Have you been tasked with saving on your marketing budget?
At a time when marketing budgets are being reduced, a business might be tempted to temporarily reduce or pause their digital marketing efforts. We have seen this trend in the past (think, COVID-19) as businesses try to scrimp and save in light of changing economic pressures. The key when planning to cut back your marketing spend is to not be short-sighted with your decision. Reducing your marketing spend now can cause lost momentum for longer than you may anticipate.
Thinking about pausing digital ads?
Pausing digital ads can be an attractive idea for a business who needs immediate cost savings. In a situation like this, pausing ads can feel like you’re doubly saving budget. The business will save on the ad management fee (paid to the agency) as well as the ad spend (paid to the advertising platform).
However, when digital ads are paused, there is an immediate decline in leads generated. Picture a faucet being turned off. Pausing digital ads will no doubt provide your business with temporary cash savings, but at what business cost?
Some factors to consider before pausing your digital ads:
Do you want to disrupt the algorithm?
Digital ad campaigns often rely on algorithms and audience engagement metrics to optimize performance. Pausing campaigns disrupts the flow of data to the algorithm. When the campaign is restarted, the interruption in data flow can make it harder to regain the same level of effectiveness the campaign once had. In addition to this, it may take 2 weeks to 2 months for your campaign to complete a new learning phase that is initiated whenever a campaign is paused and restarted. This often results in inconsistent performance as the algorithm adjusts to the new campaign data.
How will you maintain your brand presence?
Pausing digital ad campaigns can disrupt the visibility of your brand online. Continuity in advertising helps reinforce brand recognition and keeps your products or services top of mind. Decreased brand visibility may result in fewer people engaging with your brand even after you resume advertising.
Are you giving up your competitive edge?
Pausing campaigns may give competitors an opportunity to capture the attention of the audience you once held. Before pausing your advertising, analyze how advertising may impact your market share. Consider if you really want to give up leads that would have been yours to your competitors who are still advertising.
Less leads, less sales:
I would be remiss without mentioning this predicament. So, your business is saving this month by pausing digital ads. This also means your lead funnel will have significantly dried up, leading to a slow pipeline, fewer sales and being right back in this situation next month, next quarter and beyond when your sales are down, and so, unfortunately is your marketing budget.
Before deciding to pause or reduce your digital advertising spend, carefully analyze the ways your digital ads contribute to your sales and revenue. As your strategic partner, we can help you evaluate your sales funnels and plan the most strategic allocation of your ad spend to minimize the impacts of budget reductions.
Ok, so what if I just pause SEO?
SEO is a cyclical process requiring patience, consistency, and ongoing optimization for long-term success. When SEO is implemented, it may take a few months to see the results from initial optimizations, up to 6 months for more noticeable improvements, and 6-12 months for steady growth. Like a fly-wheel effect, small wins eventually gain so much momentum that growth almost feels like it’s happening by itself. Because the impacts of SEO can take a long time to measure, a business might be tempted to pause SEO efforts, thinking there will be no impact.
What happens when you pause your SEO program:
Loss of authority:
Consistent SEO efforts help establish your website’s authority in your industry. Pausing can result in a loss of credibility and authority.
Algorithmic demotions:
Search engine algorithms are constantly being updated. They also tend to favor websites with fresh, relevant content. Pausing SEO efforts means you will not be well positioned for the next big change, and this may lead to decreased visibility as the algorithms prioritize your competitors more relevant and up to date content.
Missed opportunities:
SEO is not only about maintaining current rankings but also about seizing new opportunities. Pausing efforts can result in missed opportunities for growth and expansion.
Give up your rankings to your competitors:
Over time, your website may lose its current search engine ranking positions as your competitors continue to optimize their sites. Competitors who continue SEO efforts will surpass your website in search engine results, gaining a competitive advantage.
Decrease in Organic Traffic:
With lower rankings, your website will receive fewer organic visitors from search engines.
Impact on Brand Awareness:
SEO contributes to brand visibility. Pausing SEO could lead to decreased brand awareness among your target audience.
Greater need for paid advertising
With a website that ranks well, a business will depend less on paid ads for leads. But this approach is only successful for as long as your search engine visibility is maintained. Pausing your SEO program can threaten the organic position of your website, leading to a greater reliance on more expensive digital advertising to generate leads.
Opportunity Cost
Most websites in most industries can likely pause their SEO program for a month or two without noticing any significant effects. However, pausing SEO for an extended period can make it more challenging to recover rankings and traffic once efforts are resumed. SEO is an incremental, long-term play, and there is a significant opportunity cost to pausing SEO efforts, especially if your competitors have not. In the current landscape of AI developments in search, taking a short break from your SEO program may result in a significant increase in the work required when you resume your program.
Restarting SEO efforts after a long pause will require more resources and time to regain lost ground compared to maintaining consistent efforts of an extended period of time. When it comes to a SEO program for lead generating businesses, patience and commitment are key. Businesses who stick to SEO as an ongoing initiative will see steady, consistent growth in qualified visitors, conversions, and ROI.
To pause or not to pause? That is the question.
While measuring the impacts of pausing digital advertising is a slightly easier mathematical exercise, when compared to measuring SEO, it remains difficult to calculate the real opportunity cost of reducing any digital marketing efforts. Before you make any decisions, be sure to evaluate your marketing data with close attention to your top and mid-funnel attribution paths. Understanding how your various marketing initiatives contribute to your business is essential in making an informed decision about your marketing budget allocation, especially in times of stress.
Whether a business pauses digital ads or SEO, this can have both short-term and long-term effects. We understand this can be a tricky situation. Sometimes it’s about making the next right move while understanding the ripple effect it may have on your business in the future.
If you need help making the next right move for your marketing, we can help.
