Over the decades I have discovered exactly what derails an advertisement . More commonly than not, when an ad fails to produce results, the problem isnt with the ad. The problem is with WHO the advertisement reaches.

Before you beginning blaming lack of response on your advertisement , stop a moment to consider who it is TARGETED to.

Lets take a moment to look at Internet advertising. First off, let me say I dearly love advertising on the Net. The promoting rates for search engines and ezines are far, far lower than marketing your business on traditional media like TV or newspapers. For what one TV commercial would cost, I might sell a business extensively for weeks, even months.

But, as Im sure youve realized by now, the Internet is no magic selling medium. Just as almost always as with anywhere else, your advertisement might pull less than expected response. The problem is with lack of targeting.

If most or all of your customers live in the geographical area of your store, using a search engine to reach people all over the world doesnt build much sense. You can consider your money wasted when somebody who will NEVER stroll into your store reads your ad.

The solution is to advertise on sites or ezines that reach YOUR customers at a very high rate. This could be a local site that provides sports scores for dozens of local sports teams. Or a page that lists a efficient many local building contractors. Very targeted data needed by people in YOUR area will draw just the kind of local crowd you might capitalize on.

Were seeing a sudden rise of local pay-per-click search engines. These utilize the same popular technology as Google and Overture, but limit their reach to businesses in a particular city, state, or region.

Often these local pay-per-click sites have very low rates, a little as one cent per click. Many offer as many as 1,000 costless clicks to any business that signs up.

Be sure to check if the pay-per-click page has plenty of businesses listed in their database. An empty site wont attract many visitors and you might not reach enough audience to have any effect on your sales. Also watch for a pay-per-click that is promoting in your area. If they are visible to you, they are probably taking the attention of lots of your customers.