Every time you try to research the effectiveness of social media advertising, you constantly obtain very vague and ambiguous. Does social media advertising really work? Is there a measurable return on investment? I think the answer to both of these questions is obvious. Yes, social media advertising works, and No, you cannot measure the return on investment. Digital zombies will have you think otherwise, but the there is no real measurable return. Consider the IPO of Facebook recently; many investors simply could not put their arms around a valuation of a company selling something intangible with no real data to support their marketing strategy.

Before we explore the context of this piece and get into deep, brain wrenching thoughts on how to effectively balance and structure your strategic marketing platform, first we must consider some data points.

Based on a non scientific study recently conducted, we ran some numbers on social media advertising platforms. The first was a Google AdWords campaign that received slightly over 28,000 impressions and got 128 clicks, that is a click-through rate of about .45%. The second was a Facebook campaign that received over 505,000 impressions with less than 45 clicks; this is a click-through rate of less than .01%. Finally, there was a similar campaign on Linked-In that had slightly under 30,000 impressions with a click-through rate of 15, once again a rate of less than .01%. At this point you can clearly see why the Facebook IPO was somewhat of a under-value proposition. In essence, not really, because you need to carefully weigh your total marketing campaign between many forms of media to effectively deliver your message and get measurable results, read on:

Let’s now look at the total dollars spent on marketing across all mediums in the U.S.:

Television: $66.4 billion in 2013 to $75.4 billion in 2012

Digital Media: $32 billion in 2013 to $61.4 billion in 2017

Television remains the top advertising medium in the country with an annual spend of over $66 billion in 2013 and is expected to capture the dominant position well into the future. With almost 2/3 of all marketing budgets being spent on TV and digital media, the real question is to extrapolate is the return on investment of one versus the other. I would speculate to say, despite vast opposition from the geek community, that TV is enormously more effective that social media. But don’t stop here, you need to be the final judge based on some of the data we will present.

Social Media vs. traditional marketing platforms: Social media is inexpensive, it is interactive, somewhat measurable, and in most cases very time consuming to accurately implement an effective campaign. Comparatively, traditional marketing is costly; it is non-reciprocal, somewhat measurable, and very tangible. Most proponents will tell you that an inverse relationship exists between effective growth and decline of each medium. On one hand, the pro-social media authorities will tell they are on the increase and traditional forms are declining, with the opposite being proclaimed from the traditionals. The fact of the matter is that both of them are growing and an effective marketing campaign will need to utilize both mediums.

The cost of social media marketing makes it extremely attractive, roughly $5.00 per thousand impression vs. $10.00/M for TV, $30.00/M for print and $55.00/M for direct mail. However, when it comes to engagement levels, Television is at the top with over 50% compared to Facebook at 12% and Twitter at 2%. Additionally, consumers place a higher level of trust with TV marketing because higher costs have a direct association to a more reliable message.

With traditional advertising we often measure a wide demographic reach as compared to social media where we can measure a more finite message to speak to an individual’s concerns or more customized message. Social media creates a broader overall customer experience that allows you to monitor and participate what people are saying about your brand or company. Unfortunately, designing a campaign to address these finite concerns is very difficult, primarily because the likes of Facebook and others do not share demographic profiles to allow companies to effectively target a specific demographic. Mark Zuckerberg recently purchased all the homes surrounding his Palo Alto residence because he was concerned with privacy, his company has collected more information on you that you care to know, if they ever release this data, look out, the barrage of targeted ads will be overwhelming.

What should the future of your marketing platform look like? It should contain a carefully balanced mix between traditional mediums and digital mediums depending on y0ur brand and company marketing objectives. As the chart above clearly illustrates, all forms of medium are alive and growing, with the possible exceptions of newspapers. Nonetheless, all need to be considered. Most people are tired of sharing information and are making their social profiles much more private almost to the point of being annoyed. Social media is not immune to users feeling like they have been mistreated, and if they want to proliferate, they must create useful interactions with their users.

We have become an empathetic society, Obama, his staff, and his economic policy has clearly demonstrated this cultural shift. Marketers need to focus on a strategy of “shared responsibility” and supercharge their movement to this platform. Shared responsibility? Yes, we have embraced a cultural change, a least temporarily, to have our life decisions run by 3rd party entities. It reminds me of being on the Titanic when the front of the ship was underwater and people and the back were saying, “I am just glad I am on the back of the boat” This may be an extreme example, but many consumers will be looking for targeted advertising campaigns to lead them rather than suggest.

