What's better - digital or offline advertising?

Televisions everywhere must be smirking away with the new found importance that marketeers have put on the digital media. All new "trends" talk about the death of TV and print.

But reality is that in both developed and developing markets - this is going to take a much longer time than is predicted.

For starters - penetration of television in India for example is at 98%. You read that right. 98%. The penetration of smartphones is less than 40%. Hence the constant scope of growth and opportunities.

We are a fucked up country. We look at everything from our high standards and fail to see that all the audience we have in mind (the upwardly mobile, affluent, digitally savvy Indian) is less than 5% of the total population. It's the population that is currently paying taxes for the entire nation.

Coming back - it started with I assume readership. Then radio, then television, and now digital and mobile. Fact is - it took these technologies decades to get to where they are today. Granted that the rate of adoption of newer technologies are on the rise due to multiple factors. People are earning more than before, people have access to more things than before. Cities are yet pulling in people from smaller towns etc etc.

Now let's talk effectiveness of these media. Most platforms gave access to eyeballs (or ears - for radio and podcasts). And that drove advertisers to push an ad in a given platform. When it came down to the effect or ROI on a platform - there was a big murmur on the real numbers as each of the data points shared on arriving at a concensus on the actual readership/viewership seemed farcical or overly exaggerated to put it mildly.

Digital came in and said that we could track performance and let you know where your money is being used. Fabulous said marketeers and gave all their money to the media.

Sometimes, I think the sole job of a media planner is to sell a platform. The newer the better. They have the numbers - and numbers for marketeers are like diamonds on a engagement ring for a girl in love with someone's money - sorry person.

So digital came along and soon - people were pushing for digital marketing. Many marketeers were yet skeptical about this whole digital bandwagon though. Complaints of less than 5% being kept aside for the overall marketing budget was something we heard often in India.

But slowly and steadily - with the rise of Google and Facebook - we slowly gave away our data, our money and our lives to these digital powerhouses. They started telling us why digital is better and when is digital better (if you thought it was for a specific time within the overall marketing funnel - you were wrong). To give them credit - they did have a better time in the bottom of the funnel - when it came to closing the deal and purchase along with driving advocacy. But we will debate that later.

Today - let's take a snapshot at the reality of the platforms and the need for them.
Google, Youtube and Facebook are some of the biggest ad platforms (yes yes - there's Twitter and all the other jingbang too but let's stick to the celebrities and not focus on micro influencers shall we?)

All of them have a massive user base.

Facebook is also a pre-installed app in most phones. As of 2019 - there are an approximate 350 million users of Facebook in India alone* (as per statista data).

Total number of internet users is about 560 million in India. That's yet less than half of the Indian population.

Youtube has 265 million active monthly users as per reports shared. That's yet less that 50% of the online users.

Google data is vague but would be higher than Facebook for sure as 90% of all smartphones in India are an Android so safe to say that all of them are searching on Google by default. Fringes do install other browsing apps for other reasons too but can't avoid the pull and security of Google Search.

How do we calculate effectiveness on digital marketing?

CPC, CPM, CTR, etc - it's basically the number you want to see and believe that your campaign is going to work.

Media planners sell marketeers 2 kinds of advertising modules. You either do banner ads in key platforms (display) or use search display ads to push a brand by pushing keyword search algorithms.

Facebook too uses it's platform for display type ads and also - promoted ads that come in various formats (carousal, image, video etc).

Why would someone advertise on these platforms? For reach? Not really.

Is it because I can have a sharper cut of my consumer profile and get a better result - theoretically right - but practically wrong.

Looking at some global data shared by Hubpost regarding the CPC, CPM and CTR of various categories - you can see how Google is really fleecing someone of their bucks.



This is the average CTR of the various industries. Display ads are a clear blind spot as far as the consumer is concerned but marketeers love to spend money where it's not needed - that's basically their job - and there's more data to back it too.

The chances of someone clicking on a search ad is higher - but nobody is following up that data with the overall drop rate from that particular link (website etc). As users - how often have we clicked on something by mistake :)

Next is CPC.  This is even more unpleasant for a marketeer. At a broad average - the study states that the CPC overall for Display is at $0.58 and for Search is at $2.32. So as a marketeer - I'm paying more on search as the chances and probability of someone clicking is higher?



The data that got me shocked was the average cost of conversion. As someone from the advertising industry - who is often challenged by the potential of digital - this data is like a soft tickle in a boxing fight with someone who is double your size.



The highest percentage of conversion is at 7% and that too for insurance category. 7 fucking percent.
When it comes to Display - that number is just 2 freaking percent. And as per the Google data - GDN comprise of over 2 million websites that have access to 90% of internet users. So let me give you a perspective - someone has access to a massive crowd in an arena - but their attention span and their chances to like you and click you are just 2% and we are supposed to be happy with that? Forget happy - are people OK with that shit?

Lastly - the average cost per acquisition for both display and search stood at $60 each.

Now let's look at Facebook.

As per the latest reports - this is how the News Feed ads fared:




Compare that to Right Hand Placement (or the display ads of the Facebook world):



There's also Facebook Marketplace and Facebook messenger data but they are worse than these numbers.

If I were a marketer - regardless of what media planners wish I hear - here's what I see.

I'm technically paying more per person but having less conversion per million.

As more and more people are running into the digital world - these platforms are surely getting more users - but also charging a bomb for someone to reach them but guaranteeing very little chances of them taking action or responding once you reach them.

So the very thing that digital fought is the very thing that digital has become. In comparison - cost per million (person) on the offline media is far cheaper.

If we consider the IPL as the Superbowl of Indian advertising - a 10 sec ad costs INR 3,50,000.

That's 35,000 for every second.
The 2019 IPL had a viewership of 462 million which broke earlier records. That's as high as the total internet user population in India. The average CPM for a base rate is at INR 120.

That's a niche audience of cricket enthusiasts, mostly male. This is yet television. If they are watching it on Hotstar - it's a different ball game altogher.

So - the point I'm trying to make is that we were told that performance ads to better on digital and offline can be used to drive awareness and all.

As of today - even Google is asking marketers to focus on brand marketing and not just performance marketing and I'm not surprised looking at the fuckall numbers that performance marketing is supposed to produce. The sharper audience focus we have in our targeting - the smaller that number is going to get, the costlier it is going to be to reach them and the conversions would be slightly better off.

For all that hullabaloo of the magical and effective use of digital - they have till now down jack shit to even stand and have a conversation with the offline world.

It's like a non-stop trash talker who gets challenged by the greats and then loses but yet - never stops the trash talk. Why - because that's how he is. Nothing or nothing will probably change him.

In the case of Facebook and Google - who practically own the digital space today - for all their talks of being more effective than offline - they surely haven't lived up to the hype.

Offline was referred to mass media. Now - with the growing number of internet users - digital too wants to push it's mass media agenda and asking marketeers to push brand marketing too instead of just performance marketing.

In my honest opinion, digital can't beat offline in numbers. Nor in effectiveness. Not now - not in the near future. But digital is an important and necessary platform to reach that same fuck that TV is trying to reach, the same idiot that radio is trying to reach, that same wannabe social commentator that newspapers are trying to reach.


Just be wise and use all you can and do what you always do best - hope for the best.

Advertising while in essence is supposed to be effective - is to begin with a gamble. I know what I should say, and probably how I should say it - but have no control on what your interpretation or reactions will be.

Peace out.