the best posting software out there, and I use them every day to post. Now, you can go with the Basic Version or with the Elite Version. The Elite Version is more expensive, but the amount of options are really worth it. If you want to start off with the Basic Version, that’s fine too, since you can always upgrade later. Back when I first started using Craygo, I started with the Basic Version, but after making back what it cost in my first week (and quadrupling in my second week), I very quickly purchased the Elite Version because of all of the advanced features. Plus, the thing’s got a Gmail and Craigslist account creator built in, making it incredibly easy to maintain that long list of accounts I told you about before.

Thanks to the creator of this content.

Comments 5  •  Oct 26th, 2008 11:41:11 pm - Subscribe  •  Tweet this entry | Post a comment

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