Outbound marketing in the entering world

Search engine optimization, content marketing and all inbound marketing are important for business promotion. But let’s not forget about advertising.

I recently attended a marketing event where a marketer in charge of search engine optimization and content for a multimillion-dollar company complained that traffic to her site had declined due to low ad performance.

It was weird to hear her complain about the results of the ads, but admitted to them.

Shouldn’t entry tactics replace advertising?

Incoming vs. outgoing

For years, some marketers have argued that outbound (traditional) marketing is dead, dying, or less important.

As HubSpot says, “Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experience tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing shapes the connections they seek and solves problems they already have. ”

Take a marketing course at the Institute of Digital Marketing and you will hear instructor Philip Polman say, “In today’s business world, inbound marketing is the most important aspect of digital marketing.”

But is this always true? What if outbound marketing is needed? And why can’t input and output coexist?

Several facts show that advertising (outbound marketing) is growing, and this growth probably indicates value.

Amazon Advertising

According to data, Amazon’s advertising services earned $ 31.6 billion in 2021 10-K Company Documentation (PDF) with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Approximately $ 9.7 billion of this revenue came in the last three months of the year alone. Over the year, Amazon’s advertising revenue grew by 32%.

This result puts Amazon well behind Google Ads ($ 205.9 billion in 2021) and Facebook$ 115 billion in 2021), but ahead of YouTube ($ 28.8 billion in 2021) and TikTok ($ 4 billion in 2021).

Amazon is a major player in digital advertising. And it continues to grow rapidly despite the constraints. The company monitors most of the content, closely monitors the audience and has even been accused of stealing product ideas from its advertisers (market vendors).

Growth means advertising on Amazon – perhaps due to the rich data of primary targeting and shopping environment – valuable to advertisers and therefore effective.

Google Advertising

Amazon is not the only growing advertising platform.

Google advertising revenue grew 42.6% from $ 146.9 billion in 2020 to the aforementioned $ 205.9 billion in 2021.

Google recognizes that its success depends on happy advertisers. “We received more than 80% of the total revenue from online advertising in 2021. Many of our advertisers … can terminate their contracts with us at any time, ”the company said in its 10-K.

“Failure to deliver high value or deliver advertising effectively and competitively can damage our reputation, financial condition and performance.”

Google almost certainly understands that the quality of search engine results is a key factor in the success of advertising. But it wouldn’t be surprising if the company found ways to optimize both: search and advertising value.

Consider zero position. Google often tries to respond to a user’s query on the search results page.

Google’s “inbound marketing definition” search can return a snippet containing the response to a query, leaving no need to click elsewhere.

A search engine optimizer can claim that the first position is a great victory for the company. But getting and keeping it is a challenge for SEO.

Google probably wants to respond quickly to queries and keep users on their properties. As this trend continues, competition for organic keywords can become fiercer. At the same time, the ad can surpass even the zero position.

Facebook has also grown

Not so long ago, Facebook placed a newspaper ad on the full page, which claimed that the requirement to sign Apple iOS 14 would significantly harm small businesses (and revenue from Facebook advertising).

“We oppose Apple for small business everywhere,” the headline said. “Without personalized advertising, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser can see a reduction of more than 60% in their sales for every dollar spent … these changes will be devastating for small businesses.”

Let’s leave aside the irony of justifying personalized digital advertising in a newspaper and recognize that changes in Apple’s policies have definitely affected advertising targeting. However, small businesses in general are not devastated.

What’s more, predictions that iOS 14 may direct advertisers to inbound marketing have yet to come true.

The Apple iOS 14 update has been a significant, significant change in advertising, but still something of a phenomenon for the industry.

This is especially true given that Facebook advertising revenue grew 36% in 2021 compared to $ 84.8 billion in 2020. Facebook received average advertising revenue and total total advertising revenue.

Even in the face of the negative consequences of outbound marketing on Facebook there is still a boom.

A balanced approach

None of this means that advertising is somehow superior to other forms of marketing. I quoted Amazon, Google and Facebook to note that outbound marketing remains in place and should be part of a balanced approach that includes SEO and content.