The consesus amongst most business owners is that advertising is a necessary evil.  They know it is often an unjustified expense, but are reluctant to stop, probably because their competition is doing it. 

Many say that they know half their advertising budget is wasted, but they don't know which half :-)

Some business owners swing to the other extreme, and stop all advertising, regardless of whether it works or not.

Dare I say it needn't been so.

In the current economic climate it important to monitor our advertsing.  In an ideal world, we would stop whatever does not work, and do more of what is proven to work.

The main thrust of this mail is to show how I determine the true cost of advertising, but before I do that let me share a cheap and simple way for monitoring your advertising.