The relatively low costs make digital advertising on search engines, display networks and social media very attractive, but campaigns are better when supported by advertising that uses more traditional channels too.
In 2019, 45.7% of total UK advertising spend was on search and social media.
It’s easy to see why.
For a start, it’s self-service. Businesses that choose to go it alone can put together their own creative content and copy and be advertising online pretty quickly. It’s even easier on social media where platforms like Facebook encourage businesses to ‘boost’ their posts almost at the click of a button.
It can also be relatively low cost, with payment by results — whether that’s every time someone clicks your ad or simply when it’s shown to them.
And it can be highly targeted. Plus you also get real-time analytics, in many ways the Holy Grail of advertising: you can see how well (or not) your ads are performing and tweak accordingly. Not only that but you can track conversions — whether that’s subscriber sign-ups, brochure downloads or purchases — with an immediacy that’s hard to replicate on other channels and makes it easier to directly measure ROI (Return On Investment).
Compared to, say, static billboard advertising — where you pay a chunk of money upfront, with no guarantee that people who see it will take any specific action and its not as easy to check if they do — search and social media advertising is a low-risk way to get your business, brand or product in front of people.
But…it’s not the only or best way to do that.
The downsides of digital only advertising
Whilst it is undeniably true that digital advertising on search engines and social media offers advantages over traditional media, it also has its drawbacks.
Like, not everyone is on social media, or shops online or browses the internet regularly. According to annual research by Ofcom in the UK, 7% of adults aged 45–54 do not use the internet at all. That rises to 17% for 55–64 year olds, 30% for those aged 65–74 and 51% of those aged 75 and over.
Then there’s the fact that we are subjected to so much digital content these days, all competing for our dwindling attention, that we are often blind to ads when we encounter them online and on social media. In 2017, the global creative director at Facebook told a conference audience in New York that the average person scrolls through 300 feet a day of mobile content — that’s three times the height of Mount Everest in a year, and it means people are zooming right past our content with their thumbs without their eyes ever seeing it.
People have also started to get wise to website retargeting, and now have a better understanding of how brands follow them around the web — they’re even starting to learn how to stop advertisers doing it, with new tools available to them thanks to European and UK privacy laws.
Successfully serving your audience with digital ads isn’t as foolproof as it might first seem.
Online + offline ads together = success
So, if digital advertising with all it has to offer isn’t enough on its own, what else can your business do to extend reach, raise awareness and motivate people to purchase?
The answer to this is to pair digital with a complementary ‘analogue’ approach.
I mentioned static billboard ads above for good reason: they can still work. You might not be able to detect their influence as easily (you can with the right approach — hold that thought*), but used alongside a digital campaign they can be effective at creating the impression that you’re everywhere whilst exposing people to your messages in an almost subliminal manner, helping them to become more firmly lodged.
One of the reasons advertising works at all, regardless of the medium chosen, is because of the cognitive biases and mental shortcuts — heuristics — that help us make sense of the world around us. For example, ‘the mere exposure effect’ has been shown to make people find something gradually more appealing after repeated exposure to it (like a product in an ad, or even a campaigning politician) despite the absence of any new information that would otherwise normally be expected add to its appeal.
So, if someone you’re targeting geographically with digital ads then starts to see the same content on billboards in their area, there’s a better chance your messages will stick and that repeated exposure to your ad content, online and offline, will improve the appeal of whatever it is you’re advertising.
Other examples of complementary offline approaches include direct mail and leaflet drops.
Combining any of the various offline and more traditional advertising methods and media with your digital ads will compound your efforts by helping you reach a bigger target audience, amplify and cement your messaging, and improve your results.
*How can you gauge the influence of a billboard add in this context? There are two ways: firstly, you could publish a unique landing page URL or campaign phone number on your billboard ads that would help you determine whether they are a source of traffic or leads. Secondly, you can ask customers that are acquired through your digital campaign whether they saw your ads anywhere else, and give billboards as a multiple choice option.
