Digital marketing spend has increased post covid and it’s bound to witness a significant jump once 5G is launched. However, in the recent past digital has been in the mainstream news for all the wrong reasons that’s not only eroding its credibility but also putting a brake on digital spend by many brands. The average ad-fraud rate is projected to go up to 45–55% against the present 25–35% as per techARC report.

Brands and marketers who are new to digital and social media marketing must understand the nitty gritty before putting their money into it. Here is my two cent on the current state of affairs:

The scope of fraud is too broad

In an era when ‘purchasing’ likes and followers has become a norm and there is no stringent law to prohibit this practice, it’s the clients who suffer the most because of such practices, particularly those who are new to the digital ecosystem.

There is hardly any social media platform that’s immune to such scam. Millions of accounts on facebook, instagram and other social media platforms are fake, created solely to unethically boost vanity metrics that marketers use while selecting influencers for their brands. Brands invest huge sum on influencers push and social media marketing, a significant chunk of which goes down the drain because of such frauds.

As fake and fraud become more advanced, it’s high time clients and digital marketing professionals take proactive measures to detect and avoid such fraud practices.

While data privacy and fake accounts have always been the concern for digital marketeers, the recent developments like Apple ATT , Twitter fiasco etc have only added to the woes. While data privacy initiatives taken by Apple could lead to reduction in Ad spend by advertisers on Facebook, Elon Musk saying that ‘more than 20% of the twitter accounts are fake’ will only make a dent in Twitter’s reputation and revenue.

Another challenge for these media platforms is to find ways to curb malicious practice followed by advertisers and bring in stringent measures to screen and filter such Ads. In 2021 alone, Google removed over 3.4 billion Ads, restricted over 5.7 billion ads and suspended over 5.6 million advertiser accounts!

Selling likes and lies — The shady side of social media marketing

A post having 500 likes definitely looks more impressive than a post with 5 likes. An account with 10k followers appears more popular than an account with 10. I understand that. But how is this going to help the brand/business? Such posts/pages ‘appear’ popular, but in reality they aren’t if these numbers are not organic.. So, what’s the point in purchasing likes and followers? There is a reason — This helps to fool the platform’s algorithm and make a post trend. And this aids in attracting the attention of real users, if they’re searching for the trending topic. The question is — would you want to indulge in such unethical practice for a short-term benefit? Remember Anubhav mittal’s Sociatrade.biz ‘Facebook likes’ scam? Or the most recent Badshah one?

Aaloo le lo, kaande le lo…..

Certain freelancers and self proclaimed digital marketing gurus have made the matter worse. The way they promote and sell their services is no different from what a sabzi wala does while ferrying his cart in the gali mohallas.

These people do not understand the business of ideas and the nitty-gritty of marketing. They have a very shallow understanding on the buyers’ persona and the brands they work on. Their conversations are always around tech and tools rather than the ideas, insights, consumer or the brand in question. They are never the custodians of the brands they work on. They are like a vendor whose only goal is to sell their product to the prospect and move on to the next. Beware of such species.

Once bitten, twice shy

A couple of start-ups I worked for recently didn’t even want to spend a single penny on paid media as they had completely lost trust in digital media (and agencies) largely because of what I narrated above. I know many clients who have burnt their fingers dealing with so called digital marketing experts who delivered nothing but a pipe dream. Gaining trust of such clients takes a lot of time and efforts as they tend to generalise all digital marketing professionals as fraudsters. Not all of them are into conning clients but one bad apple spoils the bunch, you know.

ROI: Regret on investment?

ROI is one of the most abused terms when it comes to digital marketing. Everyone talks about it, very few actually delivers what is required. The problem is — most marketers chase wrong or less significant metrics and hence measuring those metrics doesn’t provide the return they actually need to achieve business goals. I’ve seen digital marketers staying trapped in a haze of CTRs and investing a significant amount of their time and energy on planning how to improve campaign CTR. In the whole process they actually deviate and forget the actual marketing goals that they should be chasing. I’ve seen digital marketers presenting KPIs data to the clients in a manner as if it were ROI.

Impression, reach, engagement and conversions are all good but these may not be the right metrics to measure at every stage of the brand and buyers’ journey. You should not evaluate every campaign you run employing performance marketing parameters. For example, can you measure intangible benefits a brand gets out of a good insight driven digital media campaign that strikes the right chord with your audience?

Always remember — not everything that’s important to marketing can be measured and not everything that can be measured is important.

Want your brand to blossom? Cherry pick agencies

Go with the agency that understands the business of brands and psyche of consumers. The one who is good at digging insights and coming up with ideas to solve your marketing challenges. Not with some digital marketing agency that promises ‘numbers’ in the name of ROI.

For, the numbers you often chase and the metrics you measure might not be the right parameter to achieve your brand and marketing goals all the time. Rather than focusing on vanity metrics, you should identify the metrics which are in line with your brand goals. And in case you are looking to hire influencers, go with the agency that knows how to identify fake and fraud and deliver meaningful ROI.