No. This is not another article about attention grabbing, interest generating ads.

Just the other day I was on the verge of sending out my weekly Newsletter, when some intuition kicked in and made me click again on a featured profile. Whoops! the website was offline and I was left with absolutely no way of contacting that client, because the email address was centered to the domain name. Well I stopped that feature just in time to wait for the client to get back to me.

But have we not all come across non working ads even in major ezines with hefty ad rates? I come across such fatal mistakes in the world of online advertising almost every other day. So I figured that this is a very critical issue. Even some of the seasoned marketers are making these mistakes.

So here are a few do’s and don’ts:

1. Remember to make your links clickable by adding `http://` and `mailto:` tags, also please do test them out prior to using them.

2. Some mail programs tend to break down long affiliate URL’s and I have seen ads even in big league ezines with non clickable links. So if you have a long link you may consider using some kind of redirection service.

3. Be prepared. If you are giving an auto-responder address, make sure your auto-response is set, ready and working. If you are giving out a press release – be prepared to deal with any queries and the media; Be sure your sales page is ready and you are set to deliver on orders as soon as they arrive.

4. Be your own `first customer` and test out your response. Make sure it is perfect in every sense.

5. If you are advertising through articles, make sure your resource box includes a clickable link or mailto address. Also if you are posting this to various article directories that require an introductory paragraph... make sure you write up a sizzler, don’t just let it fill up with the first words of your article...this is a blooper even seasoned authors are making.

6. Just before the run date, check your website and check everything is in order.

7. Before any major advertising make sure your webhost is capable of handling the large volume of visitors. I have seen too many websites with the message ‘website offline because it has exhausted bandwidth limits’.

8. Test your ads in low cost ventures before going for the big league.

9. Advertise to targeted audiences.

10. Make your ads powerful, hypnotic, at the same time believable, realistic with down to earth honesty shining through.

11. Always use the people angle in writing up your ads, "What`s in it for your audience approach". This applies equally well to your profile ads, articles, site summaries, press release or any write up that is going to serve as your ad.

12. Be prepared to beat your own drums...Tell them how good your product is ,how well liked, how many times published or appreciated etc., don’t be modest here. But keep it believable, provable... don’t step into hype.

13. To save time, write and save your ad templates and save them in an ‘ads file’. So when needed you just need to copy and paste. Here besides the usual 5 line 60 character ad, you may also prepare your 40 word ad, 100 word profile, a solo ad, an article resource box or others as required.

I hope these precautions help make your online advertising a purely profitable experience.