Just stick with the recognised ways to ad, so its under your control.
After 27 years I have found that papers are OK for a while.
YP worked for me well for the majority of the time, Thompsons is a nono in this area, although it works in some.
Van signs work moderately well (depends on design and whether you sub for other cleaners, they don't like someone else's publicity on their jobs.)
Local area mags like church mags are good value, I use several and for £25 - £35 a year I do well from them. The locals will support people who support their organisation.
I went into several estate agents and gave them leaflets. The sale agents were a dead loss but the letting agents give me about 30% of my turnover now, don't under price just because they are regulars. Dont bother with calendar display ads they only use you to pay for their main ad. Get to know the letting staff, drop in and ask if they want ant end of let cleans done.
The essential thing is to have a box on your booking form for the source of the job and ask every enquiry whether successful or not where they found your name. Then every month sit down and analyze them. You can then chop rubbish ads.
Sorry if I have rambled on a bit but whole books have been written on marketing.
You will sense the scams, basically dont pay up front for getting a job, Jonathan Aitken went to jail for the same thing!
Trevor