Are You Wasting Your Marketing Dollars?

Waste in advertising is a common problem that affects nearly every brand when it comes to marketing. It’s a problem that affects brands and consumers alike because brands lose profits, and frustrated consumers are bombarded with irrelevant and repetitive promotions.

Google found more than 56% of ad impressions are never seen by consumers, and Proxima estimates $37 billion of worldwide marketing budgets are being wasted on poor digital performance.

The general misconception is that wasted ad spend is due to poor planning and incorrect channel focus. However, most marketers understand their ad budgets and know where and how they're spending money. They also have advanced measurement tools to track campaign metrics. 

The problem is that if marketers are unable to analyze data and develop insights about their campaigns, then they can't understand where their marketing dollars are making a difference, or worse yet, where they're being wasted. Take a good look at your ad spend; are you wasting your marketing dollars?

Audit Your Measurement Practices

Many companies are quick to consider cutting budgets, but the problem isn't so simple. It isn't that you need to spend less to reduce ad spend, but rather spend smarter. The key is to pay special attention to all of your measurement practices.

Regularly audit marketing tools and metrics

Regularly auditing marketing tools and metrics is a great place to start because it ensures you're properly measuring and tracking your marketing efforts. In many cases, marketers rely heavily on their marketing tools and metrics, despite any inefficiencies in play. You need to be sure your key methods of obtaining data are running flawlessly so you can interpret them to the best of your ability and make informed decisions. 

Remember, marketing isn't a short-term solution and often takes time to earn long-term results. Regular audits may sound inconvenient, but they'll be instrumental in reducing wasted ad spend. 

Have a clear understanding of your marketing efforts

To optimize your ad spend, you need a clear understanding of your marketing efforts. What are your goals, and what marketing efforts are you implementing to reach these goals? More importantly, you need to pay close attention to your results through continuous evaluations and adjustments when necessary. 

Proper data analysis

Proper data analysis is essential because it helps you identify top-performing platforms, strategies, and campaigns. It's the foundation of making informed and knowledgeable decisions relevant to your target audience to reach them successfully.

Identify Waste and Reallocate Ad Spend

Identify where ad spend could be put to better use and reallocate funds to maximize ROI. To cut waste in ad spend, marketers need to address common challenges in measuring multi-channel marketing interactions, tying together upper and lower funnel KPIs, and analyzing data and pulling insights to pinpoint where their money is going. 

Measuring multi-channel marketing interactions

This is essential because much of your ad spend can be wasted on platforms that aren't producing the results you need. When you take a closer look, you may just find that when you reallocate ad spend to more relevant channels associated with your audience, you'll significantly reduce waste.

Consider multi-channel audits that pay close attention to these six metrics:

1. Audience - It's challenging finding your specific audience on their respective platforms, but by measuring their activities and behaviors, you'll eventually pinpoint their favorite locations, then you can target them there. 
2. Competition - It isn't wrong to track and measure the success and failures of your competition. In fact, it's vital so that you can avoid the same mistakes and maximize your efforts.
3. Content - Measure how well your content is performing and adjust your strategies accordingly. Not all content is suitable for all platforms. 
4. Engagement - There are plenty of tools to look into to keep track of likes, follows, shares, retweets, etc. Utilize them to see what's working with your audience and on what platform. 
5. Time - Track your consumer's activities on all platforms to make sure you're reaching them when they're most active and likely to engage. 
6. Social Listening - Stay informed on interests, habits, trends, and more to turn communication into meaningful conversations with your audience. 

Tying together upper and lower funnel KPIs

We know it can be difficult to tie together upper and lower funnel KPIs, but it's certainly not impossible. By giving more focus to building relationships with consumers, you'll begin integrating brand awareness with loyalty in no time. 

Brand evangelists love talking about their favorite brands and promoting them to whoever will listen. They are the key to getting your brand out there for more people to see, typically through word of mouth! Ninety-two percent of consumers trust recommendations from friends and family more than advertisements.

You Don't Have To Go At It Alone

If you're running into several challenges related to wasted ad spend, you're not the only one. In truth, studies have found that nearly 40% of all media spend is wasted, and some marketers think it accounts for at least 26% of their budget. It's a common challenge that you can rectify by auditing your measurement practices, identifying waste, reallocating ad spend, and getting helpful guidance from a trusted expert. 

Consider working with a media partner who has extensive knowledge on the subject, so you can get back on track and start eliminating wasted ad spend.