There are all sorts of ways to advertise your business or products but what is the best way to achieve your advertising goals? We look at the three most popular kinds of advertising – which will you chose?

Direct response adverts

 – is a type of marketing designed to gain an instant response by encouraging potential or existing customers to take a specific action. Direct response adverts must trigger immediate action from prospects, since the goal is to generate leads quickly. These adverts tend to pay for themselves (at least they do when they work). Socially acceptable paid-for interruption leads to response, and the response (a sale, generally) generates revenue and you can run the ad again. Google's business is driven by direct response advertising.

Trust adverts

 – a marketing technique based on building consumer relationships through trustworthy dialogue and unbiased information. This is said to give customers increased consumer power through Internet access to product information and competitive pricing. These types of adverts are generally unmeasurable. The common phase, "I've heard of these guys, somewhere." Without consciously realising it, we often choose to do business with the familiar, and adverts increase familiarity. Particularly the right advert that runs in the right place. This is old school advertising, the first kind that appeared on TV. This is advertising that tells a story, advertising about belief, not necessarily action.

Demand adverts

 – any advertising that promotes a product rather than a brand. It differs from brand advertising, which focuses solely on the brand. They remind us that on a hot day, we'd like a cold drink. They are adverts designed to tickle and provoke your target audience, to increase the number of people in the market for what it is you sell.

Every so often, an advert does all three things, but that's often that is a foolish thing to hope for. All businesses should try and budget appropriately, because the very worst thing you can do with an advert is spend too little–it will get you the same results as spending nothing.

If you are unsure which type of advertising to go for to get the best response for your business, Toddle About can help you out. We have over ten years of advertising experience and knowledge, not just for ourselves but many of our clients too. Drop us an email advertsing@toddleabout.co.uk or call us on 01327 830171.