Winning Big with Digital Advertising Recap

March 14th, 2016

by Carrie Brown

On Tuesday, March 8, AMA of West Michigan welcomed Jason Dodge, founder of BlackTruck Media + Marketing, who presented on Winning Big with Digital Advertising.

In a cause-effect kind of way, as our digital world expands, so do our digital advertising opportunities. Let’s break it down.

Digital has reach.

Our days are filled with all things digital – devices, phones, tablets and so much data. Last year of the $600 billion spent on advertising, $65 billion was spent on digital ads. A number expected to grow.

There’s been a huge shift in how we access data; 40% of the world population has the Internet. And more people are now connected to the Internet than subscribe to cable TV.

We’re wired, connected and feverishly searching the web. There are more than 3+ billion Google searches per day, and 50% of those searches are on mobile devices. Mobile has finally surpassed desktop search. 65% of American adults use social media. 81% of Millennials are actively using YouTube.

As marketers, there are so many opportunities to reach your audience. To begin, Jason believes it’s important to define your goals.

What’s the goal?

Are you trying to grow leads, generate online sales, encourage white paper downloads or app installs? Kind of like an athlete visualizing the perfect game, Jason believes it’s best to know what the goal is and work backwards from that point. Although paid-advertising might not give a direct one-to-one conversion, if it’s going in the right direction toward the goal, then that’s positive.

Understand your audience.

Jason believes it’s important to understand your audience as a user. What are they interacting with the most at key points in their purchasing journey?

“Like anything in marketing, if we’re not focused on our target audience, all the monetary investment into advertising is wasted. Understanding who the audience is, and where they are is key,” says Jason.

“With digital advertising, and online marketing tactics in general, we can meet them at nearly every step of the journey,” said Jason.

Not all channels are created equal.

Traditional advertising methods, like a billboard, are measured differently. For example, a billboard is measured on exposure, and the traffic driving by it each day.

“If we relate a billboard to a display ad, this would simply be the number of impressions. What a billboard does poorly is measure interaction rate, i.e. when someone clicks on the ad and takes action. That alone is where many traditional channels fall short,” said Jason.

How to do it better.

Of course, traditional advertising has its place for some industries. It works great as part of an integrated approach with well-placed digital media.

“They might have found out about your company in a magazine, but you can certainly bet they’ll go and look for you online, and you better be there when they’re ready,” said Jason.

We want to thank Jason Dodge for taking the time to present his insights into the digital marketing industry. We also encourage you to subscribe to our email list and keep watch for future luncheon events!