As more people shop online, businesses have responded by increasing their advertising on digital platforms. In 2021, global digital advertising expenses stood at an estimated $521.02 billion and are expected to increase in the coming years. Unfortunately, much of this advertising expense ends up wasted.
The vast majority of digital advertising is not viewed at all. Brands waste their digital investments by overbidding in campaigns, targeting the wrong audiences, and failing to drive meaningful conversions. While ad waste is a real problem in marketing, businesses can still take proactive measures to ensure the effectiveness of their ads.
The Waste in Advertising
Ad waste occurs when advertising campaigns fall short of their goals. The most popular campaigns are designed to pique a consumer’s interest or make a sale. The rise of digital advertising increases advertising waste enormously. Furthermore, when more complex purchasing routes arise, businesses have additional hurdles in measuring the performance and effectiveness of their ads.
What Are the Sources of Ad Waste?
The first step to eliminating waste in advertising is understanding its root causes. Here’s a rundown of its top sources:
- Targeting Mistakes: Incorrect assumptions about your customer profile flush money down the drain. Targeting a broad or wrong audience will result in platform administrators ignoring or blocking your ad.
- Poor Content & Messaging: Unappealing copy, inauthentic messaging, and poor quality content result in ad waste.
- Wrong Placement & Medium: Even if you have killer content and copy, choosing the wrong platform can still result in ad waste.
- Ad-Blocking: Consumers are now taking charge of their purchase journey through ad blocking, creating an additional hurdle for marketers.
- Ad Fraud: Some service providers misrepresent conversion data and other relevant ad performance metrics to generate revenue without human intervention, contributing to digital advertising waste.
Why Eliminate Waste in Advertising?
You can maximize your investment and shorten the sales cycle by eliminating ad waste. Businesses that run engaging and cost-efficient advertising campaigns enjoy the following benefits:
- Increased Brand & Product Awareness: Properly-targeted advertisements heighten the market’s awareness of your offerings, allowing you to attract new customers.
- Higher Sales Volume & Increased Return on Investment: Ads can drive more conversions by successfully targeting customers close to the end of the sales funnel.
- Better Brand Image & Market Positioning: Successful advertising campaigns help to create a positive perception of your brand or improve your current market positioning.
- Well-Communicated Competitive Advantage: Tailored advertisements can help communicate your product’s distinct advantages and how they provide value to your clients.
5 Ways to Identify & Eliminate Ad Waste
While eliminating digital advertising waste can seem challenging, businesses can take actionable steps toward this endeavor by following the essential tips below.
1. Use Analytics
Set up the correct analytics tools to track key KPIs before adopting an advertising strategy. Creating and monitoring campaign KPIs allows you to find waste early, decrease it, and improve your marketing strategy.
2. Target a Specific Audience
Marketing methods that are too broad are ineffective and costly. Instead of targeting a wide audience, get to know your target market intimately and segment them based on demographics, psychographics, and behavioral characteristics. When you have a solid understanding of your clients, you can begin to develop advertisements tailored to them.
3. Use Relevant Keywords
Effective keyword selection is crucial in creating a successful digital advertising campaign. To determine the best keywords relevant to your prospects, explore the words your direct competitors are targeting and invest time surveying your existing customer base.
Consider increasing the specificity of your keywords by using long-tail keywords. Although they tend to have lower search volume than short, broad keywords, they increase the chances of your offering matching the user’s intent.
4. Invest in the Right Platforms
While it can be tempting to invest in several channels simultaneously, data-driven businesses understand the importance of assessing the effectiveness of each platform before scaling up. Instead of immediately investing evenly across all channels, evaluate traffic and conversion data first. Then, reduce spending on ineffective channels to eliminate ad waste.
5. Track & Optimize
The real work begins after a successful advertising campaign. Accurate reporting and monitoring are necessary to assess ad results. Set aside time at the end of each campaign to review outcomes and explore potential causes of poor ad performance.
In general, it makes sense to put money into channels that yield the best returns, but that doesn’t mean you can’t branch out and try something new once in a while. You can experiment with various settings to get the optimal configuration for your campaigns. Use split-testing software to compare the performance of different advertising. This approach will help you optimize your ad strategy over time and reduce ad waste on methods that don’t yield results.
Eliminate Ad Waste with the Help of Channel Factory
Waste in advertising is a real problem businesses face; it takes the right tools, strategies, and partners to overcome. Channel Factory helps brands invest in relevant, suitable, and effective advertising content that brings results. We help businesses maximize their advertising budgets through powerful Youtube video content and custom ad optimization that engages their target audience and drives sales. Reach out today to get started!