Online advertising is an extremely effective way to obtain leads and sales. But there are many things that you need to know in order to get the most out of your promotion. Here are some online advertising tips that will help you along the way.

1. You should already know your target market(s) if you're ready to start advertising, but if you don't, then it's time to figure it out. If you don't know who you are advertising to, it will be very hard to create your strategy.

2. Choose the best format and medium for your target market. The advertising format refers to the type of ad you will be using. Will you use banner ads, text ads, contextual advertising, ezine advertising? Do your research on the different types of advertising formats and learn how to do them successfully. After deciding on the format that your ads will take, you need to choose the medium for your ads. This can take a lot of experimenting before finding the best mediums.

3. Track your progress. This is one of the most important online advertising tips that are pushed aside by new online marketers. Some advertising is going to work for you and some isn't. Be sure that you know where your results are coming from, and where they're not coming from. You'll want to start putting more time, effort and money into whatever is working and take it all out of what's not getting results. Remember to give each medium a chance, though.

4. Tweak your copy and creatives. You'll need to continuously experiment on what copy or banner creatives and formats work well for your purposes. Don't be afraid to change things around if you don't feel that you are getting the results that you expected.

5. Offer more than one product/service. When a potential customer clicks on your ad or banner, maybe he/she decides that he doesn't want your product. But if you offer him/her other similar (and maybe less expensive) products, you can still make money. These products don't even have to be yours. They could be affiliate products that give you a commission when you make a sale. The customer should have an opportunity to check out (and hopefully) purchase your other products and services.

6. Broaden your horizons. Although it's ok to start out with just one approach, always keep in mind that there are various ways to market your business. Some ways are actually cheaper and more effective. . . although they may take more time. Depending on your advertising budget, you can diversify your advertising by employing other marketing techniques, such as publicity and public relations, and offline advertising. Online advertising works well if you compliment it with other techniques, such as aggressive link swapping and search engine optimization.

Keep these online advertising tips in mind when promoting your business on the web.