Editor’s Note: Chris Bretschger’s skills for media buying and analytics were cited as one of the key reasons that his family-owned firm, IMW Agency, recently merged with Bastion, creating one of OC’s largest media firms. Bretschger has managed digital media in-house for Mazda as well as on the agency side managing accounts like Jenny Craig, Adidas Golf, Hyundai, and Volkswagen. The Business Journal’s special report on technology and cybersecurity begins on page 15.
The ad industry looks to have a perspective and cybersecurity problem.
An entire generation of consultants and managers has been cast blindly into a world with its primary emphasis being the tangible return on invested media dollars. Admittedly, at face value—there doesn’t seem to be an issue here. Though, each year as we continue to audit scores of new client accounts, we find that this narrowed focus of success has become one of the most prominent causes of stagnation in their growth strategy.
As I reflect on how we got here, for myself—and I’d venture most of the modern ad industry—it really began in late 2007.
As “The Great Recession” continued to plow its way through industries, marketers found ourselves wrestling to put a positive spin on dismal sales—“here’s how much worse it could have been.”
In my case, it was firsthand with the automotive industry, endlessly working on media plans trying to scrounge up any lead we could after an era of what seemed like a period of limitless bounty.
At the time we didn’t know it, but the next two years would catapult a historically slow-moving media industry into a new era of tracking and accountability. Serendipitously, along with this downturn, digital media buying and websites were beginning to thrive. This created our own perfect storm which began the transformation toward what is now our unsatiated desire with today’s analytics. It would be the tipping point for all things digital media.
Immediate Gratification
Almost overnight, investment shifted.
The reporting of impressions, sessions, and clicks became commonplace in executive meetings, and what used to be an industry largely driven by fundamentals, theory, and correlation became hooked on the idea of immediate gratification, attribution, and causality.
It was a stark contrast to conversations that were happening just months before.
Websites became a primary tool in the communications mix, e-commerce was on its way up, online lead generation started to grow exponentially, and every dollar spent was being scrutinized to new extremes. This was the time where we could finally answer that age old question: Which half of your advertising is working?
Working Hard
Marketers had something new to show that even though sales may slip, there were still activities in the market that were working – and working hard.
While it seemed a necessary shift at the time, the industry was walking into a dependency and obsession with ever-increasing ROI, i.e. return on investment.
Cost-per-lead, cost-per-sale, and acronyms such as “ROAS” (return on ad spend) were pinned on agency walls and in marketing manager offices everywhere.
As often comes with change—some heralded this as a golden age while others would call it a race to the bottom. In a way, in hindsight, both were correct.
With Great Power Comes…
Teams began understanding the power of their websites. Their ability to act as your 24/7 sales team—always on, day or night—standing there, ready and willing. Always on message, on brand. Steadfastly delivering your differentiators, and providing the background needed for potential clients to decide if they’re ready to take the next step.
What a time to be alive!
As more brands believed that the web could bring more business, big media dollars converted, and small business found access to new markets.
But for each dollar that went out, a new question was asked: “What did that [exact] dollar bring in?” Straight to the bottom line—fair enough. We had become infatuated with new(er) technology, industry was scrambling to adapt, and everyone was clamoring for something to hold on to that would indicate that their hard work wasn’t for naught.
As time progressed, so has the ability to track and understand consumer behavior. Big data, machine learning and A.I. have all provided a greater ability to connect points on this path to identify and match meaningful interactions with the brand. Though, despite the ability to measure these moments along the path to conversion, more often than not, we see a single core metric of success as the driving force—what they call “ROI.”
Now, as backwards as it sounds, this “bottom of the funnel” ROI focus has become a major, if not the most egregious, contributor of budget waste for established and emerging brands.
This focus, and often the unwillingness to have a more meaningful conversation about your marketing, pushes managers to obsess on the obvious and easy sale. Consequently, funds are often diverted toward those who are already on their way to becoming a customer. It’s less about business growth and more about gaming attribution. Simply put; your ROI is wrong.
So many business leaders/owners today have become narrowly focused on the end of the process and the “ROI” that they don’t see the negative impact it has on the business and media strategy.
Getting it Right.
Here we are, 15 years later—surrounded by an abundance of new tools and technology to track and quantify the effectiveness of progressing audiences through the customer journey—still talking about success in the same way as we did in 2007. It’s time for that to change.
The result of this rush to (and infatuation with) the bottom, is that we forget that as brands and marketers we should be engaging in multiple conversations that build toward a conversion, not always end in one.
We are guiding these folks along the path – not shoving them off the edge. Your media plans and measures of success should reflect this – metrics that should dominate the conversation should be indicators showing potential leads or customers working their way through the process, not merely completing the final step.
It’s not possible to choose a single channel that would provide a single “overarching” bang for your buck. It will always be a mix or hyper-dependent on the business.
Simply, this comes down to what you already know—the long-term success of your business relies on finding the next customer, not squeezing the same ones until that well runs dry. The same goes for your media and marketing mix—find not only the customers of today but nurture the customers of tomorrow.
