Media Two Interactive

4 Reasons to Ditch Your Traditional Media Mix for Digital

Okay, put down the phone, you don’t have to cancel all of your traditional buys. Honestly, a good media plan generally needs a mix of traditional and digital. But your ROI is probably taking a hit because you either don’t have enough digital, or you don’t have any (eek!). If you aren’t sold on digital yet, or if you need talking points for your investors, here are 4 reasons you need to shift budget to digital:

Tracking

We know well planned and executed traditional media campaigns work. A surge in sales in North Carolina may be a result of a billboard campaign on I-95 if that is your only means of advertising. But what if it could also be attributed to the radio, television or print ads you are also running as part of your campaign? The metrics of traditional advertising are hazy at best but we can PROVE that digital works. We can prove who it worked with, when it worked, in what context it worked, etc. As marketers, we often have to prove our worth – many companies see advertising as an unnecessary cost, one of the first to be cut in lean financial times. With digital we are able to dispel that myth with an amazingly detailed and accurate ROI analysis.

As we track this data we can then begin to optimize, to limit waste. We have insights at such a granular level that there are almost no limits to the optimization opportunities.

Optimizations/Speed

Digital advertising is absolutely not a “set it and forget it” strategy. Optimizations are a vital part of the success of your campaign. With traditional media, you can still optimize by pulling a TV spot that isn’t performing well, replacing a billboard with a different message, or switching from radio to print. However, this all takes time. With digital media, we are able to optimize on the spot. We can make changes every day with little to no lag time.

Targeting

Sure, with traditional marketing we can target somewhat specific audiences, but only to a certain degree. We can reach an audience of women ages 18 to 34 with a print ad in Cosmopolitan – but while almost 60% of Cosmo readers are women ages 18-34, we’re wasting 40% of our potential impact. Waste is evident even within age-based demographic targeting. Are we reaching women, ages 18 to 34, who are in the market for a car, who have a HHI of $75,000+ and have already shown interest in your brand? With digital we can eliminate virtually all the waste by targeting the right consumers.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. With the implementation of machine learning, we can use artificial intelligence to choose which audiences are most likely to convert, which creative variation will be most appealing to that specific user and what moment to best serve it in. But digital isn’t just appropriate for super targeted campaigns, it’s also extremely efficient at scale.

Scale/Efficiency

Lastly, CPMs for digital, particularly mobile and general display, are significantly lower than the traditional options. With lower CPMs, we can afford to cast a wide net to bring new prospects into the funnel.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top