I am sure you will agree with me that when it comes to digital advertising, reporting back success and failure to your customer is of paramount importance.

But are you really doing that? Are you genuinely and in a structured way communicating with your customer about what is happening with his campaign and his investment in you?

Not at the end of the campaign, but throughout. Are you optimising, and, hopefully, if you are doing it well, probably up-selling too?

Media companies are high-volume environments in an ever-changing world. By that, I mean we sell and execute a lot — and I mean a lot — of advertising campaigns.

The report you provide to your customer is the product.

Can we all agree that if you create an advertisement and place it in front of enough people, some of them will act on it? The mere fact that there is a message, which hopefully resonates with the readers, means that some of them will consume it. Simple logic dictates that.

Let’s assume the audience reading the printed product in which the advertiser has placed its investment has been chosen because it is more likely to yield results based on the synergy of the audience profile, such as a magazine for aviation enthusiasts or, of course, a local newspaper.

Here lies the issue for printed media.

Marketers assume that because they cannot analyse the results, it’s not as effective. This isn’t right; we all know that. Therefore, the stats curiosity is indeed affecting the way marketers think about print.

The industry is trying to raise its digital pennies to digital pounds (£) alongside print challenges. We all know digital is driving the challenge we face, and it’s because customers are responding to the campaign data that they want to buy more of it.

Therefore, if you don’t report beautifully, you don’t have a product. And, no product equals no revenue, no growth, and no long-term sustainability.

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