The Hidden Costs of Digital Marketing
Digital marketing is no longer a luxury—it’s a necessity. With businesses often allocating significant budgets to digital platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, the need for cost efficiency has never been greater.
However, a staggering 44% of digital ad spend is wasted, according to recent industry reports. The question is: How much of your digital marketing budget is delivering real value?
What is digital marketing?; Digital Marketing is the use of digital channels to market products and services in order to reach consumers or potential customers.
The Challenge: Digital Complexity & Overspending
Whether doing it in house or employing a digital agency, many businesses invest in digital marketing without fully understanding the costs. Supplier contracts, service agreements, and invoice structures are often complex, making it difficult to effectively track performance or negotiate better terms.
Companies often lack visibility into their actual ROI. While agencies often produce reports, these frequently lack sufficient detail needed to be useful. This lack of transparency can lead to overspending, inefficiencies, and missed opportunities for cost savings.
Even if you are doing it in-house and not engaging an agency, the question still remains; are you across your digital marketing and the returns?
Where Cost Savings Hide
Through a structured cost analysis review, businesses can uncover hidden inefficiencies in their digital marketing spend through:
- Supplier Consolidation: Reducing fragmentation by working with fewer providers. Many businesses work with multiple digital service providers, leading to fragmentation and redundancy.
- Contract Optimisation: Reducing fragmentation by working with fewer providers. Reviewing existing supplier contracts can reveal overcharges and opportunities for better pricing. If you have a contract, when was the last time you reviewed it?
- Performance-Based Spending: Aligning digital spend with the businesses clear KPIs ensures every dollar delivers measurable results. Regardless of if you are doing it in-house or engaging an agency, set clear KPIs to measure against.
- Process Automation: Automating reporting and monitoring to reduce manual costs. Setting up meaningful digital dashboards enhances monitoring, reducing manual oversight costs. In the past, I’ve looked numerous reports and have been left wanting.
- A Mix Rebalancing: Regularly reviewing channels to ensure relevance and effectiveness. The continual reviewing of performance allows you to continually challenge and fine tune what you are doing.
A Smarter Data-Driven Approach
Digital marketing has become a high-stakes investment, yet inefficiencies, unclear ROI, and complex supplier agreements often lead to wasted spend. A strategic, cost-optimized approach ensures every dollar works harder.
In some ways it has become a bit of a black box for some…
A Smarter Data-Driven Approach
ERA Group Digital Marketing team provides organisations with a structured framework for smarter spending and savings, including:
- Analysis: We benchmark market prices, assess business strategies, and evaluate media buys, supplier options, and digital analytics to uncover inefficiencies and opportunities.
- Optimisation: By developing structured agency briefs, refining supplier selection, and negotiating performance-based contracts, we ensure organisations get the best value for their spend.
- Implementation: We integrate your chosen supplier/s, roll out new channels as agreed and automate analytics.
- Monitoring: Ongoing performance tracking, pricing refreshes, and marketing mix adjustments keeps investments optimised and aligned with business goals.
The Result: Greater ROI and Lower Costs
By optimising spend through data and strategic supplier management, businesses can cut digital marketing waste, and increase campaign performance. Results have generally been outstanding and far exceed client’s expectations.
Take Control of Your Digital Costs
Maximising your digital marketing impact is becoming crucial for long-term success. ERA Group can help you optimize your strategy for cost efficiency and better results.
Let’s start the conversation…