With the cost of pay-per-click advertising continuing to skyrocket, many marketers are looking for a cost-effective alternative. If you haven't yet tried ezine advertising, it's worth looking into.

An ezine (pronounced "ee-zeen) is an electronic publication distributed by email or posted on a website. The word "ezine" or "e-zine" is a contraction of "electronic magazine".

Their circulation can range from just a few thousand subscribers to over 500,000. There are three different types of ezine ads:

1. Solo ad - This is an e-mail that is sent to every subscriber on the ezine publisher's mailing list and contains your offer exclusively. Since your offer is the only ad in the mailing, it gets a much greater response.

2. Sponsor ad - This ad appears at the top of the ezine, and offers great visibility, because it's the first thing readers see.

3. Classified ad - These are just like the ads in your local newspaper, and usually consist of several lines of text, including a headline, the ad body and a live link. Classified ads are very inexpensive, and are reasonably effective - although not effective as a solo or sponsor ad.

Ezine advertising is effective, because readers want to receive the ezine. Readers request the ezine by subscribing or opting-in. This means your ad is being viewed by a receptive audience.

In addition, because there are thousands of ezines on the internet focusing on every imaginable topic, you can target your ad to a specific audience.

The trick to ezine advertising is to be consistent and run ads in more than one issue. Remember, most of us don't buy something the first time we see an advertisement for it. Repetition is the key.

The best way to find the thousands of different ezines that are available to advertise in is through an ezine directory like Zinester:

http://subs.zinester.com/

About the author: David Jackson is a writer and the owner of the Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com - providing free marketing tips for your website or blog! http://free-marketing-tips-blog.com