Digital Costs Are Rising
The flood of money into digital advertising is having an effect. The price to advertise and achieve results is starting to climb.
Digital is thought to be an inexpensive alternative to other forms of marketing, yet the price per action, as reported by Wordstream, is rapidly climbing.
Just to get a click costs more, especially for legal terms. This area is now averaging $6.35 per click (search network). Health is $3.13 per click, and finance is $3.56 per click. The average across all industries is $2.41 per click on the search network and $0.59 on the Google display network.
Clicks are great, but actions, conversions and sales are more important. The average cost per action (CPA) across all industries is $56.11 on search and $90.80 on the display network. More emphasis needs to be placed on optimizing your digital spend and optimizing your digital creative. According to Wordstream, “In many of these cases, the best converting advertisers aren’t afraid to change their offer or their conversion flow to boost their conversion rates. Or they may be taking advantage of conversion-boosting tactics, such as video landing pages.”
The costs are rising. Our optimization of creative and media buying needs to rise to meet the challenge.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle. After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant. He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.” Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.” One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College. Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board. Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.
