One common question that many business owners share deals with how to evaluate their internet advertising effectiveness. Up until fairly recently, it wasn't too easy to track how well your online ads were doing, not to mention anything about trying to figure out offline advertising results. However, the online techniques have really changed. It's getting easier and easier to track the progress of your ads and most sites will at least give you the chance to see how many impressions your ad has received and how many people have actually clicked on it.

If you are using Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, the search engines will provide you with relatively sophisticated tracking systems, making it very easy to see which ads are being clicked on and which ones aren't. More importantly, it shows you which ads are actually converting. Traffic without conversions won't do you much good.

If you are advertising elsewhere, you can implement your own tracking methods by assigning different values to each of the sites in which your ads are appearing. This way, when and if a customer clicks on your ad, they won't only be directed to your site but you can then see how they got to your site in the first place. This data can be seen in your web site's log files, if you are creating redirects, through reports generated by a link program or within your autoresponders, depending on your methods.

One extremely simple way to measure internet advertising effectiveness is to add an unsophisticated referral box right in your site's shopping cart. Here you can just ask anyone who is making a purchase to answer how they found your site before they complete their order. Many webmasters create a drop-down list which customers can choose from to make the process go by quickly. However, not everyone will enter in the correct information so the data will not be completely reliable.

How do you analyze the information that you're getting from your tracking methods? If you see that the ratio of impressions to clicks is very low, you'll at least need to consider making some changes to your ad campaigns. Keep in mind that your ad needs to connect with your target audience and compel them to want to find out more. If you are getting a good amount of clicks, but they aren't converting, it could mean that your ad didn't reflect what you are promoting very well.

If you have just started advertising online, make sure to start small and test the waters first. You don't want to spend a great deal of time and money on an extensive campaign that isn't brining in results. Take small steps and learn with each one. Another good idea is to do split testing. For each products or service, create two ads and track which one does better. . .another part of the learning curve.

Measuring your internet advertising effectiveness should be a constant activity.