Over the past two years, I’ve been researching meticulously in the world of digital marketing, trying to find answers to questions that have never been addressed before.
Throughout my investigation, I set out to interview the marketing managers of top organizations, marketing consultants and other digital marketing experts to get a broader understanding of how the market works.
But what I discovered was something bizarre. No one had a clear explanation on what the real return on their investment was in their digital marketing campaigns. There was no definite number about the engagement rate, reach and call-to-action. In addition to this, the banner/display advertisements that we come across on several landing pages, had minimal measurable impact in terms of total number of sales generated or customer acquisition cost it incurred. For instance, if one spends Rs.2000 on banner ads on Google or Facebook, what would be its measurable impact in proportion with the number of sales generated or customers the company acquired? Nobody knew.
To further researching on the available statistics, I was astonished to learn that majority of money spent on digital marketing has NO measurable effect! Yes, you read it right. Nearly $60 billion spent on paid display advertisements across the globe, has no clear measurable return.
According to the statistics, in 2020, 42.7% of people were using ad blockers (with the number increasing annually), and I’m sure you’d be using one too! This means, that almost half of spending goes to ads that no one will ever watch. Coming to the other 57.3% of people without an ad blocker, are on average exposed to between 4,000-10,000 ads each day! Do you still think that your ad could trigger a call-to-action for your target customer? The answer is NO. In addition, research shows that once an ad is viewed more than 40 times by a customer, it drives a negative impact on sales.
Clearly, nobody wants to be swarmed by ads all the time.
Considering these statistics, it would be clear that banner ads are a waste of money, and nobody should venture on them, right? However, most of all digital spending, on the contrary, is on banner ads only. What?! Why do we spend so much money on banner ads when we receive such an insignificant return?
This is the ripple effect. Initially when display ads were new, and because there were very few of them, the click-through rate (CTR) was extremely high – as high as 44%! As the word spread, and more and more people started opting for display ads, it led to overcrowding of ads for viewers. This is a phenomenon known as Banner blindness, where visitors on a website consciously or unconsciously ignore banner-like advertisements.
Due to the saturation in banner ads, its effectiveness started shrinking over the years and eventually led to a slump where its efficacy now, in 2020, reaches close to zero.
Although various companies live in a bubble that banner ads is the road to increase in customer acquisition, there are also a growing number of brands that are realizing this and are opting to make a switch. Instead of banners, they switched to the most basic channel of marketing – Recommendations.
According to Nielsen, 92% of people across the globe agree that they trust recommendations from friends and family more than any other form of advertising.
The truth is that we do not outright like to be sold products, but at the same time we do share their recommendations with our friends and family. This is supported by statistics claiming that 9 out of 10 customers agree that they try new products when they are recommended by friends and family, against 2 out of 10 customers who take action through other digital ads.
For this reason, Wyld was founded. A revolutionary marketing game by investing substantially in referral marketing, where brands receive the best results through organic marketing, to drive impactful sales for a lasting period. Here, the customer is the ambassador for the brand.
Customers make a purchase using the Wyld card, give a shoutout by tagging the brand on their Instagram account and win massive cashbacks! Wyld, India’s first social currency payment card, helps you leverage your influence with every purchase. All you need is 1000+ followers on Instagram and Wyld will help you encash your influencer.
