When you buy ads from Overture, Adwords, Adbrite, etc. do you sometimes feel that you are paying too much and not getting back in return? I would like to get the word out more about my sites but sometimes I feel that most of the money goes to advertising which is not turning into profit. However if you do some minor spamming by posting on a forum, or emailing someone you think is interested in your service, a ton of people signup and purchase what you have to offer. Then you could spend $500 on Google Adwords and only get about five signups for thousands of "clicks" instead of making one free post on a forum and getting 20 signups.

It just seems like advertisements cost too much for their effectiveness. I guess it doesn't matter if you are a million dollar corporation but just your average joe trying to get the word out is tough.

Moved to web design and content :)

I wished I'd had your experiences. I find that the ONLY effective advertisement is pay-for, buts thats just me.

I've found the opposite to be true. I find paying for advertising locally has driven a significant amount of business our way. We're considering a radio advertisement campaign with a business/talk radio station soon. The campaign will run us somewhere between $500-1000/mo., but heck, the profits from one contract as a result of advertising will easily pay for a half year of those ads. I think we can expect to see more than one response every six months if we target things properly.

I've never been terribly keen on Adwords, because it's simply not targeted and persistent enough to capture the local audience, and advertising to a general national/international audience is practically impossible to do effectively unless you have a monstrous budget.

Radio an TV have a good note BUT... you should consider in listing links on some targeted pages. It's very importing to stay in the front of your target not of other users. ;)

Yeah I was thinking about spending the big bucks for a TV or radio ad but I would regret it if it doesn't grab the attention of locals. It is all about taking a risk though to succeed :)

My favorite advertising moment ~
I paid for a banner spot on a site for a month where I got a few clicks but the only sale ended up being fraudulent and costing me a chargeback fee. That was a joyous experience!
Online advertising is tricky, usually expensive, and doesn't always pay off in my experience.. but sometimes it is very well worth it.

Yeah, we've had some clients we've run AdWords campaigns for who have been extremely successful...it really depends on the niche you're going after and understanding what that audience of searchers are looking for.