This really goes in hand with any type of advertising you may do but with the recent Google slaps and the utter hate they are displaying for certain offers/markets affilites are scrambling to find alternative sources of advertising. I’ve personally been preaching this since I come online but if you find yourself dependent on one source of advertising you are playing a very dangerous game.

Prequalifying your ads is a tricky tactic used to let the prospect have an idea of what they are getting ready to visit.  It’s tricky in a sense that using this may lower your CTR and with search engine advertising this is a huge factor that plays in to whether your ad will run and how much it’s ultimately going to cost you. On the other hand when you prequalify your ads you are strengthening the chance for a better return on investment.

I’m going to leave Search Engine advertising out of this segment and focus solely on alternative forms of advertising. Social advertising on Myspace and Facebook is a different beast altogether. Even they seem to be putting the leashes on certain forms of ads and offers. When they do this you know that tougher times are on the horizon. So what do you do? Where do you go?

One of the alternatives to Myspace and Facebook is to advertise thru services such as Social Media and Loud Social. Basically they allow you to advertise in social networks on app pages. This is even different than there standard platforms of advertising and you have to take a closer look at this to make it work for you. Much like Google Content Network Advertising you are “interrupting” people with this form of advertising. Another factor to include is the actual placements with ads. I know with Social Media that any sort of “click here” type text is going to give you a lot of tirekickers.

You have to realize that most people are not going to be as web savvy as a marketer. Overlooking this can have drastic negative effects on campaigns. I know from experience. Let’s do a simple scenario for an ad that doesn’t prequalify a prospect and one that does.

• Free Loreal Makeup
• Loreal Is Giving Out Free Makeup Samples
• Click Here To See If You Qualify

This is an ad that will most likely get a lot of clicks. However if you were promoting a Loreal Makeup Email Submit offer then you have just shot yourself in the foot (most likely). A lot of people who click that will probably think they are still trying to install the application that you are advertising on. Others that actually are interested in the ad are going to click over and see that the offer is requesting information that they may not to give out. So let’s prequalify them a bit:

• Free Loreal Makeup
• Loreal Is Giving Out Free Makeup Samples
• Enter Your Email To See If You Qualify

Not much has changed in this ad from the looks right. However you will notice now that we have let them know before even clicking the ad that they are going to have to enter their email to see if they qualify. By writing ads this way you are going to reduce the amount of tirekickers.

When using alternative sources of advertising such as Social Media Services, 2nd tier search engines and anything else really you can drastically reduce the amount of crap clicks by telling people specifically in your ads what to expect. Sure you may not get the volume you once were but then again, what good is volume when it dont convert?