BY Rachel Cagle
Is your client trying to decide how they should be spending their ad dollars this year? Sometimes it’s helpful to look at how other marketers, including their competition, are spending theirs. According to research from NP Digital, here’s some search marketing intelligence, content creation information and more that your client should know.
How Your Client Should Invest Their Ad Dollars in 2023
Search Marketing Intelligence
The first, and possibly the least surprising statistics, is 68% of marketers plan on increasing their search engine optimization budgets this year. According to NP Digital, the primary reason for this shift in ad dollars is because, “it provides a higher ROI than paid advertising.” Afterall, SEO is directly connected to potential customers’ ability to find your client and their resources. But NP Digital also reminds marketers not to expect to see results immediately after increasing their SEO budget. It takes time to see results from this strategy, but it is worth it.
Search Ads
It’s not just SEO that’s getting a boost in ad dollars. According to NP Digital, many marketers are increasing their search ad budgets across both major search engines:
- Google: 59% plan on increasing their budgets
- Bing: 47% will increase their budgets
Why? Because search ads provide a clear ROI, especially when compared to other ad media types.
Don’t let your client fall behind the competition with search. Use this search marketing intelligence to give their budget the boost it needs to stay competitive.
Content Creation
Content creation information can also double as search marketing intelligence since content also directs potential customers to your client’s website and should be easy to find. According to a previous SalesFuel blog, “Content creation is the backbone of a successful organization. You can’t educate potential and current customers about your client’s products or services without well-written and provoking emails, blog posts, white papers, etc. And you can’t hold their attention if your client’s website doesn’t provide educational and detailed content.” That’s probably why, according to NP Digital, 83% of marketers plan to increase their content creation budget this year. Only 9% of marketers plan to decrease their budgets.
To learn what types of content engages customers the best, check out the full SalesFuel blog here. And, of course, you should always run a content audit on your client’s website and content to see how it can be improved.
Speaking of content creation, 56% of marketers plan on increasing their email marketing budgets this year. An additional 38% plan on maintaining their current email budget, while only 6% plan on decreasing theirs. The main reason for continuing to invest in email marketing is, “Email is an important channel to use to communicate with existing and potential customers.”
The main reason for decreasing email marketing budgets is that the companies are pruning their email subscriber lists to remove inactive accounts, therefore saving money. While your client is probably among the 94% of marketers that don’t plan on decreasing their email marketing ad dollars, there is some good advice here. Pruning their email lists and getting rid of addresses that haven’t interacted with or even opened your client’s email in a long time can save them money. This money can be spent elsewhere to make their email ads even more effective, such as improved personalization.
What Channels Should Your Client Use, Specifically?
While studying what the competition and other marketers are buying is a good start for planning what to do with your client’s ad dollars this year, that’s all it is: A start. You need to know which ad media types will give your client the best results. You can find those on AudienceSCAN on AdMall by SalesFuel. There, on your client’s target audience’s profile, you can see if their target audience reacts well to search and email ads, or if they should focus on different ad types.
Photo by Alexander Grey