Helpful Tips and Headaches for Capturing and Tracking Classified Leads

Placing an ad on a classified directory website like Craigslist is a good idea for most businesses, particularly if you go through the categories and find your product or service listed. You’re going to get a number of direct hits just because those sites get a lot of traffic, but you’ll also get a lot of people reading your ad who will click the link, browse your site briefly, and then move on. How do you go about capturing those visitors who don’t make a purchase? That traffic is valuable to you, but if you don’t find out who they are, you’ll never be able to do business with them.

Capturing classified leads is a tricky process. One of the best ways is to have a sign-up box somewhere on your site with an attractive offer for new visitors. Retailers often use the “Sign up Here for Discounts and Coupons” approach. If a shopper thinks they can save money, he or she is more likely to enter their name and email into that sign-up box. If you use the standard “Enter Email Here for Updates”, your email list won’t build up very quickly. In most cases, you’ll be lucky to get any opt-ins at all, unless you’re running an information site where everything is free.

Other elements you need to look at when setting up a capture box are the position of the box, the colors, and the style. Top right is universally recommended for any call-to-action commands, but it cannot appear that your main purpose is to capture the visitor. Like a hunted animal in the wild, a consumer who feels they’re being trapped will run away and not come back. The sign-up feature needs to be warm and inviting, blending in with the overall site design, but standing out at the same time. If your website has a dark background, a lighter shade is recommended for the box. If a lighter background, choose an off color. Darker boxes tend to be more threatening.

Most businesses utilizing ecommerce and online classifieds run multiple sites with multiple sign-up boxes to capture leads. In most cases, all of those leads go onto one list, so how do you know where they come from? The answer is in classified ad tracking analytics. Your sign-up functions, like your ads themselves, should have HTML code installed in them to track the characteristics and logistics of your visitors. Knowing where they come from and what their tendencies are can help you better market your product or service. Make tracking a priority when you set up your capture feature.