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You remember the promise at the turn of the 21st century: online advertising will provide comprehensive data and proof of effectiveness, all with incredible new opportunities for interactivity. This statement could also be called “The Great Digital Over-Promise.”
Nearly two decades later, marketers are finding themselves in the awkward position of having sold a dream and a promise that has faltered under real-world conditions. Jessica Davies described the current state of online advertising in Digiday, writing that “online advertising is under the microscope, thanks in large part to the rise in ad blocking.” Davies’ assertion is reinforced by research conducted by Adobe and PageFair, which reveals that as much as 28% of U.S. internet users may have ad blocking enabled.
Ad blocking, fraud, viewability and a host of other challenges have bruised online advertising’s reputation and left many marketers in the unenviable position of buying something they may not completely believe in, nor can perfectly demonstrate its effectiveness.
In a stroke of irony, online advertising finds itself in the position most other forms of traditional advertising have dealt with their entire existence: everybody knows advertising works, yet no one can prove exactly how or when or why. As the old adage goes, half of advertising works — we just don’t know which half in today’s digital age.
This creates an environment that every tech startup and marketer has been trying to overcome for decades. In the end, advertising remains just as much about faith as fact.
Expectations, Expectations, Expectations
Online advertising is effective, but marketers have been trained to expect far more from it than other forms of media. This means that every false data point and report of impropriety is under a level of scrutiny rarely applied to other media channels. If marketers had access to data that showed every missed billboard impression, for instance, every distracted driver, or every overcast day that affected billboard legibility, we might see an upheaval in pricing and demand.
Yet because our expectations are so different for certain media channels, we let gaps in measurability slide, and accept that it’s a necessary evil to spend hard cash on a medium we believe works but can’t always measure.
The Hunger for “Real”
Marketers are also fighting against a lack of trust in digital because it can’t be touched or felt. The current challenges facing online advertising have only elicited a reaction we’ve all encountered: when facing a lack of trust in a media channel, we revert to what we know.
Andrea Miller, CEO of YourTango, bemoaned the phenomenon in an Advertising Age article, saying, “many advertisers are almost paralyzed by all the digital website choices they have for campaigns, so they stick with what they know and have trusted for decades — traditional media brands.”
Tactics like billboards can be attractive if for no other reason than that marketers at least feel they know without a doubt that the message is being communicated. There is something cathartic and encouraging to a marketer who can touch and feel their own message, even though digital media offers targeting and interactive capabilities currently unavailable in many other channels.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Today’s digital crisis of faith is exasperated by the very strength of the channel. Because of the incredible ability to target consumers with unprecedented accuracy and comprehensiveness, online advertising is hidden from anyone who doesn’t fall into the targeting parameters.
This creates a situation where marketers and their company leadership may rarely (or never) be exposed to their own online campaigns. This “hidden marketing” creates many challenges for marketers, including reducing the opportunity for anecdotal campaign support, internal organizational pride and campaign exposure to decision makers who may not have any understanding of the complexities of online advertising. We live in a marketing world where decision-makers see less of their marketing than ever, yet may have their dollars working harder than ever.
The Path Forward
My firm believes in the power of digital advertising in its many forms, with roughly 40% of our ad spending on behalf of clients focused online. But we do so with the careful understanding that silver bullet media tactics don’t exist, and that effective marketing always looks more like a tapestry than a line drawing.
The struggles our clients deal with when running online campaigns usually take one of three forms: the team is overwhelmed by the sheer amount of campaign performance data available, the team doesn’t know how to gauge success, or the team has unrealistic expectations.
Although the current state of digital advertising can seem daunting, we tell our clients that a focus on target empathy, partner accountability and continuous learning will be their guide as the industry matures and evolves.
As online advertising wrestles with its demons, marketers can be confident that paid digital media is not going away, nor will it ever fully reach a state where it can be perfectly measured. It is incumbent for modern marketers to understand their own shortcomings and false expectations, and in doing so embrace a truth that will always be at the core of effective marketing: that advertising requires faith. Or in the words of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, “Just because it’s hard to measure the return on investment doesn’t mean there isn’t value there.”
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