You can impress your carefully targeted audience with a colorful display ad that spreads across the page of your favorite magazine, trade bulletin, or newspaper. Before you put your money down for a display ad, test your idea and copy with classified ads. The general rule is if your classified ad gets results, a display ad will get even more results. But classified ad copy that falls flat won't do any better as an expensive display ad. Once you develop a display ad that works, don't abandon your classifieds.
Many companies run both display ads and classifieds in the same publications, side by side.