10 Tips for Effective Online Advertising in Tough Economy

Understand your audience. Choose an ad approach that suits your goals.

Pay for leads, not impressions or clicks. The best way to do this is through a performance-based program where you pay a set amount per lead generated regardless of how many times the ad is shown or clicked on.

Maximize your investment. Not only does a lead-based performance approach generate leads, it provides free brand visibility through banner placements and free site visibility through clicks, while generating leads that you can contact repeatedly.

Avoid set-up fees. There is no reason for those in an online campaign.

Look for exclusivity. Most advertising agencies will tell you that they do not handle competing accounts. Check if the agency has a smaller division or a separate department that's serving your competitor.

Make sure that the agency representative you deal with is also responsible for the distribution of your campaign, thus giving a direct handle on both sides of the transaction.

Target niche sites and bloggers, as they can be valuable sources of traffic.

Avoid extra costs of hiring a dedicated affiliate/program manager.

Monitor your success. Make sure the agency you choose provides advertiser and publisher reporting interfaces so that you can log in and see real-time ad tracking data like the number of leads generated, ads run and sites reached.

Make improvements as you go. Avoid wasting ad time and money on the wrong sites.