Measuring the Effectiveness of Your Advertising: Part 1 of 5 There are a number of ways to measure how well your advertising is working for you.

None of these methods is foolproof. And none of them will workfor all types of businesses. But try a few on your advertisingefforts, and you'll get a sense of how well they're doingand whether the expenditure is giving you a satisfactory return oninvestment.

1. Mechanical measurements: When you have your customersbring in a coupon or a copy of an ad to qualify for a specialdiscount, you have absolutely clear evidence of how well your adhas done. You can even code your coupons to the precise appearance(publication and date). This will also work with phone calls, whenyou code your ad with a particular "operator number" orhave callers ask for "Mr. Henderson."

Excerpted from Knock-Out Marketing: Powerful Strategies to PunchUp Your Sales