If you market affiliate products and services (or your own products and services) on free classified ad sites like Craigslist, Backpage, Kijiji, etc., your ads may sometimes not appear.

Sometimes it can be due to over-posting or marketing of something that goes against the guidelines of that particular site, or even a technical error. Other times, however, it can be more sinister. As in, a competitor may be hiding their ads.

Here are six things you can do to combat this.

Note: I use the back page of the site a lot, so most of these tips have been applied to this site. But, they will work for almost any free classifieds site that you use to market.

6 Tips For Dealing With Ad Markup / Ad Ghosting On Craigslist, Backpage, Kijiji, Etc.

i) Use more than one free classified ad site. Craigslist is by far the most popular of these types of sites. But there are many others. If you ran only 10 or 20 ads in five or six others, you could still make money marketing your products and services online.

ii) Use more than one form of marketing: I started using the Backpage free classifieds site in January 2009 to market an affiliate product. Since then, I have sold tens of thousands of dollars worth of electronics (no exaggeration). I was so successful using the site that I started marketing my own electronics there.

But I also use other online marketing methods, i.e. article marketing. That is why I can make money online, consistently, without worrying about whether I place ads on any given day.

Why it pays to market on more than one free classifieds site, especially if you don’t do any other marketing

I understand how you can get addicted to a marketing method if you are successful. But don’t do it. It is a recipe for disaster. For example, what if your favorite free classifieds site was down for a couple of days, or it changed the way you can market there, or was bought by another company? Your income could suddenly come to a halt.

This is why your online marketing efforts should always be mixed.

iii) Take advantage of your ads. What do you mean by this? If your ads are being sabotaged by a competitor, especially, promote another product / service, then paste a link to the other (main) product that you want to promote in that ad.

iv) Report the culprit. Earning money online can be difficult, and some people are unscrupulous; although the vast majority are honest and hard-working. If you think someone is hiding your ads, please report it to Backpage, Craigslist, Kijiji, or the free classifieds site you are using.

v) Promote another product: At any given time, I am promoting 4-6 products on Backpage (own and affiliate products). Again, it keeps my online earnings steady because if demand drops for one, I still have others that are selling well online.

vi) Out with the culprit: If you know who is hiding your ads on Backpage (Craigslist, Kijiji, etc.), search for the person on their website / blog (if you have one), on their social media accounts, on forums, etc.

At the very least, it gives them something else to focus on as they will have to respond to your actions.

Sometimes this will stop them altogether and may lead others who may be promoting the same product to take action as well (for example, contacting the guilty party’s host company, domain name registration provider, sites on those that are advertised, etc.).

However, be careful when following this route. Some people are unbalanced.

There’s a lot of money (and I mean a lot) to do marketing on free classifieds sites like Craigslist and Backpage. I can personally attest to this, and I only do affiliate marketing part-time (my full-time job is freelance writing). One day, I made $ 900 in affiliate sales just by placing free classified ads on the back page. Yes, in one day.

So if your ads appear on Craigslist, Backpage, or another free classifieds site, don’t let that put you off. Find a solution and move on.

Learn exactly how to make money online by marketing on Backpage, a popular free classifieds site.