Which Online Channels Are More Profitable?

Online Channels : I would like to raise a topic that I am very interested in sharing: the profitability of the different online marketing channels. It is something that in many cases is not fully taken into account and the most relevant aspects are not considered, letting ourselves be carried away by fashions or by the custom of using a certain medium.

The Profitability Of The Channels Can Be Variable

A few weeks ago I conducted an experiment in which I compared the profitability and effectiveness of an option and Facebook ads. I want to do it with several channels – in fact, with all of them. It’s something that interests me a lot.

In this sense, I am convinced that the profitability of online marketing channels is variable depending on the sector we are touching and the objectives we have set. Even so, this variability does not exempt us from trying to calculate it for the sector we are currently working on. The million-dollar question: Why use one certain digital marketing channel and not another?

The Two Key Aspects To Choosing The Channel

Starting from the basis that we are hesitating between channels that we already know are suitable for our target audience, to be able to determine the convenience or not of an online marketing channel, I recommend that you take into account these aspects:

1) Cost: what does it cost us to use the channel? Dedication in time, the cost of investment in a certain tool, the learning curve, etc.

2) Result: what results does this channel give us? Does it lead to direct conversions? Is it just another contribution channel or final conversion? Does it make it easier for us to gain more notoriety? 

Some Considerations About Online Marketing Channels

That said, when asked which channels are more profitable, you will probably find many who will tell you something like “SEO does not cost money and remains”. The second part is true; unless you know how to do it, you have to pay a consultant. Who you do not pay is Google, but who does it, and you have to maintain and enhance it. Care.

In the framework of off-page SEO, there may be people who are against link building. In my opinion, it is like being against the blogosphere if the link building is done in terms of adding value to the user and, therefore, with content that provides quality. If Google ends up penalizing quality, goodbye to blogging. Another issue is that we place meaningless links, something that, obviously, Google penalizes (and increasingly).

You might also hear that with Google Adwords you always get results very quickly. I am certified in Adwords and I can tell you that I have seen everything. Google Adwords, in my experience, is tremendously effective in general, although it involves direct investment in Google and in some sectors there is strong competition. My experience with this tool leads me to recommend it, without a doubt, but in the same way the results can depend on different factors, such as high competition, which causes costs to grow. Similarly, what about Bing Ads? It is the great forgotten of the SEM, being quite a minority. Be careful: that it is a minority, can lead to advantages in some cases, such as little competition.

On the other hand, you may be told that Facebook is not useful. I do not agree at all if that statement includes Facebook ads. If you have clicked on the link at the beginning of this point number 2, you will see that they are wrong in many cases.

In this sense, you can find some posts on the internet that also talk about the obsolescence of email marketing. False, at least based on my experience. Email marketing is still totally recommended, especially if we talk about loyalty and lead nurturing in an inbound marketing strategy.

As for content marketing, some question its effectiveness in the short term. What I have seen not only dismantles this theory, but totally contradicts it. The content we create, if we do it well, can affect all phases of the purchase process or funnel of our desired consumers, also in the phase in which the user is already prepared to perform the purchase action or conversion that we have defined at the business level.

Before the rise of digital professional disciplines, did the marketing that was done always work the same in all sectors and for any product in the same channels? No, right? Television advertising, despite the notoriety it undoubtedly brings, was – and still is – questioned in terms of calculating profitability; the same with radio spots and advertising in print media.

With digital media, we not only have the ability to reach more people, but also to measure these results much more easily than in other offline channels.

Do Not Close Yourselves To Any Channel And Do Not Idealize Them

By way of synthesis, my advice is simple: do not close yourself to testing channels for your specific sector, product and service. If we talk about online marketing, what works in one sector may not work in another. And the same with different products and services. The important thing is that you can measure if they are effective for your case or not.

Similarly, when you find a digital channel that works for you, don’t abandon it. In fact, even if it is not the coolest or newest, it is the one that works for you.