The form is irrelevant. An ad is successful if you make more than you spent, including all costs. It's useful to think about advertising the way an investor thinks about an investment. In particular... What is the minimum return on investment (ROI) you're prepared to accept? Is it likely some specific advertising you're considering will achieve your ROI? If yes, go for it. If no, move on to something else At first, you won't have enough data to assess this very accurately. You'll have to start with assumptions. Over time, you'll get hard data based on multiple campaigns for a variety of different types of advertising. The more you do it, the better you get (assuming you keep track of results, and do the required math). Take a look at this article, and in particular section #1 and #5. Section 5 links to a couple of articles that show you how to do the math (very simple calcs, nothing to worry about ).