| Basic of difference | Advertising | Sales Promotion |
| Approach | As there is no direct contact between the sender and receiver of the advertisement message, it is a non-personal type of communication. Different suitable media vehicles are used to convey the advertisement messages to the prospective customers. | The approach of sales promotion may be personal as well as impersonal. As sales promotions are designed to enhance the sales, it can be done via direct as well as indirect approaches. |
| Objective | Advertising is focused towards informing, persuading and reminding target customers about the offerings of an organisation. This type of communication indirectly influences the sales. | Promoting an increase in sales, through adding values in the products and services, is the basic objective of sales promotion. |
| Short term Long term | Advertising is beneficial in both short-run and long-run. Through advertising, brand awareness as well as brand preference is developed within the customers, which provide both the short-term and long-term benefits to the organisation. | Sales promotion schemes or plans are generated for a specific time-period, so as to enhance the sales in that particular time. Therefore, these schemes may be beneficial for short-run only. |
| Extra Value | It is not the objective of advertising to add value to the product, however, in certain cases, it may generate extra value. | Sales promotion is not possible without offering extra value or any incentive to customers, retailers or channel intermediaries. |
| Frequency | The frequency of conveying advertising message is very high. It is repetitive in nature, as a single message it can be conveyed to the mass in a very short span of time. | Sales promotion program is designed occasionally by organisations to deal with poor sales. It is not frequently and regularly implemented. |
| Cost | As advertising message is developed for mass, the cost per audience is less. | Sales promotion is a costly method because incentives given (such as free samples, extra discounts, free gifts, oil-season discounts, etc.,) to offer value to customers, cost a lot to the organisation. |
| Feedback | As non-personal type of communications used in advertising, ¡t is not possible to get immediate feedback. The audience cannot immediately contact the advertiser for their queries/confusions. | In case, the approach of sales promotion is personal, effective feedback can be generated. |