How Can You Avoid Wasting Your Marketing Budget?

One of the dirtiest secrets in modern marketing is just how much social media platforms spoof their engagement to sell advertisers more space. For example, if you were to scroll up or down on a video on X, you’re still counted as “viewing it”, which is why so many seemingly non-viral clips have hundreds of thousands of views. That information is then passed on to the marketing professionals, who pay based on outreach and may find themselves having nothing to show for it.

This is just one example. While it’s true that marketing efforts can sometimes make spurious claims or even be misleading, marketing professionals can fall victim to this as well. So, developing methods to avoid wasting marketing money is important. Does that mean you should avoid certain practices like social media advertising entirely? Not necessarily. But you may find some of the following advice a helpful approach towards optimisation:

Test Before You Invest

It’s fine to try running a few small campaigns or ads before committing to a big budget. This way, you can get a feel for what works and what doesn't without spending your entire budget in one day.

For example, you might have samples made of what banners will look like that you take to an event before ordering more. You might test post some SEO content to see if it ranks before you pay for more. This helps you avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.

Avoid Over-Saturation

Most people reading this will have been advertised to their entire life in some form or another. It’s just an element of the society we live in. Odds are, they have been advertisements that frustrated you in kind. 

For this reason, marketers could do well to ensure they don’t become oversaturated. If you have a campaign, utilize proper pacing, drip-feed it over time and make sure you use fresh content. Consider a value-add like providing quick tips to them gain something from seeing and paying attention to your ad. It all adds up, and inspires you to implement quality over quantity, something that will be more attentive to your marketing spend.

Optimise Your Campaigns Regularly

Once a campaign is over, the work isn’t done. In fact, arguably, the work just begins for the next time, and that means taking the time to review the results and learn from them. Look at the data specifically to figure out what worked, what didn’t, and why. Did certain demographics respond better than others? Were there particular times when engagement spiked? How about the methodology itself? Did you find that call tracking suite help you learn more about your international results than anything else? Maybe you’ve found that this was much better than simply relying on reports from social media companies as we discussed. From there you’ll feel much more able to develop a coherent strategy next time around.

With this advice, you’ll be sure to avoid wasting marketing money, or at least see where the pitfalls lay for next time around.