It's no mystery that one day -- no matter how brilliant and potent they are, and no matter how much money they pull in now -- your control ad will fail.

It's just a matter of time.

Sooner or later another copywriter will beat it or, if you write ads for your own business, your response will start to sag and even die off altogether.

And while there isn't much you can do about this cycle, there are some things you can do to maybe take the "sting" out of it and keep it alive longer.

One such thing is to rewrite it from scratch. This obviously takes time and energy, and can really be a pain.

And so, before you rewrite your ad, I would urge you to do a much easier and faster thing instead: add content and value.

Here is what I mean:

Depending on what you sell and who you sell to, chances are your ad is dying off because there is competition out there pretty much making the same promises as you are.

When that happens, the power of your ad is diluted and it becomes just another "me too" ad people will ignore unless you somehow make it different.

And that's why, as soon as you see your control losing its steam, the first thing you should do is simply add more value to your offer and maybe expand on the claim or benefit (so it's bigger and better than your competitor's).

Just do a little research on what everyone else is doing, and make sure yours stick out like a sore thumb in the market place.

That alone will many times resurrect your ad and keep it going longer.

The key is to constantly be upgrading and testing your offers over time like this.

Never stop.

Never get lazy.

If you see sales dropping, investigate what's going on in the market and just be vigilant on how your offer is being perceived and what’s the value proposition to the viewer.

You do that, and you'll be able to stay one step ahead of your competition, and keep your control in place with minimal time and effort.