In 1995 Craig Newmark started Craigslist as an email distribution service for sharing information with friends. Today you can find Craigslist in 700 cities and 70 different countries. No wonder Alexa.com ranks Craigslist as the 7th highest traffic site in America and the 33rd most visited site in the world. That's a lot of eyes on your ad if you post at the right time.
Lead Time
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If you want to sell your items for the best possible price, you need time to find buyers before your selling deadline. That's why you should start running ads one to two months before you must sell your stuff. This is particularly important when you're moving and you can't afford to take everything along. Post your ads on Craigslist a few months before your moving date and drop the price every week until your items sell. If you post far enough in advance, you won't need to liquidate everything at the last minute.
Day of the Week
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There are different schools of thought when it comes to which day is best to post on Craigslist. A real estate company called "Rent Juice" tracked an 800,000 ad sample and Sunday got the most views, followed by Saturday. Monday is the best of the remaining days of the week, with views dropping until Friday, which is lowest. AllYou.com prefers Friday and Saturday because they've learned that buyers check what's new on those days. RidiculouslyExtraordinary.com likes Thursday for the same reason, while authors of "Cracking the Craigslist Code" placed thousands of real estate ads over 18 months and came to a different conclusion: run your ad on Sunday or Monday. They also say Fridays are a close third, but if you run ads on Saturday, keep in mind that traffic drops 40 percent. Forget about Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday: they trade places at the bottom.
Hour of the Day
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"Cracking the Craigslist Code" discovered that two times work best during the week and one on the weekend for real estate ads. The authors recommend posting during the employee break time slot of 10 am to noon, or at 5 pm Monday through Friday, when the work day ends for most people. During the weekend, mornings work best. RidiculouslyExtraordinary.com disagrees, recommending Thursday from 6 to 7 pm as the sweet spot. If you want a third opinion, you can follow AllYou.com's advice: Friday afternoons and Saturday mornings. All things considered, you'll want to test these suggestions and see what works for you.
Trial and Error
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If you have the patience, and plenty of different products to sell, an effective way to find the best times to run your ads is to evenly post different ones throughout the day. You can run them three hours apart and see which ones get the most response. If you're advertising a business, it can prove worthwhile to do this over an entire week. The data you collect will reveal when buyer activity is the highest and you're likely to get the most views.
