Editorial Articles

Digital marketeers have a difficult job. Managing creative and media agencies, keeping tabs on display ads, direct buys, mobile, social media and search is a difficult job. Throw in brand versus acquisition marketing and measurement, and digital marketing can become a nightmare.

How much spend will actually move to the digital channel? How can marketeers make it easier on themselves and the business? How do we show the effectiveness of a cross channel campaign and make it simple enough for any member of the team to understand it’s value? These are the questions we need to ask about the future of digital marketing.

Digital advertising spend is the only advertising sector on the rise. Print, TV and Radio are all falling. The Internet is also the only channel where time spent is increasing. Time spent on all the other channels is falling annually. But even with that information, advertising spend online is still half of print and a third of TV spend and only slightly higher than radio. Mary Meeker, of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, a leading venture capital firm, calls this a $50 billion opportunity. I think she’s being conservative.

With over £8 billion spent on advertising in the first half of last year in the UK, and £2 Billion of that being spent on digital, the UK could be spending over £50 billion in the very near future. Globally the opportunity for digital advertising is incredible and could be wasted unless we can get a few things right.

Stephen Bardega, an industry veteran and MD of Ubinow states this best, “Mobile display advertising is currently suffering from lack of transparency, lack of creative standardisation and lack of integrated analytics. The growth of this market will hinge on how quickly the industry can address these issues”. These issues go beyond just mobile display advertising. PC based digital advertising, video, social, basically every digital channel suffers form a lack of transparency, creative standardisation and integrated analytics.

What does this mean for advertisers and agencies? A few pointers can ensure that you’re spending and measuring the right things.

Keeping things simple and know what you’re measuring. Impressions, clicks (CTR), conversions are the simplest and the most obvious to measure. Engagement can be measured but make sure you’re consistent across channels and publishers/networks on how you’re measuring. For example, time spent on a PC and on a mobile are not the same thing, knowing the difference between an engaged user actively browsing and a user who has left a window open on a PC is fundamental.

Don’t be afraid to try new channels. There are great tools to help you create and manage video and social media campaigns. Test to see if conversions can be driven from new channels - I think social media and video will work for a good number of advertisers but no matter what the experts might tell you, it’s too early to know which channels are best without actual trials.

We’re at the cusp of a radical shift of advertising revenues from offline, TV and print to more and more being spent on digital. The shift is being dictated by customer behaviours. The key for advertisers is spending and measuring wisely and effectively and being able to determine which channels and campaigns work best.

Farhan Lalji
Managing Director, Ad Avengers