You understand that advertising is the key to building a successful online business so you are light years ahead of many of your competitors. Most of your time should be spent (I’d say up to seventy percent) promoting and marketing your business. In the paragraphs that follow, we’ll be looking at which type of advertising is better for you.

Before we move forward and for the record, I don’t believe free advertising exists. There is always a cost associated with advertising. It will either be cold hard cash paid upfront or your time. Neither of these is free and the reality is you need to determine what price are you willing to pay.

For the sake of this article, let’s call them automated (paid) vs. manual (free) advertising. That said, there are many ways you can use both methods and neither is necessarily better than the other. The real key you must first determine is what works best for you and what are you comfortable with.

There are some pros and cons to each from each type of advertising but I think the concept that you must keep in mind is effectiveness. If something is free and it doesn’t work very well then that is of no benefit to you. Compare that to a paid ad that works and I’ll take the paid ad every time.

First, let’s look at free methods of advertising and how you can benefit there. This method gives you a level of “in the trenches” experience that will go a long way if you decide to use paid methods in the future. The hands on aspect of it gives you an understanding of the marketplace and how it responds to certain messages which is invaluable.

When it comes to automated (paid) advertising I recommend starting small and gradually building up to larger marketing campaigns. This allows you to test the waters and improve your conversion ratios as you go. This will also allow you to accomplish other things in your business while your advertising consistently runs in the background.

Whether paid or free the ideal solution for determining which methods to use is to track your results. Using an online tracking system will allow you to monitor your results which will save you time and money in the short and long run. Knowing which ads are working and which aren’t allows you to make quick decisions when it comes to how you’ll expend your resources.

At the end of the day you must determine which method (paid or free) is right for you. I recommend trying out a few types of both advertising methods and master them before moving on. Spreading yourself too thin will ultimately have an impact on your results as well. Find an advertising method you feel comfortable pursuing and become very proficient is the best way to move forward.