Craigslist Marketing: 7 Helpful Hints When Posting Ads

Craigslist marketing is one of the most effective forms of advertising today.

Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist, in 2006

Craigslist is a classified advertisements website with sections devoted to jobs, housing, personals, for sale, services, community, gigs, résumés, and discussion forums.

The site was founded by Craig Newmark in 1995 as an email distribution list of friends, featuring local events in the San Francisco Bay Area, before becoming a web-based service in 1996 and expanding into other classified categories. It started expanding to other U.S. cities in 2000, and currently covers 50 countries.

Business owners around the world use Craigslist as a means to market their businesses and align with strategic partners.  When marketing your business using Craigslist, there are a few tips you may want to consider beforehand.

  1. Craigslist Marketing Tip #1: It is best to build a list of ads that you will run. For example, it is best to keep a list of about 10-20 swipe files on hand that you will run on craigslist so that you are not constantly having to create new ads. After you have posted each ad on the list once then you can start over and start doubling up your ad postings, making that ad list run longer.
  2. Craigslist Marketing Tip #2: Titles are important! Make sure the title of your posting is something catchy that will bring the customer in and make them want to click on that posting. You will get a better response if you have an interesting title.  Consider phrasing your title as a question. For example, if your title is “Think your smarter than Lady Gaga?” then in their heads viewers think “yes” so they will click on the link to see what it is.
  3. Craigslist Marketing Tip #3: People love pictures. Sometimes people will click on a posting just because it has ‘pic’ next to the title. You want to put relevant pictures in your ad posting. Perhaps a picture of your product or your banner design on your website.  After all a picture speaks a thousand words.
  4. Craigslist Marketing Tip #4: Be sure to watch your timing for when you post your ad. Some of the best times to post on Craigslist are in the early mornings from 6-8am and the after work hours of 5-8pm. These are the times when people are surfing Craigslist before and after work. If you post an ad too early than your ad will be pushed to the second or third page by the rush hours and if you post an ad too late, then no one will see it either.
  5. Craigslist Marketing Tip #5: People love their city! When creating your ad keep in mind that people tend to be very proud of their city, so if you are targeting businesses locally then it would be a good idea to have some sort of local theme to the ad or pictures in the ads.
  6. Craigslist Marketing Tip #6: Testimonials! Credibility is a huge part of the internet marketing business. People buy from people.  Testimonials are marketing gold and are very effective at increasing conversion levels.   If possible, always include photos of your testimonials.  Smiling faces have been proven to increase conversion levels in recent studies.
  7. Craigslist Marketing Tip #7: Identify your target market and post correctly!  Craigslist has many different sections. Make sure you are posting your ad in a section that is relevant to your business and also reaches your target market. If you are selling couches, it would be effective to post an ad in the furniture section, but not so effective to post an ad in the boats section.  Position your ad according to your target market.

I hope these Craigslist marketing tips helped you gain a clearer understanding of how this unique marketing medium can grow your business.   Stay tuned for more helpful internet marketing tips that will give you an edge over your competition on the web.

One Response

  • I know that craigslist may be buried deep down in the archives when comparing it to the other platforms that are now available, such as OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, etc, but I still have faith in the site. I have used Craigslist to find random free objects and gigs for myself and my writing team. I know that if people are looking, they will find what they need on the site. I have recently posted my writing services on there and I was able to obtain a client! Thank you for your tips, I used them recently and was able to snag another client for a different writing job.

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