TALKING BUSINESS

Tools for tracking your advertising dollars Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don't know which half."

That quote is attributed to John Wanamaker, a famous 19th-century retailer who opened the first department store in Philadelphia and went on to be appointed U.S. Postmaster General by President Benjamin Harrison.

Times have changed. Advertising opportunities in Wanamaker's times were largely limited to print media. You spent your money in newspapers, fliers and posters . . . and watched for the increase in customers.

Today offers opportunities undreamed of in his time. In addition to print, which now includes newspapers, magazines -- including choices of local, regional or national editions--direct mail, and industry-specific publications, we also have radio, television and Internet. And choices continue to expand.

Have you bought a video game this year? It's likely you may see advertisements of real products in the background of the game. Online games may feature rotating advertisements that change with the calendar.

With all these competing formats available it's more important than ever for small-business owners to track just where those hard-earned advertising dollars are working, and where they are not.

Thanks to many of the tools available, it's easier than ever to do just that.

Internet advertising has exploded in the past decade, and so have the tools to monitor the traffic to a potential Web site to advertise on, and to track where the visits to your own Web site are coming from.

When considering online advertising with a particular vendor, take a trip to sites such as Quantcast.com and enter the Web site URL. You'll quickly get not only an estimated monthly traffic count of the Web site, but also demographics. Other sites include StatBrain.com, Alexa.com and Google.

Once you've launched your advertisements, a whole new set of tools easily enables a business owner to track where traffic is coming from. Better yet, most are free. These sites break down not only where your traffic is originating, but include search words used, time of day, unique or repeat visits, time spent on the Web site, and which pages on the site are most visited. For a sample overview of what these can do, visit two of my favorites: http://www.google.com/analytics/features.html or http://awstats.sourceforge.net/.

Most small-business owners do not limit money spent to one particular advertising medium. Tracking print-media success can be a bit more challenging, but innovative entrepreneurs have provided a few tips I have found work well.

If your business has a phone system that allows additional extensions, assign an extension for a particular marketing effort response during the campaign. As an example, a magazine ad might direct the response to dial phone extension 108, while a concurrently running radio advertisement would direct the inquiry to extension 109.

If phone extensions are not an option, referencing a specific employee name in lieu of the extension works just as well, such as "Ask for Mary." In either case, the business owner now knows where those responses originated.

With today's resources available, you'll have little trouble knowing which half of your marketing dollars work. Wanamaker would be envious.

Stu Neal is chief executive officer and principal of the SMN Consulting Group in Mechanicsville. He can be contacted at . Visit his Web site at http://www.StuNeal.com.