The following print ad was designed to include a half a dozen of flooring, floor-heating, and installation products including best selling tile, grout, mortar, uncoupling memrane, cable, and thermostat.
Warm colours and pets, to show in-floor heating products to older rural audience. The body copy reads: “For happy pets and happy feet this winter; heated floors”.
Playing devil’s advocate: why print ads still hold the upper hand
In today’s digital era, it seems almost sacrilegious to argue in favor of print advertising over digital advertising. However, sometimes it’s important to revisit the basics and acknowledge the advantages of what many might consider an outdated medium and the disadvantages inherent in search engines and social media platforms.
For businesses targeting the middle-aged, upper-class demographic, print advertising is not only viable but often more effective. Advertising in a small, upscale, local publication, such as a golf community magazine can offer targeted high-impact exposure.
If you have a real estate agency, or sell furtniture or blinds, you might focus your campaigns on the new condo developments. If you’re into renovation or flooring, you would market your products and services in community extensions with a growing population.
Such publications are uncluttered, meaning your ad has a higher chance of being noticed, remembered, and acted upon. Print ads also have a longer lifespan; they sit on coffee tables and desks for weeks or even months, unlike digital ads that are here one second and gone the next.
Not your tools, not your rules
When you advertise on social media, you’re playing in someone else’s sandbox. Social media platforms are constantly evolving. They change their algorithms, adjust their policies, and can turn basic functions into paid features anytime. Moreover, government regulations can restrict or even ban certain platforms or advertising activities for specific businesses. So, why invest time and resources in building something you can’t fully control?
Not for selling
Social media is great for entertainment and building relationships, but it isn’t ideal for direct selling. The environment is too noisy and filled with distractions, like funny cat videos and memes. People aren’t typically in a buying mindset when they’re on social media, and even if they are, your ad is buried under tons of content.
When was the last time you saw an ad on social media and purchased it right away? The ads appear to users while they are scrolling for entertainment and relaxation, not in a mindset for buying or signing up for some products and services. It’s almost comical how many users voice their frustrations with repetitive ads that interupt their relaxation routines.
Not your data
One of the supposed advantages of social media advertising is access to data. While social media platforms provide access to insights and analytics, this data isn’t truly yours. You are merely renting insights that social media companies allow you to see, and often that data isn’t as useful as it seems. It’s not the same as lead generation, capturing, nurturing, and conversion and you can’t use it to increase your customer’s lifetime value.
Besides, engagement metrics like response and conversion rates don’t always tell the whole story. What truly matters is return on investment, which depends on factors like targeting costs and customer lifetime value. With social media’s ever-increasing costs and other challenges, the promise of ROI often falls flat.
Contrary to popular belief, print advertising is not an unmeasurable medium. Tools like toll-free numbers, custom URLs, QR codes, and coupon codes can track the effectiveness of a campaign without relying on a platform that may obscure or complicate your findings.
It isn’t always cheaper
There’s a common misconception that digital advertising is cheaper. While the cost per click or impression might seem low, the actual investment for a full-fledged campaign can skyrocket, especially when you factor in agency fees, platform costs, competing campaigns, and the significant time and effort required to create, manage, and optimize these campaigns.
There was a time when social media promised free exposure and organic reach. Those days are gone. Algorithms are now designed to prioritize paid content over organic posts, effectively forcing businesses to “pay to play.” This is a stark departure from the early promises of social media as an equal-opportunity platform. The focus has shifted from quality content to deep pockets.
While social media platforms provide access to insights and analytics, this data isn’t truly yours.As a result, businesses must spend more money to achieve the same level of engagement they once received for free. Meanwhile, digital ad costs continue to rise, creating a significant barrier for smaller businesses and startups with limited budgets.
A robust digital advertising strategy involves more than just a creative ad. It requires a finely-tuned system that includes lead generation, nurturing, conversion, and ongoing customer support—all managed through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and automated marketing tools such as email sequencing. If any part of that system fails, it can break the entire customer acquisition loop. The result? Many businesses end up with six-figure digital marketing contracts with little to no return.
It isn’t always great at targeting
Social media marketing can fail at targeting the right customer segment for a plethora of reasons and despite the advanced algorithms and targeting options. Granted, digital tools aren’t excempt from human error, or lack of knowledge or care.
Businesses may not know their most important customer group. Different platforms attract different user demographics and they can fail to reach their intended audience if they use the wrong one.
The designers might show warm tones and textures, or use outdated jargon when targeting young professionals in big city downtowns that may prefer achromatic hues such as white, grey or black. They can also fail to meet specific platform requirements that limit the body copy to less than 20% of the design.
But there’re several other reasons why campaigns may miss the mark.
Inaccurate user data
Social media segmentation relies on user-provided data that’s oftentimes outdated. They might still show ads in a foreign language for weeks just because you happened to have travelled there once.
They can also track our activity across apps including our location, private messages or browser history but it’s not always relevant and we may end up seeing ads for a gift or something we’ve already purchased long ago.
Certain social media platforms are crawling with bots. Developers may use scripts to imitate human interaction to click specific buttons in random order, time intervals, and cursor movement.
Some social media platforms are full of fan pages or individuals with dozens of accounts that are run by SMM freelancers that do not share interests and aren’t there to make purchases.
Change in policy
Governments and tech giants can pick and choose which data to collect, which businesses to promote or drop, and which ads to show. They can launch anti-trust cases and amend privacy laws to go after the big five and regulate how they collect and use their user data. They can force them to remove certain information such as private browser history or introduce other settings to control data collection and ad delivery. They can drop a company for something their current or former employee has said to avoid potential backlash and lawsuit.
Changes in algorithm
Search engines and social media algorithms may promote certain types of content, products, services, and websites over others, and that can change anytime without warning, rendering your SEO and SMM efforts obsolete overnight.
Technology updates
Operating systems may choose to improve their users’ experiences by preventing unwanted clicking or introducing features that disable personal ads or cross-app tracking.
Email providers may start moving or grouping all marketing and subscription emails to the junk or promotions folder, out of sight and out of mind.
Popular websites often redesign their user interfaces to improve user experience, shifting ad placement or limiting user engagement.
Businesses can also introduce personal settings or paid subscriptions to complement their ad-supported business model.
Personal settings
Users may opt for VPNs to avoid sharing relevant data, ad blocker apps or browser extensions, paid subscriptions, or even simple reader modes that limit data collection or ad delivery.
