Which platform is best for advertising?

Micky, which platform is best for advertising?

This is a question I’m often asked—even by experienced marketers. And it’s not a bad question. After all, we all want to get the highest possible return on our marketing efforts.

Unfortunately, there’s no easy, definitive answer.

The simple answer is: The platform that gives you the best return.

But let’s dive a bit deeper into that.

Attribution and the customer journey

A common mistake is that marketers only look at which platforms the conversions are coming from and increase the budget for those while reducing it for the others.

But what if the user was exposed to a Facebook ad, clicked through to the website, and then was hit by a retargeting campaign on Google?

In that case, you’d reduce the budget for Facebook, and the final conversion would never have taken place.

How should I measure my platforms?

As marketers, we’re not actually interested in having the highest ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)—what we’re really after is the highest possible revenue. If we have a very high ROAS, it means we can increase our budgets further, achieve a lower ROAS, but ultimately generate higher revenue.

But Micky, what’s the best platform?

If you can see that your marketing isn’t profitable on a platform, try something new or reduce the budget. There’s no definitive answer to what’s the best platform for advertising.

Instead, dive into your attribution and look at the length of the customer journey—and which channels are contributing to your conversions.

In other words: The interplay between channels might be the key to marketing in 2021.