These tools will usually change the link of your ad (E.g.: linktrackingsite.com/abc1.html), so you will need to pass the correct URL onto the advertising site for the tracking to work.

Did It Work? – Once your ad has finished running, you need to look at the results and see if it was effective. This may depend on what your aims were; so if you were simply looking to increase awareness of your company you would happier with fewer new sales than if you were pushing a new product.

Even if the ad did provide a good return, you should take the time (especially after your first ad) to look through the results and see if there are any areas you can improve. If you can improve the ad, the targeting of sites you advertised on, the positioning on the site, or even the page the ad takes you to, then you could make your ad more cost effective next time around.

If you believe the site itself was at fault for the lack of success for the ad (and this is actually very rare), then let them know the reasons you were unhappy (E.g.: Ad not shown as frequently as promised, ad not displaying / linking correctly). This may get you a price reduction for a second ad if you are happy to try them again.

Remember that people usually need to see ads several times before they respond to them; so you may find that running an ad for a short period of time (I.e. 1-2 weeks) will produce a lower proportion of results to one run over a longer period of time (I.e.: 1-2 months and upwards). You should also be wary of using the same ad for too long, after a few months people may stop paying attention to it as they will have seen it 20-30 times before. Try altering your ad slightly every few months to keep it interesting.

Finally, don’t forget that advertising is not an exact science. Even multi-billion pound companies (with multi-million pound budgets!) get it wrong; so take your time to make sure you are doing everything possible to increase the chances of success.

Read our article Advertising Your Business Offline here.

Read our article How Can Your Business Benefit from Search Engine Advertising here.

Read our article Straplines – What are They and How Can You Use Them?