Advertising… cutting the waste and increasing accountability.

There’s a saying in “traditional” media advertising (TV, print, radio) that goes: “only 50% of all advertising works. If you can find out which 50%, you’ve got it made.”

The point is that if you can minimise waste in your advertising, you will increase your ROI.

To explain waste, imagine you’re promoting eyeliner and you get a TV deal which gives you loads and loads of television commercials for a really good price. As part of this deal, some of your ads run during the Bathurst 1000 which has a large audience. You could safely assume though, that only about 20-30% of those viewers were women. So when your ad runs, there is a LOT of wastage.

It’s an accepted part of traditional media advertising that there will always be a degree of waste. Whether it’s gender, economic, geographic, religious etc, there is always going to be someone hearing/seeing your ad that doesn’t want it, need it, can’t afford it, is not allowed to have it or won’t travel for your particular product.

In the online world… it’s a much more focussed result. If someone is searching for “eyeliner”, then you’re pretty safe to assume that she (or he) is interested in that product. And if you’re selling eyeliner, would you rather be talking to this person, or the person searching for “loud exhaust systems”?

That’s the difference with online marketing. It gets you talking directly to “eyeliner girl/boy”. Targeting and talking to the individual that is warm for your product, not just the general demographic that they belong (or don’t belong) to.

And... online is accountable. Real data, about real people who have clicked, browsed, scrolled, and drooled on your website (amount of drool is an estimate only). If you can measure it, you can manage it. And change it.

Of course traditional media still plays a massive part in oiling the wheels of commerce and will continue to do so. But if your marketing plan doesn’t include a comprehensive and ongoing online strategy… why not?