Last updated on July 5, 2017
Technology is not a long-lasting competitive advantage in SEM or other digital marketing – creativity is.
This brief post is inspired by an article I read about different bid management platforms:
“We combine data science to SEM, so you can target based on device, hour of day and NASDAQ development.”
Yeah… but why would you do that? Spend your time thinking of creative concepts that generally work, not only when NASDAQ is down by 10%. Just because something is technically possible, doesn’t make it useful. Many technocratic and inexperienced marketing executives still get lured by the “silver bullet” effect of ad technology. Even when you consider outside events such as NASDAQ development or what not, newsjacking is a far superior marketing solution instead of automation.
Commoditization of ad technology
In the end, platforms give all contestants a level playing field. For example, the Google’s system considers CTR in determining cost and reach. Many advertisers obsess about their settings, bid and other technical parameters, and ignore the most important part: the message. Perhaps it is because the message is the hardest part: increasing or decreasing one’s bid is a simple decision given the data, but how to create a stellar creative? That is a more complex, yet more important, problem.
Seeing people as numbers, not as people
The root cause might be that the world view of some digital marketers is twisted. Consumers are seen as some kind of cattle — aggregate numbers that only need to be fed ad impressions, and positive results magically emerge. This world view is false. People are not stupid – they will not click whatever ads (or even look at them), especially in this day and age of ad clutter. The notion that you could be successful just by adopting a “bidding management platform” is foolish. Nowadays, every impressions that counts needs to be earned. And while a bid management platform may help you get a 1% boost to your ROI, focusing on the message is likely to bring a much higher increase. Because ad performance is about people, not about technology.
Conclusion
The more solid the industry becomes and the more basic technological know-how becomes mastered by advertisers, the less of a role technology plays. At that point of saturation, marketing technology investments begin to decline and companies shift back to basics: competing with creativity.