Advertisers Are Increasing Spending on “Logged-In” Channels of Email and Social Media

Investment in Logged-In Channels

A recent study revealed that 74% of companies will spend more on email and social media advertising. Several factors are behind this increase. First, email and social media are measurable against objectives. You can calculate when and how people engage with these and track how they support conversions or sales.

Second, both have the ability to target. With email marketing, you can create a list of criteria based on specific segments, like geography or industry. Social media advertising enables you to develop a target audience with many options related to demographics, location and interests. The more targeted a campaign, the better the performance.

Third, neither of these digital advertising tactics relies on third-party cookies. With Google deprecating them this year, businesses may decide to shift funding to cookieless initiatives.

Fourth is the fact that these are logged-in channels. The assumption is that there’s more engagement in the inbox and on social media sites versus more passive ways that we encounter advertising.

Fifth, email and social media complement each other. If someone gets an email and sees an ad in their feed, it’s double exposure, which is a good thing. Email and social can also be long-term strategies to drive people down the sales funnel. Email marketing can be a series, not just a one-off. Social media campaigns should run for a minimum of three months. They can also be part of a strategic ad mix to reach an audience effectively.

Understanding the reasons behind this trend will shape how you propose these tactics to your customers.

Selling Email and Social Media Ads to Local Businesses

You can begin your pitch by talking about the data from this study and why companies are opting to invest more. This is macro-level data, but you can interpret it at the micro level. A great way to illustrate this is with additional insights, internally or externally, such as:

• Highlights from previous campaigns that used email, social media and other tactics
• Reviewing the potential audience reach that fits their ideal customer profile
• Examples of how competitors are using social channels to acquire customers

Next, you’ll want to correlate the impact of email and social media ads to their objective.

Advertiser Objectives for Email and Social Campaigns

Here are a few examples of advertiser goals and how email and social can be part of the ad mix.

• Acquire new customers: Both email and social allow for targeting criteria and getting in front of new audiences. When these campaigns offer incentives and are relevant, people are likely to engage.
• Promote sales and events: Promotional advertising can perform well in email and on social. Check out this email marketing case study that boosted preregistration for an event.
• Gain market share from competitors: If your customer has this goal, social media and email marketing can help them win over their competitors’ customers. These ads need to demonstrate why their brand is superior.

The final part of the pitch is creating a cross-channel campaign.