The Good and the Bad of Online Advertising

In everything in life, there are positive s and negatives. The “Ben Franklin” method of decision making includes listing the negatives of a decision on one side and the positives on the other side. Whichever column had more entries, according to Franklin, was the “right” decision.

In deciding whether or not to advertise your business online, the pro list would definitely include:

  • the ability to tightly target your message delivery,
  • the ability to effectively reach members of the target audience that can’t be efficiently reached using other media,
  • the ability to CREATIVELY reach members of your target audience,
  • the EASE with which you can launch an advertising campaign,
  • the EASE with which you can split test an advertising campaign
  • the EASE with which you can change an advertising campaign.

Notice, I didn’t list how “inexpensive” an online advertising campaign is. That’s for a good reason- it isn’t!

You can easily pay $1 or more per visitor using an online advertising campaign. While that may sound very inexpensive, if you consider the fact that any particular visitor to your website may only stay for 30 seconds or less, online advertising is MUCH more expensive than traditional media.

Traditional media is priced based upon audience size and those prices are expressed with the term “Cost per Thousand” or CPM. In other words, the cost per thousand of a pay per click campaign that charges $1 per click would be $1000.

That $1000 budget could be used to reach hundreds of thousands of people using traditional media such as newspaper, television and radio advertising.

That makes online advertising one of the most expensive advertising mediums around. However, if your target audience is widely distributed, then a pay per click campaign of $1 per click may be the most efficient use of your advertising dollar.

Which is why it’s important to recognize WHO your customer is before you launch an advertising campaign. If your target customer is a blogger, then by all means, the best way to reach that diverse and geographically sparsely distributed target audience is probably pay per click advertising.

On the other hand, if your customers live within a 5 mile radius of your business, consider direct mail to reach them instead.

Posted by Kathy | Filed Under Ad Speak 101, Advertising Online, Affordable Small Business Marketing Strategies 

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