Choosing the Right Advertising Channel

Most businesses do not have a channel problem. They have a sequencing problem: paid search, paid social and organic content are bought at the same time, judged against the same weekly number, and none of them is given long enough to show what it can do.

Start with the decision, not the platform

Before choosing where to advertise, write down the decision a customer has to make. A plumbing emergency is decided in ninety seconds on a phone; a school enrolment takes a family six weeks and two conversations. The first is a search problem. The second is not, and no amount of bidding will make it one.

Match the channel to how the decision is made

Search captures demand that already exists, so it works when people know what they want and are looking for it now. Social creates demand, so it works when the customer would want your offer if they knew it existed. Most businesses need both, but rarely in equal measure and almost never at the same moment.

Give each channel a job and a number

A prospecting campaign judged on cost per sale in its first fortnight will always look like a failure. Decide in advance what each campaign is for, what evidence would prove it working, and how long it gets before that evidence is due. Written down beforehand, this is a plan. Written afterwards, it is an excuse.

Review on a schedule, not on a feeling

The accounts that improve are the ones reviewed on a fixed cycle: search terms read, budgets moved toward what is working, tired creative retired before performance drops. Nothing here is clever. It is simply done every week, which is what makes it rare.