Weird Week

Does anyone else feel like last week was weird?

I’m actually not even talking about the fact that Trump became the ”presumptive nominee.” But don’t get me wrong, that is weird!

The weirdness of the week, I’m referring to, was the ton of mixed messages emanating from the advertising trade media.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Editor & Publisher ran a story that more than hinted at the idea that people are sick of digital news and are, more and more, going back to reading newspapers in print.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/feature/as-digital-fatigue-sets-in-readers-are-waking-up-to-newspapers/

• News hit Tuesday that the Tampa Times was buying and closing the Tampa Tribune.

http://www.poynter.org/2016/tampa-bay-times-buys-and-folds-the-tampa-tribune/409819/

• The Tampa Trib news was followed on Thursday by the surprising announcement that The New Day, a new British daily from Trinity Mirror would be shut down; after less than three months removed from its highly publicized launch.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/05/04/trinity-mirror-to-close-the-new-day-just-10-weeks-after-launchin/

• Then to make things really interesting, at least from my perspective, there was this provocative post on Venturebeat.com. The suggestion was that mobile advertising is too fraught with unknowns and outright click-fraud, that advertisers need to simply stop wasting their budgets on it until the issues are sorted out. I wholeheartedly agree.

http://venturebeat.com/2016/05/05/open-letter-to-cmos-stop-all-mobile-advertising-immediately/

So if you’re keeping score:

1. People are tired of reading digital news and newsprint is still valued by readers.
2. Newspapers are still struggling with costs and still closing.
3. Advertisers are pouring money into mobile advertising but it’s a complete waste of money.

These stories all have some essential truth to them but the larger reality, for advertisers, is that their ad agencies simply don’t know print that well anymore (they’ve been too busy chasing all the shiny objects for the past decade.)

The reason why last week was so weird, for us at Mediabids, was that the news hardly seemed newsworthy, especially regarding the notion of digital fatigue and the pitfalls of mobile advertising.

Search marketing and mobile advertising have been the two categories of ad spend that have grown the most in recent years. The ”success” of these ad categories have been based on the ”measureable results” they deliver for advertisers….and as we all know, many advertisers are increasingly reluctant to spend dollars on anything that isn’t measureable in some way (clicks, likes, followers, site visits etc.) Search conversion rates are considered to be the best among all digital media, averaging 2%-3%. Mobile conversions, really good ones anyway, are generally about 1%.

• https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/03/15/google-adwords-average-conversion-rates-by-industry-study/
• http://www.smartinsights.com/ecommerce/ecommerce-analytics/ecommerce-conversion-rates/

If you’re an advertiser, here’s the thing you probably don’t know (and wouldn’t realize given the stream of negative news reports that tend to emanate from the world of print media) print advertising converts at an extremely high rate. In short, print media puts digital (and all other media) too shame. In terms of calls, our print advertiser have averaged about 32% this year (and this is typical for the past decade.) To be clear, this 32% average is of about 40 different advertisers; meaning some convert much higher and some convert lower but all of our advertisers are well above conversion rates in digital and other media.

If measureable results is your thing, mobile advertising has been disappointing and your search budget is maxed out -it’s time to give print advertising another look. This isn’t news. This isn’t ”what’s next.” This is what makes sense.

Post by Jim Jinks.