Online advertising is increasingly becoming a key part of any marketing mix. Ensure that your ad dollars are generating results and achieving your marketing goals by following these best practices.

• Know What You Want to Accomplish
• Keep It Simple
• Include a Call to Action
• Target Effectively
• Engage Readers After the Click
• Track Your Campaign Results
• In Summary

Know What You Want to Accomplish

Online advertising can be used for many purposes including creating brand awareness, lead generation, driving attendance to an event, driving awareness of a promotion, collecting data, etc. Know what you want your campaign to accomplish.

Keep It Simple

Effective ads are simple ads. Include a simple headline; text and graphics all working towards the accomplishment of the goal of your campaign. For the most powerful ads, send the reader a clear message without clutter.

Include a Call to Action

Make it easy for readers to know what action you want them to take — buy now, click here, and learn more are examples of specific actions to which readers can respond now. Create urgency by offering an incentive such as a limited time offer, sweepstakes or free trial.

Target Effectively

Know what audience you want to reach with your marketing campaign. Use verbiage and graphics that are endemic to that audience.

Engage Readers After the Click

Once the reader clicks on your ad, make sure they land on a page with the relevant information they are expecting. Keep readers engaged and on your website by having a clean site with easy navigation.

Track Your Campaign Results

Have a plan in place to track your campaign. Hosting sites and enewsletter publishers should be able to provide you with the number of impressions and clicks that your campaign receives. Create a way to track results from the point that the reader has accessed your site. Unique landing pages, jump links, unique URLs & promotion codes are some of the ways that this can be accomplished.

In Summary

Your online ads should attract attention; have a singular focus and peak reader interest. Your campaign should be actionable, targeted & trackable. Last, but not least, your campaign should be a positive and engaging reflection of your business.

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