The cost of digital marketing has been rising over the past two decades and is expected to continue over the coming years. On average, brands are spending between USD 500 to USD 20,000 in monthly online advertising expenditures. The average cost of doing a single advertising action on Facebook can cost at least USD 18. According to Adobe, the cost of digital marketing rose at an astonishing rate of close to 5 times the inflation. If you wonder what factors drive the rise of digital marketing costs, you might want to check our article here.
With more people getting connected to the internet, brands are taking advantage of this to spread their campaigns. As a result, the rising cost of digital marketing is here to stay. What does this mean? Brands must learn how to effectively optimize their digital marketing budget. So our team compiled a few tips:
1. Specify Your Target Audience
Every good digital marketing strategy includes a precise target audience. Identifying the right target may consist of your audience’s behaviour pattern or specific demographic parameters. Having your advertisement cater towards a particular audience group will save you dollars of advertising. Specifying your target audience also helps your content creation engine focus on delivering content that resonates with your target audience’s pain points.
One audience optimization method marketers like to tap when they are on a limited budget is called audience suppression. The method of audience suppression is based on the principle of selectivity. This is essentially building a target persona based on data from past and existing customer interactions then creating a personalized advertising effort from that point onwards.
2. Word-of-Mouth Still Works Wonders
Engaging in a comprehensive online advertising strategy does not necessarily mean excluding traditional marketing elements from your brand. In the era of social media, the power of word-of-mouth testimonials still goes a long way. So make sure that, first and foremost, your brand is offering a good customer experience. You may also consider investing in a rewards or points system or even a referral system. Make sure you build a base of satisfied customers who will be incentivized to return and bring more customers into your business.
3. Track Your Success & Adjust Campaigns Regularly
Many digital marketing methods provide real-time metrics that indicate whether your advertisement is performing well. Standard metrics used to measure your ads’ performance are Return on Investment (ROI), sales, and conversion rates. Continuously tracking these metrics enables you to spot which touchpoints drive most customers away. You can fix those creative assets or any landing pages that were unappealing to the customers.
On the other hand, if you handle more than one digital marketing channel, you can also identify which channels are performing better. Then you can spend more on those channels instead. Tracking success also helps you to replicate it more readily in the future. In short, you can connect with your potential customers first before spending way too much on your digital marketing budget.
4. Retargeting Ads
One of the main objectives of digital marketing is to drive traffic to your website. In broader terms, traffic simply means driving any visitors on the internet to your website. In reality, the key success of driving traffic is visitors that are part of the targeted traffic. The targeted traffic is the ones who were not there by accident, ones who are actually on your website actively looking for information about your products and services.
Generating this group of good traffic is where marketers see their Return on Investment (ROI). One way to make sure quality traffic continues to flow to your website is through retargeting ads placement. This essential audience-building mechanism identifying key parameters such as online behaviours, interests, and demographic details will receive retargeting ads that reinforce your brand’s value.
5. Tap into Micro-Influencers
Since 2017, nearly half of marketers consistently increased their budget for influencer marketing. This is clear proof that influencer marketing delivers results wanted by brands. Recently, marketers have seen the value of collaborating with micro-influencers. Micro-influencers, in general, have a smaller but niche audience. The strategy of collaborating with micro-influencers goes in line with targeting specific audiences. It goes without saying that when working with micro-influencers, you have to look for suitable influencers who specialize in that niche area that goes along with your products and services and is well-received by your intended audience group.
These measures have helped brands of various scales to adapt in an era of rising digital marketing costs. If you are looking for more steps that can help make your digital marketing campaigns more efficient, feel free to read other articles written by our digital marketing professionals in the Kaliber blog.
