[Survey] 79% of Resellers Offer Digital Advertising Yet Struggle to Communicate ROI
In recent years, we have witnessed more and more traditional advertising take the backseat to digital advertising in terms of profitability. Various studies have found that advertising providers like Google and Facebook are leading the charge when it comes to the forecasts and future of advertising (Zenith).
This leaves the digital advertising world as both a competitive and very lucrative space to play in for marketing service providers. To better understand the current landscape, and how Vendasta might play a part for providers looking to break into that landscape, we surveyed our base of reseller partners. The results we found are contained below.
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Table of Contents
Where’s The Money Going? Global Ad Spend Forecasted
[Survey Results] The Digital Advertising Reseller Landscape
How many marketing service providers offer digital advertising to clients?
Barriers to Selling Digital Advertising
Most Popular Advertising Platforms for Resellers
Common Challenges of Selling Digital Advertising Solutions
The Solution: Vendasta’s Advertising Intelligence
What can Advertising Intelligence do for your advertising team?
Outsourcing Digital Advertising Services
Where’s The Money Going? Global Ad Spend Forecasted
Zenith media conducted a study to find the trends in advertising and to forecast the future of the advertising landscape. Internet advertising spend is seeing a growth rate unlike any advertising medium in the past, and having passed TV advertising for most ad spend in 2017 things are looking up for advertisers like Facebook and Google.
By 2020, we could see internet advertising spend increase to nearly $280 billion dollars.
But is every business advertising online?
Does every agency and media company offer digital advertising services to their clients?
Vendasta conducted a survey with 220 agencies and media companies from across the globe to understand how selling digital advertising impacts their business operations.
[Survey Results] The Digital Advertising Reseller Landscape
Insights from 200+ agencies and media companies on selling digital advertising solutions.
Vendasta is partnered with over 1,200 agencies, media companies, and other marketing services providers across the globe. These businesses work to provide a wide variety of marketing and advertising solutions to small businesses in their markets, and many offer various forms of digital advertising. However, some resellers have been slow to adopt digital advertising solutions, despite the industry's obvious growth in recent years.
Vendasta reached out to its network of 1,200+ resellers in 2018 to gain insight into the digital advertising reseller landscape. They sought to answer who offers digital advertising, how they offer it, and the challenges they face when providing online advertising services. Read the results below.
How many marketing service providers offer digital advertising to clients?
According to Zenith Media's data, and general buzz around digital advertising, we know that many businesses leverage digital advertising to grow brand recognition and drive sales. In the Vendasta survey, we looked to discover how many marketing service providers also offer digital advertising services to local businesses.
The Results:
- 79% of agencies and media companies surveyed offer digital advertising
- 15% of these companies DON’T offer digital advertising, but want to.
- 6% of these companies have no desire to offer digital advertising.
Barriers to Selling Digital Advertising
If 79% of advertising companies are offering digital advertising to their clients, there has to be a valid reason why the other 21% doesn’t offer digital ads. We asked the survey respondents who indicated they DID NOT offer digital advertising, “why!”
Here’s what they said:
“We (I) lack of expertise to provide these services to my clients.”
- 58% of businesses who DON’T offer digital advertising indicate that they lack the expertise to provide such services
“We (I) don’t understand how to sell it!”
- 45% of businesses who DON’T offer digital advertising said they just don’t understand how to sell these types of services
Most Popular Advertising Platforms for Resellers
Which advertising platforms are most popular among agencies and media companies?
Most individuals in the marketing and advertising space understand that Google and Facebook dominate the digital advertising world. In fact, when Google and Facebook ad revenue is combined it accounts for 61% of digital ad spend and represents 25% of total advertising spend (Statista).
Of the 220 survey respondents, we asked the 174 respondents (79% in the survey) who offer digital advertising which advertising platforms they use. Our survey results reflect the high usage rates and ad spend for both Google and Facebook.
The Results: Top 3 Most Popular Digital Advertising Outlets
- 74% of agencies and media companies surveyed offer Facebook advertising
- 70% of agencies and media companies surveyed offer Google Search advertising
- 56% of agencies and media companies surveyed offer Google Display advertising
Common Challenges of Selling Digital Advertising Solutions
What hinders a service provider's ability to offer digital advertising services?
Although many companies specialize in providing advertising to business clients, there are still difficulties when offering such services—even for the pros. When investigated, these companies tend to experience similar struggles when selling digital advertising.
- “It’s difficult for my business to show value to our clients.” 25% of businesses who offer digital advertising find it hard to show real value or ROI of digital advertising to clients
- “It’s too time consuming to provide manual reporting to my clients.” 25% of businesses who are offering digital advertising services say that manual reporting eats up too much time
- "We spend too much time fulfilling ads that we can’t build out strategy for our clients’ campaigns.” 21% of businesses find that they are spending too much time fulfilling advertising demand then building out advertising strategies for their clients.
The Solution: Vendasta’s Advertising Intelligence
(Actual Screenshot of Vendasta’s Advertising Intelligence Dashboard)
Marketing service providers have spoken! ROI is hard to communicate, manual reporting takes too much time, and there is not enough time being spent on strategic planning for ads. Vendasta created a solution that allows agencies and media companies to focus their attention on their clients and stop dealing with the tasks that hinder their ability to provide digital advertising services.
What can Advertising Intelligence do for your advertising team?
Advertising Intelligence provides your business with the insights you need from the web’s major players in online advertising. Bring your clients’ ad campaigns under one roof so you can see what’s working across various platforms. Uncover insights from:
- Google Search Ads
- Google Display Ads
- Youtube Ads
- Google Shopping
- Gmail Ads
- Facebook Ads
- Instagram Ads
- Messenger Ads
- Audience Network Ads
Stop bouncing between advertising various ad platforms to uncover the insights you need for your clients. Uncover recipes behind rockstar campaigns, pinpoint what’s making your clients money, and use automation to stay on top of reporting. Advertising Intelligence gives your agency the power to instantly become the expert in digital advertising.
Outsourcing Digital Advertising Services
32% of businesses that offer digital advertising outsource their advertising efforts (Vendasta 2018 Advertising Study)
A lot of agencies and media companies prefer handing off the labour and workload that comes with digital advertising services. If this sounds like your business, no sweat - Vendasta has you covered. Our in house digital advertising team helps agencies and media companies from across the globe with the fulfillment of digital advertising.
Whether your business does digital advertising independently or you want to outsource your advertising on platforms like Google and Facebook, the team at Vendasta is ready to help you meet your digital ad goals.