The way it works is simple; you find some one with an email list to be your partner and then you post an offer of theirs to your list and they post an offer of yours to their list. This way some of the people on their list will sign up with you, thus increasing the size of your list. Of course, some of the people on your list will sign up with your partner as well but that’s the trade off for getting more leads at no cost.
If you do ad swaps too often you can water down your list and make it unresponsive since your list members will be receiving many offers from people besides you. However, as long as you don’t go crazy with ad swapping and you know the kinds of offers your list responds to best, then the downside is minimal.
You can find partners for ad swaps in a number of places. The easiest place to find some one is on an internet marketing related forum. There are often people requesting ad swap partners or you can start your own thread to find potential partners with similar sized lists to yours. Another place to look is on Skype. There are many email marketers on Skype however, you will probably need to be invited to join a group before you can start requesting swaps with people. If you find someone in a forum that does ad swaps you can ask them for their Skype ID and, if they’re in a group you can request an invite.
If you have a small list and you cannot find a partner to swap with you can also try banking clicks with someone who has a larger list. This simply means that you will send their offer to your list several times until they have received a certain number of clicks. Then that person will post your offer to their list and send you back the same number of clicks. For example you would send another persons offer to your list several times throughout a month until that offer has received one hundred clicks. Then you would contact your swap partner and they would post your offer to their list, sending you one hundred clicks all at once. Many people with large lists are willing to bank clicks like this to help out newcomers, just ask around in the forums and you should be able to find some one with out too much trouble.
Ad swapping is an excellent tool to build your list when you’re first getting started. Generally, ad swaps will become less useful as your list grows however, understanding them will be useful throughout your entire career as an online marketer. Even if you have a large list built around a specific niche, you can use ad swaps to start a second list when breaking into a new niche. This is a good way to try out new niches without investing a lot of money. Ad swapping is a solid tool in your internet marketing arsenal and it’s worth your time to become familiar with them.