Here are some of the best current practices:

Clear title:

Example: “Pets and animals related community site offers great cross marketing deals“
This title basically summarizes the whole classified ad in up to ten words.
Reading this title, you already know what the ad will be about.
Two major compontents: “stating what your business does” - “stating what cross marketing you’re after”

Specific cross-marketing offer:

Example:
“I’m looking to cross-promote my business with other companies interested in targetting green/environmentally focused customers.
We sell wood pellets to over 10,000 customers a year and have internet traffic of over 100,000.
I’d prefer to partner with a company that can also sell its products to the same customers. We deliver to their houses and can use this if possible.”

You can see that the author of this classified ad knows what he wants in a cross-promotion deal: he knows and summarizes his target group in his own words and states what kind of partner he wants and uses an example of a cross-marketing channel possibility. If I were targetting green businesses, I’d contact this company! Just stating you’re open for deals doesn’t always cut it: your potential partner must ideally be able to just close his eyes and visualise the co-operation. Concrete examples of what is possible are a great way to achieve this.

The right categories, with moderation:

You can choose a lot categories for your niche market. However, only four are obligatory: ”Region”, “Language”, ”Market Type” and “Interest or Industry Type”. Other categories like ”Religion”, “Age”, “Gender” and so on are facultative. I’d recommend only filling them in if they are an absolute core characteristic of your target audience. So if you’re selling orange robes to buddhist monks, use the “Religion” characteristic by all means. If you’re selling computers, best refrain. Filling in all characterstics just for the sake of it might give potential partners the idea you either don’t know your market or you’ve got a very weird one.

To finish, never forget that IntroNiche is a cross-marketing platform.

Never ever write your ad like your adressing your end-consumers.
Or propose a pyramid scheme.

Other people will rightly assume you’re spamming the platform.

I could also assume you’re spamming the platform and remove your classified ad.

And that would be a pity.