How to reduce wastage in digital advertising | Google Ads | Facebook Ads

One of the greatest advantages of digital advertising was its measurability for ROI and the potential for accurate attribution of results. While digital advertising is better multi-fold than traditional forms of advertising and marketing on either of these aspects, it is neither perfect nor complete. There is certainly not-so-insignificant wastage and fraud affecting digital advertising campaigns. In fact, “leakage” of digital ad spend is as real as “shrinkage” in retail. Consequently, advertisers need to understand and budget for such wastage in their advertising campaigns.

To start with, let us understand some of the most common forms of wastage.

Click fraud:

It happens in PPC (pay-per-click) advertising campaigns where advertisers pay a fee for each click on their ad. Click fraud is when a person or automated clicking programs imitate a legitimate user clicking on an ad. The advertisers wrongly assume that the clicks are from potential customers interested in the product/service but the fraudulent clicks only waste the advertiser’s money¹. Click fraud can be committed by competitors to exhaust an advertiser’s budget or by website publishers as they click on the ads on their own website to earn more. Of course, there are bots that are also used to generate such fraudulent clicks with no other purpose than to provide nuisance value.

Impression Fraud:

This happens when an ad is not visible to the human eye, but the impressions are still counted². Again, the advertiser thinks that the ad placements are working as the number of impressions seems to be higher and ends up spending on something that could well be bot traffic, pixel stuffing or ad stacking.

It is not always competitor/perpetrator/bot-driven fraud though that results in wastage in paid digital advertising. Poorly placed ads too waste a great deal of investment and can also affect the brand value negatively.

As some wastage is inevitable, one needs to budget for it while being proactive in identifying fraud or ad placement issues to mitigate the risks.

Here are a few tips to ensure minimal wastage and budget for it:

Work together:

Right from the initial brainstorming about using paid digital advertising for your business and the goals you want to achieve with it, to the final execution and beyond, all parties involved must work closely and collaboratively. The creative team, the tech team, agencies, etc., all need to be on the same page.

Be practical:

It might seem quite tempting to invest a large amount of money to get immediate results like brand reach, awareness, inquiries sales, etc. However, it is crucial to set a realistic initial budget. Begin with a smaller budget as you experiment with what kind of advertising and placement works for you. Then, based on the results, gradually expand your budget.

Target right:

Both Google Ads and Facebook Ads offer various targeting options to help you reach the people who would want to hear about your product or services. Make the most of this feature. Define your target audience based on their location, age, interests, gender and several other parameters. Then you can narrow or broaden your target audience to set up your digital advertising for success. Do remember however that none of this targeting is 100% perfect.  

Track campaigns:

Some wastage can be avoided by closely monitoring the digital advertising campaigns. Evaluate ads performance at regular intervals and take appropriate measures if certain ads or ad types fail to deliver the expected results.. Keep adjusting your budget to focus more on the ads and placements that give you the desired results.

Be flexible:

You might be inclined towards a particular ad type based on your personal preference. But remember that your target audience might think differently. Experiment with different types of ad formats like text ads, carousel ads, single image ads and video ads. Choose the ones that give you the best value for money!

Retarget ads:

Retargeting has better conversion rates as you attract an audience that is already interested in your product/service. It helps you gain more insights about the consumers and helps in improving brand awareness and generating more sales³.

To make the most of your digital marketing budget, keep a close eye on your existing campaigns,  learn from insights and implement timely necessary changes for better budgeting on advertising and reducing wastage.

References and Resources:

1.Click fraud (pay-per-click fraud)

https://www.techtarget.com/searchsecurity/definition/click-fraud-pay-per-click-fraud

2.Impression Fraud

https://interceptd.com/impression-fraud/

3.Benefits of retargeting

https://thrivehive.com/benefits-of-retargeting/

Interested in maximising the reach and results from your Google Ads SEM and Facebook ad campaigns? Let us run your digital advertising campaigns for the best results, whether you are targeting sales/leads from Singapore or overseas. Contact us now