Today, marketing teams and advertisers have come to rely more and more on digital tools. Market research from IMARC Group found that the global advertising market is expected to reach $792.7 billion by 2027. As advertisers realize the potential of mobile as a medium, the advertising industry is slowly evolving from traditional media platforms to online and digital advertising. In fact, mobile advertising has seen exponential growth over the past few years, proving to be a cost-effective and convenient alternative method of communication for mobile users. With browsing, shopping, and financial transactions taking place more on mobile, it's only natural that advertisers follow suit.
Advertising's big shift to digital has pushed platforms into accommodating advertising and marketing features, allowing businesses and advertisers to conduct advertising practices straight from their platforms without relying on third-party services. Notably, social media platforms such as TikTok — home today to many eCommerce endeavors and small businesses, among its myriad of content creators — has helped companies measure advertising performance through their built-in TikTok Analytics service. Advertisers and content creators can directly measure performance, such as impressions and engagements, as well as the conversion rate for ads, using TikTok's analytics tool.
So, how did analytics become a business norm?
As many of our processes become digital and online, we handle more and more data, often overwhelmingly. Analytics can help not only organize all this digital data, but also make sense of them. Today, data analytics is used across most industries to help leaders and businesses make the best decisions according to what the data tells them. Because of this growing demand for data scientists, education institutions have adjusted to accommodate this talent pipeline as early as possible.
This is evident in how universities are now looking to expand traditional courses like mathematics to include business analytics. An article on mathematics and data literacy by University of Texas professor Steven Mintz highlights how in-demand fields like analytics need to be part of math in order to allow students to take career-aligned courses. Maryville University's mathematics degree incorporates data science and analytics to prepare students to be competitive in the business world. The built-in data science minor allows learners to build a foundation in mathematical modeling, machine learning, and coding. They can also opt to take advanced courses in data visualization, database principles, and predictive modeling. This means that graduates are open to diverse career opportunities, from working for tech firms to government agencies. As such, it's unsurprising that analytics is spreading across industries and businesses, including advertising.
Due to the many ways digital advertising can be accomplished today, advertisers may easily overspend on campaigns that don't offer the best return on investment. Insights from Duke University's professor of business administration Christine Moorman note a 10.4% growth in marketing spending in 2022. Of a company's marketing budget, 8.9% was spent on marketing analytics — an all-time high since a decade-long 6-7%. Today, marketing analytics is used in nearly half of all marketing decisions, helping boost company performance and enabling teams to justify investments and make accurate marketing decisions. Below are some of the reasons advertisers rely on analytics:
Better personalization
Insights from your analytics can inform you on which advertising messages or campaigns have more effectively reached the niche audience you want. Instead of overspending on ad campaigns that aren't targeted to your ideal niche, you can focus on delivering the most relevant messaging to your target audience, resulting in better conversions. Mondelez CMO Martin Renaud shared that personalization has become a primary focus in Mondelez's digital advertising campaigns. Based on past ad campaigns that prioritized personalizing their customer journey, Mondelez reported that personalized media delivered a 20% higher ROI.
Improve forecasting
Your advertising analytics will also give you foresight, allowing you to be more proactive and predictive in your advertising and marketing campaigns, as opposed to reactive. This means you're not simply following trends mindlessly; you can create advertising plans and campaigns that suit your brand and help you stand out from the competition. Insights from Forbes highlight how the power of AI and predictive analytics is known for saving companies money and time. AI-based insights from your data can make accurate predictions for consumer relationships and behavior, allowing you to tailor future ad campaigns better so that they not only reach more people but also lead to better conversions.
Drive overall ROI
Finally, as shown above, using and understanding your advertising analytics will improve overall ROI. Advertising can be costly, especially when you invest in the wrong aspects because you don't have enough data to inform your decisions. Trial and error may work, but the data-driven analysis will ultimately save you more time and resources while reaching even more people when used correctly. Insights from your advertising analytics can tell you how much traffic is driven by your campaigns and how much revenue is driven by the traffic acquired. From there, it's crucial to combine the knowledge with other analytical insights in your campaign to find out what is clicking with your target audience — and ditch what isn't.
At the end of the day, using and understanding your advertising analytics isn't just about making your job as an advertiser easier. It's cost-effective, helps you reach more potential customers, and pushes you to deliver only the best, relevant content that will transform ad clicks into product purchases and profit.
Specially written for dash.fi
By: Reverie Jaylee, Pexels
