As a 22-year-old San Diego ad agency, we've seen, and survived, many ebbs & flows in the economy. We were almost taken out after 9/11. We had all the worst working...being an ad agency when advertising was being deleted; living in San Diego where the COL already made running a business here a challenge and having a significent number of resort hotel clients when travel was simply stopped completely. Triple ouch!

But we've never experienced anything like this current financial landscape. Ugh! Yet, through it all we've survived in San Diego still operating as a successful ad agency.

Part of the reason is our attitude. For example, in these times we've never seen so many opportunities for marketing & advertising to make a difference. Particularly online. And, this difference can be measured—with Google Analytics and other sophisticated metrics. That's why we've coined the phrase "investment advertising".

Let's look at 5 investment advertising opportunities that will make a difference in these "challenging" economic tmes...and I'll include the means to measure each opportunity in ROI dollars.

Opportunity #1: PPC (Pay-Per-Click) OK! Nothing new here. Although it may be new to your Brand. Either way, the aspect that may be overlooked is Facebook PPC & G-mail PPC. Both are very effective—and can be tracked, along with Google PPC, using Analytics (if Quantum were doing a PPC campaign, our keyword would be "San Diego ad agency").

Check your analytics 2 to 3 times a day. Another tip. We find it very useful to create goals using analytics. How many PPC visitors visited 5 or more pages, etc

Opportunity #2: Run a banner ad program on websites that match your Brand's target. Important note: check the Alexa ranking of any site you're considering for a banner program. Banners are waaaay more effective than ever. And because you'll be checking analytics so often, you'll see how effective, i.e how many click-throughs, how many sales or requests for info these clicks lead to, etc.

If the banner is not generating what you have forecast, change the ad. Then the offer. Continue to tweak the banner until it performs (btw...implicit here is to forecast the results you need from the banner in order to make the expenditure a successful investment, ie paying for itself plus).

This is not like the old days when you just ran an ad in a magazine then had to watch the entire month, unable to react to the results, or lack thereof.

One More Note: Create a specific landing page for that banner that speaks to the banner promise immediately.

Opportunity #3: Write keyword-rich blog posts regularly, at least one per day (This post is an example, where we're using the keyword term San Diego Ad Agency).
Use the keyword phrase 5-6 times in each post.

Big tip here: Absolutely check to ensure that your blog is registered with Google. It's amazing how often this gets left out.

Go to Google everyday and punch in the keyword phrase you're blogging about. Click blogs on the left hand bar to see when your blogpost lands on Google. Then review Analytics for clicks on the post. Set up specific goals in Analytics and analyze, analyze, analyze. Then make changes based upon results.

Opportunity #4: Take everything from #3 and apply it to a news release. Make it keyword-rich, do them every day.

The big tip in this case is to publish the news release on your website in a media section...and distribute the release to free online news release groups. See #3 above for Analytics tips as well. They all apply.

Opportunity #5:  Use social media. Wow! This is overused advice. Maybe the difference I can make here is to remind you of, or introduce you too, bookmarking sites, including Stumbleupon, Digg, reddit, del.icio.us and some industry-specific editions. Three tips on this one. When you use the social sites mentioned, do more than just post your news. Respond to other posts. Become a part of those communities. Second, create a blog on your site's homepage where you can direct the posts from the social bookmarking sites. And finally, broken record time: Review results on Analytics. Set up unique goals for each social site.

Go get 'em. If you need some help, check us out: www.EnemyofGoodEnough.com