The Claude Hopkins Swipe File

Claude C. Hopkins was the highest-paid copywriter of his time, being paid $185,000.00 a year in 1908 — the equivalent of $5,463,452.17 in 2021 dollars according to the CPI inflation calculator.

Hopkins tested his ads in small markets to prove their profitability before releasing them nationally. And this collection is a representative sample of his works.

Want to know why he was paid so much? You can learn how to get results from your own copywriting by studying his ads.

Although they were written in a different time, principles never change, as Dan Kennedy has said. Strategies and tactics change but not principles. And that’s what you’ll learn from these ads: the principles that have withstood the test of time.

Here you will get 25 of his iconic ads to read through and learn from. All the copy is readable, unlike some other collections you might stumble upon. That’s so you can learn not just from the headlines but from the subheads, body copy, opening paragraphs, offer/call to action, and other facets in the ads.