Digital marketing can be a costly venture for a lot of business owners and full of really important questions to be asking to get the most out of that spend.

How much money should I be spending on paid advertising?

What providers are going to get me the most bang for my buck?

How do I know how much budget to allocate to each channel and what can I really afford?

There are so many questions you could ask about how to cut out digital marketing waste! We’ve narrowed it down to 5 main objectives you should be looking into to find inefficiencies and feel good about where and what you're spending those dollars on.

1. Clean Your Data!

Having correct and clear customer data is vital to your digital marketing efforts. Make sure you have a concise way to collect and update your customer information so that you’re able to connect and target with the most updated information. Nothing says inefficient like sending targeted ads for a new sectional couch to a user who has already purchased one!

We also highly encourage using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software to organize and help automate your sales and data collection. If you’re just getting started with digital marketing, there are affordable and even free- yes, free- CRM software available to you. Check out Hubspot’s starter CRM here.

2. Understand Your Digital Channel Budget Allocation

Chances are you probably know how much you're spending as a whole on each of your digital marketing channels. The website gets this much, paid search gets that much, so on and so forth. But are you aware of what your provider management fees are for each of those channels? What about any additional fees like creative or production costs? Maybe you’ve opted into a feature you don’t use or forgot to cancel?

Breaking down the fine print of those contracts is just as important as understanding the budget as a whole. Most of the time there are some inefficiencies and excess you’re able to cut out to improve your return on investment.

3. Third Party Provider Alignment

Third parties are a necessity for almost every business. Whether that be review sites like Yelp or buying platforms like Autotrader, each reaches a larger group of people that allow more exposure to your brand.

A good amount of third party sites allow some type of free exposure, but if you rely on that channel as a larger part of your business it’s likely you’re spending some additional budget on things like placement on page or additional advertising tools.

What’s key to remember here is that, yes, you should identify your best third party providers and invest into them more if you see a good ROI; however, if you are on a top tier package for 4 different third party sites you’re probably wasting some digital marketing budget that could be saved or spent more efficiently.

4. Co-op Maximization

Who doesn’t love free money? Understanding co-op funds for brands you carry is critical for not only reducing waste, but getting free exposure or marketing services.

Reaching out to a brand representative and asking about what digital marketing is eligible for reimbursement is an easy way to add to your strategic initiatives and have the opportunity to try different avenues of digital advertising without the full cost coming from your pocket.

Mattress company XYZ offers 50% reimbursement on pay-per-click ads and you’ve wanted to try out local search ads on Google? Great! Advertise your business name and mention you offer XYZ mattresses, submit the cost of that campaign to the company, and save half of that money!

5. Overlapping Products

Digital providers sometimes offer a wide range of services outside of what you originally hired them for. It’s good to have on file what exactly you’re paying for before looking into other tools or services.

For example, if your website provider offers an SEO package at no cost, make sure you’re utilizing that before deciding to opt into the SEO package an outside digital agency might provide. There’s no harm in having multiple sources work towards the same goal as long as you’re aware it’s happening.

These touch points are a great way to get an overarching view of where your budget is going. Finding ways to improve your digital marketing strategy is an ongoing process, but a worthwhile one to allow more profit to flow into your pocket.

Phelps Digital works on finding ways to eliminate digital waste every day for a range of industries. From automotive to health care, we’ve been digging in and optimizing digital marketing campaigns since 2018.

Want to see where you have digital marketing waste? Feel free to reach out and schedule some time to speak with the team.