List building is, at its deepest level, the art of building relationships. For more detail go to: www.email-auto-format.com. Sure, you might think of it as just a literal list of names and email addresses.

But in reality when you are list building you are developing a list of people who are likeminded and who want a lot of the same things you do, they just might be a step ahead or behind you. I have learned a lot from some of my subscribers!

But think about this. Think about your personal telephone book or the list of names and phone numbers in your cell phone. Is that just a list or is it the physical manifestation of the way you connect with your relationships? Certainly that list has more meaning than just the 1s and 0s that comprise the storage of it.

When I first started list building, I tracked every single ad source I used, and not only tracked how many people came into my lists from each source, but I also tracked which lead sources purchased products from me (and I am in this to make money). I tried a lot of things. For more detail go to: www.build-own-list.com. When I first got started I made the classic beginner mistake and bought traffic - all sorts of traffic. I did Ad words and Overture. I did ezine ads. I did solo ads. And I wrote articles.

What I found was that, for the time, effort, or money that I put into a certain source, the return on my time and money was higher with articles than any other source. So in some way, that is my reason – I tested, and am running with the results. One thing about testing, if you are not testing, and then I think you are wasting some money. Even if you are making money, you could probably save money if you knew what wasn't working. So start testing, then you will know where to spend more money and where to cut back.

Why do I think the article marketing works? I think that it works for list building because if someone reads my article and clicks through, they have already bonded with me, unlike someone who lands on my site from Google Adsense.