There are a number of forms advertising can take, and let's first discuss ones at opposite ends of spectrum.

Sales Advertising is designed to sell a specific item immediately. A good example of this can be found in your newspaper supplements, advertising coupons for specific food items in a local store. On TV, an ad for a particular CD is another example. They are trying to entice you to purchase a specific product within a specified time. Most of these ads are "price driven", and if you take advantage of their offer, you will realize a savings.

Institutional Advertising is not trying to sell you something specific. It is used primarily for "name awareness" and when faced with a purchase, they hope you will remember their name. When IBM airs an ad, you will seldom see a specific product for sale. When you buy your next computer, they are banking on you remembering their name, and will purchase their product.

Most of non-professional advertising you see on web is neither. They are usually trying to sell something specific, but give no reason to buy from them at this time. Affiliate programs are big offenders here. If I am going to get involved in something like "Six Figure Income" program, why should I do it with you. There are thousands of people trying to sell this program, and many are not making anything, but some are. The real question here is why.

I see hundreds of ads everyday on web, and while there are some good ones, most fall into "ho-hum" variety, and some are downright awful. Now this isn't bad, if they are testing to see what is going to work, and what isn't.

Many put up an ad with no idea as to whether it will produce or not. They let same ad run for a period of time, and wonder why they didn't get results. They then do one of two things. They either blame publication for not generating business for them, or give up entirely and go out of business. Others will run an ad once, and when world doesn't beat a path to their door, they react same way.

It is a proven fact that an ad must be seen five to seven times before someone can be expected to take action. If your ad is targeted to your market, and you are not getting responses, odds are you have a "crummy ad". It is not then time to quit or blame publication. It is time to change ad.

All successful marketers have one thing in common. They are constantly testing effectiveness of their ads. One of most successful that I know, almost always runs more than one ad in same or similar publication at same time. You could put ads side by side, and not realize they were from same person for same thing. She lets each ad run five times, always keeping careful track of drawing power of ads, and keeps strongest and changes weakest.