The millenials (18-34 year old) continue to demonstrate unprecedented interest in working together to support this empathetic society. They believe a fractious government unable to make meaningful change for the better is the way to the future. Marketers need to recognize that this is the number one force in America and beyond. This philosophy dictates that you deliver value and relevance that can be measured on the same scale that the millenials think, your marketing strategy needs to embrace these behavioral changes while increasing sales. See my publication entitled “The Gen Y Influence” and “Marketing Strategy for the Gen Y Influence”.

I believe this will be the year of the global “drop” in terms of more localized marketing platforms. Consumers will be further influenced by localized marketing campaigns that hit the heart of their sphere where they live, where they shop, and what they buy. As stated earlier, people are getting tired of being ruled by Google algorithms and will be looking to make decisions that are free of some digital result. Look to employ five local marketing officers than one global marketing officer, it will provide dramatic results. Consumers will be looking for coherence, impact, pleasure and simplification from the brands they will be supporting.

Anticipate a movement in the future towards a disconnection from the online community to a more traditional approach. Consumers are looking for more touch, more connection, and more fun from marketing strategies. So ask yourself this question, “Ask not what your customers will do for you, but what can you do for your customers”.

Conclusion: How you interpret this report is entirely up to you and should be structured towards your brand and company strategy. In essence, it is critical that you understand your customer and your marketing campaign. At the end of the day, no one can effectively place a value on digital media; no one has been able to determine if the return on investment is worthy. However, the one take-away is this: digital media has an enormous impact and cannot be overlooked, it is inexpensive to implement but difficult to target. Digital media needs to be combined with traditional forms of marketing to create the most effective strategy.

Advertisements are all around us. Whether we’re watching television, driving down the freeway, flipping through a magazine, or listening to the radio, we are bombarded on every side by messages trying to get us to buy a product or service. And although there have been countless debates over whether or not advertising is effective and whether it really does influence people to purchase products, the fact is many companies will spend billions of dollars on a single advertisement in the hopes that it will increase their profits.

Good advertisements have the power to make people stop and take notice. You have to have been living under a rock not to notice the success of Geico’s caveman series or the iPod’s silhouette series of commercials and advertisements. And as a result of those advertisements, sales went up significantly for those two companies.

Advertising creates awareness of the product and can convey messages, attitudes, and emotions to entice and intrigue audiences. At least those are the desired effects of an advertisement. Needless to say, some advertisements fail miserably in their purpose.

So, what makes the difference between a successful advertisement and an unsuccessful one? It’s all in the design. Typically, larger organizations produce more effective advertisements, while newer and smaller companies are the ones that produce the duds. This is largely because bigger organizations have the money to hire professionals while smaller companies do not.

The advantage of hiring an in-house advertising developer or hiring an advertising agency is that you get the skills of people who have been trained in creating effective advertisements. Many have spent years and years going to school, studying past effective advertisements, looking at elements of design, and learning how to create their own effective advertising campaigns.

Learning how to create effective advertisements does not happen overnight, but there are a few simple rules that many workers for professional advertising agencies follow to create effective advertisements that will appeal to audiences and hopefully increase the company’s revenue. The following paragraphs list a few advertising principles that companies and advertisers follow when creating their own advertising campaigns.

Perhaps the most important quality of an advertisement is its uniqueness. In a world where people often see hundreds of advertisements a day, an advertisement must be unique and different in order to capture audiences’ attention. Going back to the iPod example, the single block of color with an image of a black silhouette was extremely effective at the time because it was unlike anything else around it. The simplicity of the advertisement stood out against posters and billboards that had busier images and much more text. Also, the use of bright, bold colors made people stop and look at the image. Even though the advertisement had little text on it, people got the message that this product was new, fun, and bold.

Of course, there are a variety of ways to make your advertisement stand out. Look around your area and write down descriptions of advertisements you see. What are the trends? Are they text heavy? Do they use similar colors? What kinds of images are on the advertisements? Once you start noticing trends, try to think of ways your advertisement can go against those trends and be something different–something that will make people stop and look.

