Advertising Budget Considerations

Where To Spend Your Advertising Budget?

Recently I came across this chart in .Net magazine about affiliate marketing (I’m not affiliated with .Net by the way).

 

 

The chart shows a breakdown of the most effective techniques currently used by affiliate marketers. Interesting to see that organic search is so dominant with all the talk of pay per clicks. That said, it might be the PPC’s that are generating the best return on investment.

Particularly interesting is the comparison between paid search and offline (print) adverts. Take a closer look and maybe you’ll pick up a couple of ideas for your own marketing campaign..

Print Ads versus Pay-Per-Click

 

Offline magazines, publications and flyers are really lagging behind paid search. It seems if you’re selling a product online it’s best to advertise it online. Who would have thunk it? The online advantage being the instant response the visitor gets by clicking a paid search ad and the ability to compare and contrast services and products in a short timeframe. Not to mention the ability to buy a product then and there, from the comfort of home.

 

Ask yourself, how many times have you seen an advert in a magazine and thought “I’m going to check out their website”; and then you instantly jump up, fire up old reliable and connect to the Internet just to look at the advertisers website? Personally I’ve never done it and if it happens I doubt its often.

And how many times have you actually cut out and filled in the little form in a newspaper ad, stuck it in an envelope, wrote the advertisers address on the envelope, bought a stamp, licked it, stuck it on the envelope, and then went to the nearest post box and posted the blasted thing? Just to get their brochure? I’ve never done it anyway. Why should I when I can usually just click on an ad or search result online to find out more?

Compare and Contrast Marketing ROI

 

If you’re a small business with a tight budget try the following: ring a national newspaper advertising office and enquire how much for a small advert to run for a month in the classifieds. Now compare this to running a paid search campaign for the same period online; a campaign that can be adjusted and fine-tuned to your market. It’s a no-brainer.

 

I’m not saying forget print advertisers altogether. Depending on your product 2.99% ROI might be a nice chunk of change, but if you’re on a small budget maybe that’s not the way to go. You might be better off spending time improving your website search position for related keywords for organic search and running a focused paid search campaign.

Again, effective affiliate marketing figures are:

 

• SEO – Search Engine Optimization for Organic search = 43.17%

• Other 9.2%

• Offline magazines/ publications/ flyers 2.99%

• Banner advertising 10.89%

• Product feeds 4.75%

• Paid search 22.16%