Metrics for Measuring Ad Campaign Effectiveness

• Compare pre- and post-advertising traffic on your Web site. Your Web host logs the hits on your site and should be able to provide you with daily, weekly or monthly reports. If you maintain your own Web server, invest in software that generates easy-to-read traffic reports.

• If you advertise online, track the clickthrough rate — the percentage of viewers who click on your banner ad. Most sites that sell ad space track clickthrough rates and can provide you with performance reports. Alternately, you could create a Web page that is only linked to from your banner ads and then monitor the traffic on that page.

• Don't overlook the tried-and-true approach: Ask all new customers how they heard about your business.

Keep in mind that you can't gauge success if you don't know what you're trying to achieve. Have you precisely identified your target audience? Read Determining the Target Audience for Your Small Business for ways to segment the audience for your marketing messages.