Affiliates: Are You Using a Signature Ad?
By AWeber January 15, 2009
I have been able to correspond with a lot of our affiliates lately about my introduction as affiliate manger, the upgrades to the affiliate control panel, as well as feedback in general. The information I have received from you has been very helpful.
The one thing that is alarming, however, is the fact that 8 out of about 10 affiliates did not have a signature ad in their email. The signature ad is “prime real estate” for your AWeber affiliate campaign and should never be overlooked by an affiliate.
Let’s take a closer look at the many benefits of inserting a simple signature ad into all of your personal and business emailings.
What Are The Benefits of a Signature Ad?
A signature ad is several sentences inserted underneath your name with every email you send out. It’s like an email business card that’s placed in all of your email messages. Using the signature can boost your affiliate productivity and earnings considerably.
The many benefits of using this often neglected tool are:
- Free Advertising – It costs nothing to put an automatic signature
in your email. - Efficiency – Its quick and simple to insert a signature file in most
email programs. - Automation – Your ad is inserted automatically in every email you send.
- Recurrence – Your signature ad is viewed many times over the
course of your campaign.
There are almost limitless uses of the signature file and it should be included in every email you send.
What Should My Signature Say?
Your signature file should contain a short description of what you are promoting along with your affiliate link. It should be short and to the point (about 2 or 3 lines) and give the reader a reason to click on your affiliate URL.
Your signature should be catchy as well. A great example would be the following:
Unlimited Autoresponders & Newsletters
99.34% email delivered. Free support.
https://www.aweber.com/?YOUR-ID
We provide many more examples in our Affiliate Tip for Signature Ads. You can explore that resource for many more examples of effective signature ads. You can also use your imagination and come up with an ad that will appeal directly to your particular customer or client niche.
Other Uses For a Signature
Your AWeber signature ad does not have to be limited to just email messages. It can be used anywhere you can reach and individual or group of people with text or HTML. You can get very creative with its uses, but some great places to start are:
- At the end of messages in forums.
- Facebook, myspace and other social media messages.
- Blog comments.
- Product or service reviews.
You can post your signature ad to any group or message board that will allow you to.
Please verify with the site rules or administrator before you place your AWeber signature ad in any discussion room or service. This will insure you are not spamming and that your affiliate signature ad is not in violation of any rules of conduct.
For more on spam, check our Spam FAQ.
How Do I Create a Signature Ad?
If you do not know how to insert a signature into your email client program, here are some easy to follow instructions for most email services.
If you still have questions, please feel free to contact us. Our customer solutions team would be more than happy to assist you.
Doug Baukight
1/18/2009 11:02 amI LOVE signatures. Depending on the audience for each of my newsletters that go out, I can direct subscribers exactly where I want in my signature.
Team Members are directed to one web site, Company wide subscribers are directed to my blog, while another list is directed to yet another marketing site.
It’s easy to set up, very gentle and non-pushy, and it provides one more link to sites I want to promote.
michael lim
1/19/2009 4:59 amGood idea! This FREE Advertising for affiliate programs. Actually this is also good to post your signature ad on the FORUM. Because most of the forum is not allow for ad on the post, but for signature ad is OK.
Player
1/19/2009 7:41 pmYeah, being an active member and posting signatures is a good way to some free advertising. But the conversation ratio from visitor to customer is quite low in my experiance. For a specific offer I think getting the site in top google search is still the best way of getting customers.
Frances
1/25/2009 1:10 amNo, I haven’t use a signature since I have been mostly promoting on Clickbank and haven’t made a decision on which product I want to be my main one. Hopefully,soon I will make that decision which is causing me problems.
Player
1/26/2009 9:03 pmGood luck with finding the best one 🙂 Whats you experiance with PPC or PPVIEW adds?
Ami
2/8/2009 7:25 amThanks for the tips
I often ignore the signatures and therefore have not made a great deal of use of them. I suppose it’s about creating signatures that actually rouse curiosity
Mary Leedy
2/8/2009 10:53 pmI thought I’d post a response to Frances. If it’s a matter of choosing which product to promote in a signature ad, would it be useful to get a rotator url so that you just have one link to promote all the products you like? That way you wouldn’t have to stress yourself out over picking just one product. They’re all good right? 🙂
The other idea is to create a blog and put all the links you want to promote on there and then just put your blog url in your signature ad. People like reading a blog that has useful info./content and they’ll be able to see the products you offer through there. A blog is great for conversing with your audience creating a know/like/trust relationship at the beginning and they’d be more apt to see what other goodies you have by clicking the product links. Best to you! 🙂
Gary Huynh
3/11/2009 12:23 amSignature ads will not drive you lots of traffic by itself but when combined with other methods, it’s very effective at driving traffic. It seems like such a newbie thing to do but it remains to be effective after years of being used.
I like to put a call to action in my signature ads to increase response rates.
S.O.
6/21/2010 11:10 pmThanks for sharing the tips. In fact, we can get many referrals from our email signature from this method.
Igre
3/29/2011 7:07 pmGreat post man. Tnx for the tips. Getting my traffic number up every day 🙂
Kimberly Quiroz
4/21/2011 10:06 pmThis is a excellant way to advertise.