One word of caution: Once you’ve made people stop and look at your advertisement, they need to be able to understand what you’re selling. You may have the most eye-catching image on your advertisement, but if it is completely unrelated to your product or service, then viewers won’t understand what you want them to buy. So, be sure that when you are selecting your images and text for your advertisement, people will understand what you’re trying to sell.

A well-designed advertisement will also communicate well to audiences. In order to figure out how to make your advertisement effective, you need to identify your audience. Who are you trying to target? Teenagers? The Elderly? Business people? Parents? There are a variety of different audiences, and the more specifically you can identify the audience for your product, the better chance you have of designing an ad that will effectively influence your audience.

For instance, if your audience consists of young teenage girls, you might choose to use bright and bold colors, but for business people you may want to create an advertisement that uses more professional blues and blacks (but don’t be afraid to be a little bolder if you’re trying to stand out).

The key is to think of the general traits of your specific audience and try to reflect those traits in your advertisement. What do they value? What do they fear? What motivates them? Once you’ve answered those questions, it should be easier to come up with a few solid ideas for an advertising campaign.

Once you’ve developed some ideas for an eye-catching advertisement and identified how you want to communicate with your specific audience, some good, solid design principles need to come into play. The advertisement needs to be legible. Viewers shouldn’t have to work to get what you’re trying to say. The advertisement needs balance. One side shouldn’t feel heavier than the other. The advertisement should also make good use of contrast, repetition, color, and pattern. When these design elements are implemented well into an advertisement, the result is a fabulous ad that will appeal aesthetically to viewers.

The above is just a brief overview of what advertisers have to think about when designing an ad. You can see why many people find it helpful to hire an advertising agency to help them develop ideas and create effective advertisements. And whether you’re looking for a Seattle or a Miami advertising agency, you shouldn’t have a problem finding an organization in your area to help you create the perfect advertisement campaign for your company.

WHAT IS A PENNY AUCTION?

Penny auctions have exploded in popularity with the massive growth of the internet. However, few people know the true origins of penny auctions.Beginnings actually stretch back to the Great Depression. Those were hard times for everyone, but even harder for farmers. Farmers struggled to bring in steady income because of droughts and crops not selling as well as they had previously. As a result, the banks would foreclose on the farmers who couldn’t keep up with their mortgage payments.

The banks weren’t satisfied with just repossessing the house, they wanted to raise as much capital as possible, so they resorted to selling off the possessions of the owners of the repossessed houses. There was not much the farmers could do about it so they began bidding ridiculously low prices, pennies, on the items while threatening others who dared to bid higher than a few pennies.

The auctions of today hardly resemble their tremulous beginnings. Being part of a penny auction today is exhilarating, fun, and addictive. It combines the selling format of auctioning with a little bit of chance factored in.Auctions are a game of strategy but also a game of luck.

The premise behind penny auctions is giving people the chance to win an item at a drastically reduced price.Auctions make that possible by spreading out the cost of the product among multiple bidders. In order for a person to take part in an auction, they must pay a set price for each bid. For example, if a person wanted to bid on a fifty dollar Amazon gift card then he would spend a dollar for each time a bid placed. If he ended up winning the gift card, then he would only have spent a few dollars for a fifty dollar gift card. Usually penny auctions sell bids in packages.

HOW PENNY AUCTIONS WORK!

The main foundation of penny auctions is the pay-per-bid format. It is the key that allows bidders to win items at the fraction of their retail value and allows the auction owners to keep their site profitable. Most y auction sites run on the same premise: people pay a set amount for each bid, whenever a person places a bid within the closing seconds of the auction time will be added, the last person left with a unique bid after the clocks runs out will win the item. There are a large variety of items that can be won, but they tend to be popular electronics or gift cards to popular stores.

There are two types of auctions: lowest unique bid auction and highest unique bid auction. Lowest unique auction sounds confusing but it is actually quite simple. A unique bid is when only one person has a bid at a certain price. Bids usually start at one penny, a bidder can then place a bid at two pennies. Until another bidder places a higher bid, the most recent bidder will be the lowest unique bid because that was the only bid at two cents and nobody bid higher. However, penny auctions generally don’t stop at one penny. It is not uncommon to find auctions that end up at a couple hundred dollars based on the popularity of the item being auctioned. However, the same principles apply for those auctions. Highest unique bid auctions follow the more traditional auction format such as eBay. The person with the highest bid at the end of the auction wins the item.

