In an Instant

When you want to determine which of your banner ads aredelivering the most cost-efficient results and which are simplydraining your bank account, take a valuable lesson from themarketers who track customer responses in real time.

Using a process known as real-time optimization, you can uncoverinformation, like how many customers have clicked on a banner ad,the ad's conversion rate (the total number of transactions fromthat ad divided by the total number of visits during any givenperiod) and even customer response to individual aspects of anoffer, such as the price or the message itself. That informationhelps entrepreneurs "optimize the ads that are running, pushWeb sites that aren't performing to do better and, ifnecessary, cancel contracts with them," says Brad Aronson,president of i-Frontier, an interactive advertising agency inPhiladelphia. "One advantage of Net advertising is that youcan measure results daily and use that information to increaseefficiency."