Make It a Banner Year By keeping your objectives focused and your expectations realistic, you can derive significant benefits from an online ad campaign.

Online ads are kind of like Tae Bo videos: Some folks swear by them; others are convinced they're overhyped wastes of time and money (not to mention sweat).

The naysayers have a point-online ads won't click for every company. Is this because the Web is an unreliable venue for communicating an ad message? Hardly. The real reason some companies don't score with online ads?

• Their ads are poorly conceived and weakly written.
• Their ads are placed on sites that don't attract the target audience they're trying to reach.
• They didn't have a clear goal in mind when planning their campaign.