Half of Ads Are Wasted... Who Knows Which Half?
I bet the small slice of human in Mark Zuckerberg would think this is funny.
Also I bet all of the social ad platforms do the same thing: take the ads that we so painstakingly produce, and spread them across random & useless ad inventory to ensure every single one of us contributes to the ad wastage.
However, at the same time… those platforms serve our ads to just enough relevant people to ensure we continue using their platform.
Now, I would normally prefer to rail against Meta for their alleged shitty practices, but it is Q4… already NOVEMBER… and is not the time for that.
It’s time to be pragmatic and make the holiday sales season a good one.
So let’s reframe this into something more palatable.
Let’s assume that you are running ads on Instagram. And your CPM is $12.
If we say that 85% of those “viewers” are not relevant to your brand or product, you might consider that $10.20 of that $12 goes down the toilet. That your goods are shown to 900 people (or bots) that will never purchase… And only $1.80 of your spend is targeting your actual audience.
Bear with me, and I am aware this is some half-glass-full, mental-gymnastic-y bullshit.
But what if we forget about the 850 useless views, and consider that 12 bucks is getting us in front of 150 potential customers… our actual audience.
To me at least this frame is palatable. 12 bucks, 150 chances at a sale…
If we can even get 1 sale from that, we’re OK. A 12 dollar cost per acquisition ain’t bad for the majority of DTC brands. It shakes out.
So picture 150 people sitting in front of their computer or phone, looking at you holding one of your products… what would you want them to know?
What is it that this small group of people need to know to put your product in the lead among the competition.
What do you say to them?
This is what customer insights is all about.
It’s not about being on brand or clever or super creative… it’s about finding a way to say something that captures those 150 people’s attention long enough for them to decide if what you have is what they need.
It’s as easy and as complicated as that.