Comparison of Marketing, Optimization and Advertising Conversions

All businesses have one common aim – to become the ‘apple of the eye’ of the consumers. And to achieve this, they go to every possible extent of advertising, marketing and optimization. These three terms are broad in their own respects and before we delve into making a comparison of these three broad wings, let us first understand what these three broad terms mean in the digital world.

Advertising:

It refers to the creation and displaying of advertisements on the internet via various platforms. Digital advertising is done in order to popularize the recent offers or latest products/services of the brand. The most common platforms for advertising are either search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing etc. or social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. All advertising campaigns are paid promotions. There are metrics that account for the success rate of the advertising campaign that is being run. And so, it is important that business derive good returns through digital advertising.

Marketing:

Although the term is old for business world, it has acquired new dimensions with the incorporation of the prefix ‘digital’ to it. Digital marketing is the buzz word across the globe, with several learned people offering courses in the same domain. It refers to the exchange of product or services via the digital medium (internet website) in return of money. It emphasizes on building a digital network of customers, who would create your online market. Maintaining good quality of product, running mobile friendly site, quick delivery of product, rampant query solving, discounts and bonuses on referrals, etc. are a part of the marketing efforts that all businesses put into.

Optimization:

While advertising and marketing were already significant terms in the world of business, digitalization of businesses has introduced the term optimization in business dictionaries. We frequently come across the terms called search engine optimization (SEO) and social media optimization (SMO). These simply mean creating a brand presence on search engines and social media respectively, in order to fetch customers through organic searches. In other words, a well optimized business site has greater chances of being discovered by users. Hence, businesses focus on optimization of the digital presence (website).

These three terms are interconnected as all of them help a business organization to achieve their common goal of gaining eyeballs, becoming the ‘apple of the eye’ of the consumers. Yet, these are often compared against each other to evaluate as to which strategy is proving to be the most effective one for the growth of business.

In this article, we shall be making a comparison between the two broad wings and finding out if these works better separately or simultaneously.

Advertising Versus Optimization

• Most businesses organization that have a to sell products in the market, you the PPC (Pay Per Click) form of advertising for generating sales. Since there are multiple sellers of the same product in the market, they are not likely to benefit from the optimization campaign. In order to beat the widespread competition that exists between the brands, they invest 90% of their budget on PPC advertising and just 10% on optimization.

• For product oriented businesses, advertising is more beneficial. However, if we take the services oriented businesses, optimization helps them more because a person is more likely to search for a service when in need. And necessity converts the customer if you are in front of your target audience.

• In order to make to best out of both these strategies, you must understand the user psychology. According to a research, organic results are 8.5x more likely to be clicked than paid advertisements. This is because the users trust the top results more and don’t even glance at the ads to the right. Thus, optimized results are a respected resource for the users.

• Yet again, if you don’t feature in the first page of the search engine results, or to be more precise of you don’t rank in the top three results, users are not going to land to your website. Here the PPC advertisements play a vital role, for a person who clicks on a PPC ad is already interested in the product or service. You need to have a convincing website to convert the user into your customer.

• The concluding note is that, optimization (SEO) is a long term delivering effort while advertising (PPC) is good for short term. For gaining business during festive seasons or a particular region, advertising is definitely better.

Advertising Versus Marketing

• This is not such a broad comparison but that does not mean it is not important. One is not going to benefit if advertising the wrong things. So, marketing is above advertising, central to business growth.

• Whenever a business considers its growth chart, marketing strategies are central to all other aspects. Whether it is improving on the quality of product, organizing product launches, formulating discounts or giving away bonuses to regular customers, it is these strategies that build the network. Once a satisfied customer is always a satisfied customer.

• However, without advertising, no business is likely to reach the target customers. The success of advertising depends largely on the marketing strategies that are displayed through the advertisements (Offers, discounts, referral bonuses, free delivery, etc.). The more lucrative the advertisement, the higher is the CTR (Click Through Rate). Both of these go hand in hand.

Marketing Versus Optimization

• By now it is clear that digital marketing involves all strategies that help in building a network of online customers while optimization is for building an online presence. Both of these are long term delivering, but if optimization is achieved and efficient marketing strategies are not implemented, customers will bounce back from the website. The converse if also true.

• If we compare, optimization ranks higher because customers will continue to purchase from your business if you have a good reputation. They won’t wait for discounts or offers to buy your product or service. The best example of this is Amazon. They have good optimization, which fetches them business even though they do not bring in new marketing strategies.

Conclusion

The best conversions can be achieved only when all three of these are practiced in the right proportion. Advertising, optimization and marketing are all going to benefit your business, if and only if you monitor them closely, find out the flaws and invest your money wisely. There are endless possibilities in the digital world.