Better ways to advertise.

Kind of depends what you are looking to do. Personally, if I'm just starting out I'm doing Thumbtack because I can easily measure the success of the leads. If you want the cheapest/ impressions, then yard signs BUT you will need to do some research where to put them and you'll spend lots of time driving around. Instagram is free so you could definitely do that but that's a long play and you won't see immediate results. You can optimize your google business page for free so you definitely can do that. Posting on facebook, reddit and having an active blog is free. So is emailing you existing client list. So is calling past customers and seeing how everything is looking. Don't forget, networking groups like BNI and LeTip cost some money but the leads are more meaningful. 

The real answer is to be doing all these btw but there are plenty of free options in there.