Although advertising is an extremely important part of any large marketing budget it does not have the same effect as it once did. With the emergence of social networks, Internet marketing, blogging and social media marketing, traditional advertising simply does not have the kind of clear metrics and return on investment that most companies require in the Twenty First Century. With the aforementioned options you can put a modern take on traditional advertising and tie real measurement metrics to the money you allocate for your marketing. While it is still beneficial to grow brand awareness through traditional advertising, it is hard for anyone other than the major corporations to absorb the financial hit without having hard numbers tied to sales goals. For small to mid-size businesses it is almost no longer and option to advertise on television, radio or in the newspaper anymore. If an advertising spend can’t be quantified then it is no longer an easy sell. It is much more efficient for those aforementioned businesses to spend their marketing and advertising budget with a popular website or with a company that can build and maintain an engaging blog or social network presence. In our directory on advertising we collect resources on how the advertising landscape has changed, how much money is spent on advertising and the different types of effective and ineffective advertising online and offline. You may also find published information on how it is much harder to quantify a traditional advertising budget as opposed to a PPC or SEO campaign online.