Auction site owners turn a profit by selling bids. Say twenty people are bidding on a ten dollar gift card at one dollar per bid, at the end of the auction if there were twenty bids placed in total then the site owner would have made twenty dollars with a ten dollar profit.Auctions do seem like a win-win situation:The site owner makes money while the bidder gets an item for dirt cheap. However, not everyone wins in penny auctions. The people who paid one dollar each bid but left with nothing to show for their investments will not be so happy.

HOW TO WIN!

Penny auction has a lot of chance mixed into it, but one can incorporate strategy that will help raise the chances of winning. Playing smart can make all the difference between gambling and auctioning.

The first crucial tip to winning penny auctions is to know how to manage your bids. Your goal should be to win as much as possible without spending a ton of money buying bids. Managing your bids means that you should already know how much you are willing to risk in order to win an item. The amount of capital you are willing to risk will determine how many bids you can use. Once you know how many bids you have to spend on an item, then you will be better able to manage how and when you place a bid. That will keep you from blowing away all of your bids in the first few seconds of the auction.

The next tip is to practice time management. When fighting in the trenches of penny auctions, you have two enemies: other bidders and time. Knowing when to bid is a must if you want to have success. Placing a bid when there is a lot of time left on the clock is never a good idea. You have to remember that the key to winning a penny auction is being the last one standing when the clock runs out and that each bid increases the amount of time left. It would be a good practice to wait until the last few minutes of the auction before you begin to bid.

The final tip for successful auctioning is to keep your emotions under control.Auctions have a lot of similarities to gambling, and just like gambling, your spending can get out of control. If you keep your emotions level, it will keep you from making rash decisions and blowing loads of cash. Keep your mind clear so that you can gage the behavior of the other bidders and outsmart them.

HOW TO AVOID SCAM SITES!

Penny auctions are a great addition to the web whether you want to win an item that otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford or if you simply enjoy the thrill that comes with bidding in auctions. Unfortunately, scam sites have tarnished the reputation of the legitimate penny auction sites. However, there are ways that you can protect yourself from scamers and enjoy your auctioning without having to worry about losing your money due to dishonesty.

Checking the reputation of the auction site before you start spending your hard earned money is always a good idea. Chances are other people have tried the site before you and some of them have left reviews. The reviews are your way to gage whether a auction site is trustworthy or not. If a site is getting overwhelmingly negative reviews, then that is a clear indication that you should steer your business elsewhere.

Another tool you can use to protect yourself is checking the Alexia ranks of the auction sites. Alexia rank will give a solid view of how much traffic the auction is getting. If you see a huge difference in the amount of traffic Alexia is projecting and the amount of active bidders on the site, then warning signals should be ringing in your head. Some auction sites have been known to set up robots that automatically bid on projects in order to keep the auction going and inflate the price. That is known as shill bidding. You can sniff out those sites by comparing the traffic the site should be getting to the amount of users using this site.

CONCLUSION!

New legislation may come out later down the road that will officially make penny auctions gambling, but until then, it is a fun, exciting auction that allows one to win the item they’ve always wanted but couldn’t afford.Auctions are also quite lucrative for the site owners because of the pay-per-bid strategy they’ve incorporated. Penny auctions had humble beginnings with farmers who just wanted to get back at the banks who kicked them out of their house. More recently, auctions have enjoyed an explosion in popularity with the rise of the internet.

There are two main formats fora auctions, lowest and highest unique auction, however they both run on the same premise where the last unique bid wins the item. Winning a penny auction will require a certain amount of mental tactic and a bit of luck. However, you can increase your odds of winning by practicing certain techniques such as managing your bids wisely, learning how to work with the time, and keeping a level head and your emotions under control. When you combine those three strategies to your bidding plan, you will find that you win a lot more often.

It is important that you do your due diligence to protect yourself when participating in auctions. Not every auction is run by honest and trustworthy people. There are people out there who just want to take your money. You can protect yourself by ensuring that you only bid on sites that already have a very positive reputation from real users.