Online Advertising Spending Trends

Are you pulling back on your digital ad spend and spending more strategically this year?

It seems wise, however there are important reasons to combine your digital ad spend to support your overall lead generation goals.

Google Ads and Facebook Ads programs pull in billions of dollars in profits for these monopolies, which basically means they’re overcharging! They’ve got quite a system for squeezing out profit at a painful level for most small to mid-sized businesses. To ease the pain, we have to be more strategic.

If there’s one reason business owners are looking to hire a Boston SEO company or Los Angeles SEO company, it would be the unaffordable ad rates and lower lead generation of current digital marketing campaigns.

Advertising Still Has a Place in Campaigns

The general downtrend in advertising prices is good news for small business marketing budgets and digital marketing strategies.  It supports the idea that a pay per click and remarketing spend should support all of the pieces of a lead nurturing and sales generating campaign.

Sometimes it’s painful to advertise.  You always have that money out the door feeling, and if you don’t target expertly, it is money out the door.

Advertising Channel conversion rates. Screenshot courtesy of Heap.

Business owners need to be strategic about their ad spend and use the most intense targeting possible. Unfortunately, Facebook’s targeting is poor quality which of course makes advertisers spend more to get leads that aren’t up to the grade they expect.

Your spending on Facebook ads or Google ads could help with analytics, testing for lead quality, and filling gaps in your free organic SEO campaigns (however, you shouldn’t rely on their simple reporting for conversion rate optimization).

Professional level analytics is essential to know where your leads are coming from and why.

Marketers are leaning heavily on SEO to compensate yet search engine optimization isn’t a complete digital marketing campaign by itself. It feeds the other channels for a much better visibility/engagement process that finally does capture a new customer.

Advertising Data From Ezoic

ezoic provides ad services for Internet publishers who desire to tap into a richer stream of ad publishers so they can earn more revenue. Google Adsense for instance is one source that delivers ads for website publishers who want to place all those banner ads you see on the websites you visit.

You can view this handy index directly at ezoic.

ezoic’s ad rate chart provides their Ad Revenue Index, a key reference for web publishers.

The latest reading shows ad rates have dropped this year. ezoic notes that ad rates don’t mirror the economy. Most stock market advisors suggest the economy is headed downward so we can expect ad rates to follow that path.

The Latest Advertising Spend Data

According to eMarketers, advertisers will keep spending on digital advertising campaigns.

US retail ad spending.
Screenshot courtesy of eMarketer. US retail ad spending.

Why is Retargeting Relevant?

Retargeting ads are a big spend now too:

Why Retargeting Matters
See more at: https://financesonline.com/retargeting-statistics/

Citing data from Ascend2, they found that 71% of marketers spend 10–50% of their entire online ad budget on retargeting, and 68% of digital marketing agencies are shifting a larger portion of their budgets to retargeting.

Why retargeting? Likely, this is due to poor performance via SEO and social media. Google has tightened its algorithm considerably and that’s squeezing out the poor quality content which agencies relied on to get rankings and sales. In a panic, they rely solely on advertising.

Other studies showed 71% of marketers spend 10–50% of their entire online ad budget on retargeting. Purportedly, consumers who see retargeted ads are up to 70% more likely to convert and retargeting ad performance is 10 times better than a regular display ad. Of course, ad blindness and ad blocking are increasing issues for them.

Search engine optimization is more challenged and companies are getting squeezed by Google. The sophistication and effort in an SEO campaign/project is much higher in 2023.

Good things to know as you plan your digital marketing strategy and consider whether to hire a Boston SEO Consultant or a Los Angeles SEO company to excel this year.

And it’s a reminder of how important retargeting those same people via search engine optimization. Because SEO traffic is much higher given it’s persistent and not a one time expensive click purchase.

Why OmniPresence is Essential

This omnipresence concept is important. Consumers make decisions based on emotions, and you can’t possibly tell when they might move forward.

We never know when a prospect is ready to make their decision. They could make the buy decision in June 2023, and whoever is ranking high and ready to sell gets their business. It could be on June 17th or September 13th. Will your website be visible on that day and every day of the year?

Some marketers say they can control consumers and the timing of their purchase via “conversion optimization” but that’s grossly overstated. The fact is “24 hour availability” is the real conversion generator.

I like retargeting as part of the OmniPresence strategy that makes your company impossible not to see. Don’t leave the space to competitors, and instead make every effort to be everywhere they are visiting.

The Real Goal:  Get Your UVP Across to Customers

Of course, the real sales conversions happen when your prospect is certain your unique value proposition is the best.
That’s where your content enters the picture. It’s not just built for rankings, but also to get your value proposition across laser clear. And when the prospect builds interest and intent, you can sweeten the deal appropriately and conservatively to move them to contact and sale.

If you’re located in Los Angeles, you’re thinking Los Angeles SEO company, and if you’re in Boston, you’re thinking Boston SEO company. Local thinking however might cheat you out of the best service available, especially at a more reasonable price.

An agency at $10,000/month is questionable. Typically, there’s a lot of waste, and I’m sure you’ve received quotes that throw in all sorts of add-ons you don’t need. They’re selling stuff. That’s the agency model.

By hiring an SEO consultant content producer, you’re getting the essentials (plus some ppc campaigns) and avoiding waste. Everything is streamlined so more of your money goes to work. That’s smart marketing management.

If you’re a business manager who respects strategy and wants to initiate a marketing effort that’s sustainable, to build long term value and success, then I may be the right choice.

Please do call me at 416 998 6246 to discuss your project.

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