Online Marketing Spend

When buying online media it is useful to compare website user statistics to offline audience figures so you don’t lose perspective.

When buying media or generating revenues strategies for online publishers I compare costs/incomes to audited offline media such as newspapers and magazines.

Whilst there are huge differences in what you can do online compared to a printed page, at the end of the day advertising dollars should follow the audience and the biggest ROI.

One online network is charging around £6.00 CPM for a mass market run of site marketing campaign, yet I can buy the same quality eyeballs and attention in a London morning newspaper for slightly less in terms of comparative presence and audience impact. I will use this to leverage a discount where possible.

Regardless of being an offline or online marketing consultant, it is important to tell your client where to put their money to gain best effects, and sometimes that is where you traditionally buy.

ABC provide a PDF certificate of distribution for many publications. For instance The London Paper is distributed at 641 locations including 173 locations around train stations and has a average distribution of 501,329 issues per day, and carries around 39% advertising content. I know this and can show my client this because it’s certificated: http://abcpdfcerts.abc.org.uk/pdf/certificates/15571687.pdf

.Net magazine has 18,001 copies distributed but I would wager money that many of the advertisers do not realize 34.6% of copies are sent internationally and never reach a UK or Ireland address. Over a third of the readers are unlikely to buy their UK targeted services. How do I know..because I have a calculator and…the audit certificate http://abcpdfcerts.abc.org.uk/pdf/certificates/14775673.pdf

Surprisingly, offline media has much better transparency in some areas, assuming you take the figures with a small pinch of salt.

Don’t assume online is the best place for your clients money, and if it is…leverage offline advertising rates to bargain down to a rate based that reflects the cost of marketing to that audience (regardless of medium). 2009 is a year to negotiate down the rising costs of online marketing.