Advertising Mistakes

6 Big Mistakes Not to Make in Advertising

There are a number of things that can hamper the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. Here's a few things to avoid when you are advertising to ensure your campaigns find success:

1) Incorrect Campaign Setups

"A lot of this is 'do-it-yourself,' but at a certain point there's a time where professionals need to come in to do it right," Andreas Beck, CEO of Beyond Spots & Dots, said.

Plenty of platforms offer advertising services and are looking for businesses to spend more dollars with them. It's important on every one of those platforms to build the correct audiences and see meaningful conversions that give value to the money your company spends.

2) Financial Mistakes on Marketing Plans

"Financial mistakes can be very detrimental to your budget," Melanie Querry, President and Founder of Beyond Spots & Dots, said. "This is a little different than just the setup itself of a campaign, but more of a focus on the overall plan."

Double-checking spreadsheets and projects that numbers and formulas calculating dollar amounts are input correctly can save your company's budget. 

"One zero at the end of something gets missed and you could be spending your whole budget in three months instead of twelve," Beck said.

3) Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen

"Sometimes you're gathering opinions from so many people that you never get to the point where you are actually doing the advertising and moving forward," Beck said.

When large teams are all providing input on one project, it's easy for that project to get locked up in the development phase. The longer you wait to implement ad campaigns, the more conversion opportunities are missed.

4) Analysis Paralysis

"There's lots of data," Querry said. "You really won't ever use all of it, but don't allow yourself to over-analyze that data either."

Data analytics are an important tool for developing a baseline for your campaigns and evaluating their effectiveness. With the massive amounts of data available on every campaign, it's important that looking too deep into the numbers doesn't prevent you from implementing your ads.

5) Focusing Too Much on Conversions

Advertising is not a simple equation where money goes in and more money comes out. Advertising is a methodology towards building up your brand over a period of time.

"There's awareness. There's a research period," Beck said. "There's a whole digital journey that people take."

6) Improper Placement of Media

While it's important not to let your advertising campaigns get locked into the development process, it's also important that those campaigns aren't rushed. Media that is launched with errors, typos, or verbiage that doesn't translate the way it is intended to all audiences can create bigger problems for your company. 

"There are other obstacles to successful ad campaigns, we've certainly encountered them at times, but these tips can really help your company's campaigns succeed," Querry said.