Determining Ad Size Introduction Is smaller better? Bad approaches ----How much you got? ----Double divided by 2 ----Pick a size, any size ----Which looks better? The traditional approach ----Divide by 52 ----Why it rarely works Our approach ----What size do you need? ----What size can you run? Take our ad effectiveness course. Learn what you need to know to get a great response the first time you run. Just $59 • Get more readers seeing your ad • Get more readers reading your ad • Get more readers responding

Sure, you might be in a thin market and need to run a large ad, but that doesn't mean you can.

Once you've decided what size you might need to run, it's pretty easy to figure out if you can run it.

Basically, it's just a matter of looking at your average sale and asking yourself how many sales the ad would need to generate in order to make it profitable that week.

Many businesses are fortunate enough to have a relatively high average sale, so even a relatively low response rate would be enough to generate a profit.

If, however, your average sale is low, say, less than $100, and you're in a thin market, then you've got to be careful not to run too big, since it might be too difficult to make a return on your advertising investment.

Fortunately, most people don't open businesses selling products or services people rarely buy that also has a very low average sale.

If you are that type of business, don't despair. The techniques discussed on this website can be used whatever size you end up running. We'd just be doing you a disservice if we didn't point out that sometimes you need to run a larger size to succeed.

By the way, if you aren't in a thin market, and sell things that people buy very frequently, then you probably have substantial competition from national franchises and chain stores. You probably already know that you need to run big just to keep up with them.

One last word of warning, however. Make sure that your ad is effective before you spring for a larger ad size. Even the largest ad will get zero response if the strategy and design behind it isn't solid.

How frequently should you run your ad? This is covered in more detail in our online course, but suffice it to say that once you find an ad that's profitable, repeat it at least each time the market turns over, typically a week or less for most businesses. There are many cases where you might want to run your ad multiple times during that time period when people are in the market.

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