JeffMolander.com

The Bad Habit that is Display Ad Spending

by Jeff Molander

For over a decade now we digital marketers have been suckin’ down that cool, refreshing, painfully outdated advertising strategy — display ads.  We’re investing billions in a scatter-shot tactic running on a precision-focused platform (ie. the Web).  Why?  Cause that’s what our daddy does and that’s what “research” tells us to do.  But the illogical and dangerous habit doesn’t stop there.   The argument to invest in digital display advertising has degenerated to shocking levels.  Everything we read (mainly faux research) and hear (at conferences) is insane.  We’re not told to invest because “display ads work” but “because they feed what everyone knows DOES work.”  That is, search marketing!  That alone appears to be why we must continue to spend on yesterday’s tired media model of chasing eyeballs and calling it a day.

I find this fascinating — especially in that how search marketing, for most businesses who use it, doesn’t work (or at best is over-rated).   Are we marketers going to continue funding display because search marketing companies (iProspect) who are owned by companies with strategic interest in display advertising (Ageis) tell us that to stopping a bad habit will harm us?  Aren’t we smarter than that?