1. State biggest benefit offered by your product or service. 2. Include a compelling reason for readers to request more information NOW. 3. Provide a quick and easy way to respond.

Keep your message brief. Most short ads I develop produce more replies than longer versions of same ad. For example, one of most responsive ads I ever developed has only 14 words. The version used on Internet read:

Discover How To Build ANY Small Business FAST! Offer ends soon. Free information. mailto:address@domain.com

The off-line version of this ad also included a phone number and postal address so prospects had 3 ways to request more information. I used it for classified ads in magazines and printed it on postcards and mailed them to targeted lists. Every version of ad produced a large number of replies.

Many prospects responded out of curiosity. That was OK. I knew they were part of my targeted market and had a compelling need for what I was offering. I controlled that by circulating ad where it would be seen only by prospects in my targeted market.

Follow this model next time you develop a lead generating ad or message. Place your ad where lots of prospects in your targeted market will see it. The number of leads it generates from seriously interested prospects will surprise you.

Search keywords which you have bid for and check for bid gaps between you and your competitors' bids. This should take you less than 30 minutes a week but savings will be substantial.

What if I have a few hundred keywords in my bid list?

You will need a more efficient solution. A number of bid monitoring services have sprung up across Internet. For a monthly fee based on number of keywords monitored, they will monitor your keywords for bid gaps daily and notify you when there are opportunities for savings.

If you use more than one pay-per-click engine, most of these services can monitor bid gaps across multiple engines. Your savings in time and money will be significant, especially if you have placed expensive bids.

Here is a list of online bid monitoring services available:

ClickPatrol http://www.clickpatrol.com Engines monitored: GoTo, Sprinks, FindWhat, Ah-ha, Kanoodle

Keyword Bid Optimizer http://www.paidsearchenginetools.com Engines monitored: GoTo, FindWhat, Ah-ha, Epilot

ManageBid http://www.managebid.com Engines monitored: GoTo, FindWhat, Epilot, Kanoodle, Netflip, Bay9, SearchFeed, 7Search

Position Guardian http://www.positionguardian.com Engines monitored: Goto