|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Sponsored Content
Google and Facebook hold the largest share of total US digital ad spend, 38.6% and 19.9%, respectively (Wordstream, 2020). Those numbers are comparable across the globe, and it means that before you even jump into the advertising pool, you’re competing against giants.
Publishers have been aware of increasingly losing advertisers to search engines and social media over the past decade, and most still haven’t found a sure-fire way to win their sponsors back.
Why Do Advertisers Choose Google & Social Media?
The first step in reclaiming advertisers from these pay-per-click giants is to assess why so many businesses choose to spend their marketing dollars with them.
There are a few things that Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. offer to their clients that many publishers simply do not; and all are a must-have to compete today:
- Targeted to a specific audience that can show intent
- Continual measurability with live reports
- Pay for results (clicks and impressions)
How Can You Make Your Publication More Appealing Than Google and Friends?
Digital transformation. It’s the buzzword on everybody’s lips, but what does it really mean for the world of publishing?
If we’re technical about it, all digital transformation means is adding technology where there wasn’t any before or dramatically improving an existing digital process. But we’re here to talk about true disruption using technology – doing something that changes the game for publishers and advertisers alike (just like Google did when they introduced AdWords).
A good place to start your transformation journey is looking at what your customers want and need. Lead generation and proving ROI/attribution are the #1 and #2 most important things for advertisers today.
So, how do you make sure you’re providing those things to your advertisers and sponsors?
Lead Generation
Digital publishers have gradually been finding ways to add lead generation to their advertising offerings. The most common ways are using gated content or static reports of email clicks, but these aren’t really digital transformative solutions.
They also come with their fair share of issues. Many readers (and potential leads) won’t bother filling a form out for a piece of content – so the number of “leads” the advertiser ends up with can be disappointing. Static ‘click-to-lead’ reports can generate higher numbers but these lists can be long, unqualified and inaccurate and therefore go unused and have little to no impact on the advertiser’s ROI.
So, what if you could take it a step further than static lead lists and analytics? What if you could turn your advertising into an intent-fueled lead generation engine that shows attribution across the entire buyer’s journey using digital transformation? Then that would be a game-changer.
ActiveConversion, a leading provider of conversion software for publishers, offers a unique advantage to publishers as it empowers their advertisers to not only identify leads but also follow them as they travel across domains from the publication to their own website. It also lets them know when a lead from a publication returns to them in the future, making it far easier to understand attribution during extended sales cycles (which are typical in B2B or high-investment B2C).
Proving ROI
For too long, companies have been left to guess the true value they’re getting from their ad spend. With reports limited to impressions and clicks, they don’t know if their ads are being viewed by CEOs in their target market or random bots on the other side of the world. This means they’re expected to place blind faith in the publications they advertise with – and more and more businesses are deciding faith just isn’t enough, especially when compared to Google and social media advertising.
In fact, most advertisers cite difficulties in accurately measuring ROI as their biggest source of frustration. Fortunately, beyond lead generation, conversion software can help to dramatically improve a sponsor’s ability to see ROI.
If you could offer your advertisers advanced analytics in your ads – including which leads came from which campaigns, and which ultimately turned into sales – it would provide unparalleled attribution that even Google can’t provide.
Is This Enough To Compete With The PPC Giants?
The short answer – yes. Add in having identities and the intent from the ad/content, and you have an advertising solution that provides companies branding, qualifiable lead generation, and seamless nurturing – at scale. Why would advertisers settle for 5 leads per month with PPC when they can get 10x that from your content? When using the right strategies and tools, advertising in publications can be more effective and drive a much better ROI than search engines and social media.
Recall the benefits of advertising on Google? Targeting, measurability, and paying for results. In addition, to lead generation and ROI, publishers have the power to offer advertisers the same benefits and more.
✔ Targeted to a Specific Audience
Straight off the bat, most publications are targeted to a specific niche group, which means they’re already reaching a very specific target market. Better than Google, LinkedIn or Facebook in fact. You can become even more targeted using audience segmentation tools and providing specialized content of interest.
✔ Continual Measurability
Beyond clicks and impressions, the primary things advertisers want to measure are leads and sales. Using conversion software, you can provide clear attribution to your advertisers so they can be confident that their campaigns are working to not only generate awareness but also drive revenue. Conversion software is also capable of sharing live results, so transparency of valuable data is available immediately – which is key to digital transformation.
✔ Pay For Real Results, Not Just Clicks
While you may not offer this yet, it’s not difficult to set up. In fact, with ActiveConversion, you can set up your own pay-for-lead system that charges your advertisers based on the number of actual leads generated from your content. This goes beyond pay per click, to pay per identified and scored leads – which is even more preferable for an advertiser.
In summary, the solutions are out there to help you reclaim advertisers from the digital giants – all you need to do is to embrace digital transformation.
Gail Moch
Director, Marketing, Active Conversion
Active Conversion’s mission is to digitally transform the world of advertising and marketing. We connect publishers and advertisers around the globe using our proprietary technology to generate exceptional ROI from digital campaigns. We developed a scalable, pay-for-performance model for selling ‘in-market’ leads to advertisers via publishers. We do this using publisher partnerships that are focused on sharing data using digital transformation. This model changes the dynamic of the publisher/advertiser relationship much like Uber changed the taxi/rider relationship. This technology and business model has the potential to disrupt the ad industry and is already providing astounding value to advertisers, marketing agencies and publishers.
