Bang for our Buck?
Recently, one of our clients asked whether the cost of banner advertising is feasible and whether we are receiving “bang for our buck”. This question arises mostly when the standard online display advertising reporting figures are analysed, such as impressions, clicks, click through rate and even cost per click. Online marketing is basically the most measurable marketing tool out there; however this measurability is also one of the factors counting against the use of online media.
If you consider the fact the South Africa’s industry standard click through rate is anything between 0.2% and 0.3% for online media. This technically means that for that every 333 to 500 impressions delivered only one person is clicking on the banner. If a client wanted more than a branding exercise from the campaign, these statistics look dismal.
But there are a great deal of other factors to consider when looking at the success of your online campaign, and by scrutinizing these almost superficial reporting statistics, it makes display advertising looks like a space only to be populated by the insurance and online casinos companies of this world who can “afford” it.
But is it really worth it?
Consider print media for instance. Marketers know a magazine’s circulation figures, as well as readership (mostly based on AMPS research). But marketers are not guaranteed the amount of times someone is exposed to their ad (versus impressions). Furthermore, marketers won’t always know when someone actually spent the time to read the ad and to react towards it (versus clicks). In addition even the actions after viewing a banner ad can be tracked, by installing spot tags on your website landing pages. User might, as an example, view your banner twice and will Google your brand the day after and land in this way on your website.
The bottom line is that online media is worth it and there are several reasons to be in this space. Evaluating on pure basic performance such as impression and clicks alone is not necessary the method to ascertain its real worth, and advertisers need to consider a multitude of factors like online behaviors, post impressions actions and so forth to fully determine and appreciate the role online media plays in a campaign.
