I'm Glen Jon the author of the following and thought I'd post this article, all though it has been published many times before on other sites.
There is no easy way out. If you don't want to spend any money online advertising, your alternative is to spend time with free ads. Either you spend money or spend time. I find it better when I don't have to spend money. Some folk think that spending money is better, however what happens to most folk who spend money is pathetic. They usually never make a profit. I regret to say this, but it is the stark internet truth of today. Of course there are the skilled few that out smart "the world of pay per click and news paper ads." The bare fact remains that the vast majority of people spending money on advertising usually go in a hole online.
The cost of everything now days is disproportionate to the actual average income. Why spend money on advertising only to break even or lose your shirt. Believe me it hurts when you lose your shirt. An actual 3% return is only reflected in 3% of who you reach. Setting up PPC (paid per click) ads only guarantees that someone will click and you have to pay. The people that click may or may not sign up for your list. The infamous 3% is merely a representation of people that actually got to read your sales material.
First you must get someone to click your PPC ad, then you must get someone to submit their email address, afterwards you must get the prospect to confirm. Then they may see your email that could get lost in a spam filter. Hence you have a scenario like sperm fertilizing an ovary. Only a very small percentage reach and make contact. Maybe not as difficult, but the picture is more like .001 percent of every click becomes a sale. Yeah that's right. don't let these so-called gurus fool you. No matter how intriguing you think your sales material is, today you can still lose your shirt on paid ads. This is why I promote free advertising.
Free advertising cost you nothing but time. You automatically make a profit upon any sale because of the fact that you spend no money.
The main thing you must control in free advertising is tracking. If you don't track, you have no way of knowing where to accentuate your effort. You don't want to waste time advertising something somewhere that bares no fruit. Tracking allows you to see exactly what is working and when it works. This way, you can "make the most of your time."
