Craigslist finally has a challenger in the free online classified ad market and their name is eBay. eBay is making a move for the free online classified ad market by bringing out their new free local online classified site called Kijiji.
The question is, can this new young gun from eBay KO the old Champ Craigslist?
Maybe, maybe not.
One thing that eBay will have to deal with is the loyal following that Craigslist has built up over the years. Apparently eBay thinks it has the size and skill to take out, or at the very least, fight Craigslist to a draw with its traffic. This remains to be seen.
Kijiji – What’s a Kijiji?
Kijiji is eBay’s new free local online classified ad site. It’s much slicker than Craigslist and at least for me, much easier to navigate and to use. You can see it here. (don’t ask me how they came up with the name, I don’t have a clue!)
I have to give it to eBay, at least they made Kijiji look a lot different that their UK free online classified ad site Gumtree. Gumtree resembles Craigslist except with a color change. Other than that, Gumtree could nearly pass for a twin of Craigslist.
What Does This Have To Do With Affiliate Marketing?
Glad you asked. Some affiliate marketers are making a huge killing off of free online classified ads. Since Kijiji is new and does not have the traffic that some of the larger free online classified ad sites have, a wise affiliate marketer could get his/her products in on the ground floor.
Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t advocate spamming an online classified site. But if you have something truly of value that meets the guidelines of Kijiji or any other online classified ad site, I don’t see a problem with you advertising it.
I’ve looked over Kijiji and can not find anything against using affiliate marketing links in your ads. Having said that, I have not found any live links in the ads and I have found some ebooks already up for grabs on Kijiji, but no live links.
Still, a savvy marketer can get around this and showcase his/her products. I’d think some of the name brand affiliate marketing programs should work well.
Remember yesterday when I posted about building a targeted opt in email list? You could use a couple of those methods to build your list with Kijiji. For example, you could write up a short ebook and post it for little or nothing. If Kijiji does take off as I suspect it will, you’d have a product ready to take advantage of the traffic.
There are lots of possibilities for affiliate marketers and free local online classified ad sites. eBay just gave us another place to market at.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Jennifer // Jul 7, 2007 at 9:04 pm
I thought eBay and Craigslist where the same. I mean, eBay bought them quite a few years back.
Did they sell them??
2 Don // Jul 8, 2007 at 11:05 pm
Hey Jennifer,
I never heard about eBay buying Craigslist. If they did, it doesn’t make any sense for them to come out with Kijiji.
Who knows, maybe they want ALL of the classified ad users? LOL
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
Don
3 Make Money From Home // Aug 13, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Yeah, I never heard about that either. Anyway this seems pretty interesting.
eBay also has a really sweet classified ad format within it’s auction site that they just started a little while back. I am still testing these ads. It cost $10 for a month, but hey that’s pennies for the traffic. They look just like the regular auctions. It’s quite neat anyway they don’t allow them in every section yet, but in enough to get started and make some money.
Kenney
Shake-A-Stick Marketing
4 Jim Wright // Oct 16, 2008 at 11:28 am
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craigslist
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The service was founded in 1995 by Craig Newmark for the San Francisco Bay Area. After incorporation as a private for-profit company in 1999, Craigslist expanded into nine more U.S. cities in 2000, four each in 2001 and 2002, and 14 in 2003. As of September 2007, Craigslist had established itself in approximately 450 cities in 50 countries.
As of 2007, Craigslist operates with a staff of 24 people.[1] Its sole source of revenue is paid job ads in select cities ($75 per ad for the San Francisco Bay Area; $25 per ad for New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., Chicago and recently Portland, Or) and paid broker apartment listings in New York City ($10 per ad).
The site serves over nine billion page views per month, putting it in 56th place overall among web sites world wide, ninth place overall among web sites in the United States (per Alexa.com on January 10, 2008), to over thirty million unique visitors. With over thirty million new classified advertisements each month, Craigslist is the leading classifieds service in any medium. The site receives over two million new job listings each month, making it one of the top job boards in the world.[2] The classified advertisements range from traditional buy/sell ads and community announcements, to personal ads and even erotic services.
In December 2006, at the UBS Global Media Conference in New York, Craigslist CEO Jim Buckmaster told Wall Street analysts that Craigslist has little interest in maximizing profit, instead preferring to help users find cars, apartments, jobs, and dates.[3][4]
The company does not formally disclose financial or ownership information. Analysts and commentators have reported varying figures for its annual revenue, ranging from $10 million in 2004, $20 million in 2005, and $25 million in 2006 to possibly $150 million in 2007.[5][6][7] It is believed to be owned principally by Newmark, Buckmaster, and eBay (the three board members). eBay owns approximately 25%, and Newmark is believed to own the largest stake.[8][7][9]
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