# Advertising Media

Advertising media is the vehicle that carries your message to your target market. Choosing the right media is not about what is trendy — it is about where your ideal customer pays attention and whether you can track the results. Every dollar spent on advertising must be accountable.

## Direct Response Principles Applied to Channels

Allan Dib draws a sharp line between "brand awareness" advertising and direct response advertising. For most small and medium businesses, direct response is the only type of advertising that makes sense.

### Brand Awareness vs. Direct Response

| Dimension | Brand Awareness | Direct Response |
|-----------|----------------|-----------------|
| Goal | Be remembered | Get a response now |
| Measurement | Impressions, reach, recall | Leads, conversions, revenue |
| Call to action | None or vague | Specific and urgent |
| Timeline | Long-term, unclear ROI | Immediate, measurable ROI |
| Accountability | "It is hard to measure" | Every dollar tracked to a result |
| Best for | Coca-Cola, Nike (billion-dollar budgets) | Small and medium businesses with real budgets |
| Typical waste | High — you pay for attention you cannot measure | Low — you pay for results you can count |

### The 7 Rules of Direct Response Advertising

Every ad, regardless of channel, must follow these rules:

1. **It must be trackable.** Use unique phone numbers, URLs, promo codes, or UTM parameters per channel and campaign.
2. **It must be measurable.** You must be able to calculate cost per lead, cost per acquisition, and return on ad spend.
3. **It must use a compelling headline.** The headline is responsible for 80% of the ad's effectiveness. Lead with the outcome the prospect desires.
4. **It must target a specific audience.** Speak to one person with one problem, not the general public.
5. **It must make a specific offer.** "Learn more" is not an offer. "Download the free 7-step checklist" is an offer.
6. **It must demand a response.** Give people a reason to act now — a deadline, limited availability, or a fast-action incentive.
7. **It must include follow-up.** A single ad touch is rarely enough. Build multi-step follow-up into every campaign (retargeting, email sequences, phone calls).

## Channel Selection Framework

Choosing the right channel is a strategic decision, not a creative one. Use this framework to evaluate channels systematically.

### Step 1: Where Is Your Target Market?

Go back to the "Watering Holes" section of your Ideal Customer Avatar. Where do they spend time? What do they read, watch, listen to, and attend? List every channel where they are reachable.

### Step 2: Evaluate Each Channel

| Channel | Audience Presence (1-10) | Targeting Precision (1-10) | Cost Efficiency (1-10) | Measurability (1-10) | Your Expertise (1-10) | Total |
|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|---------|-------|
| Google Ads | | | | | | |
| Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram) | | | | | | |
| LinkedIn Ads | | | | | | |
| YouTube Ads | | | | | | |
| SEO / Content Marketing | | | | | | |
| Email Marketing | | | | | | |
| Podcast Advertising | | | | | | |
| Direct Mail | | | | | | |
| Industry Publications | | | | | | |
| Events / Trade Shows | | | | | | |

### Step 3: Start with One Channel

**The single-channel rule:** Master one channel before adding a second. Spreading budget across five channels means you master none. Pick the highest-scoring channel from your evaluation and dedicate 80% of your budget and effort to it for 90 days.

### Step 4: Add Channels Sequentially

Once your primary channel is profitable and systematized:
1. Add one complementary channel (e.g., if primary is Google Ads, add retargeting on Meta)
2. Run it for 60 days alongside the primary
3. Evaluate performance
4. If profitable, systemize and consider a third channel
5. Never run more channels than you can measure and optimize weekly

## Channel-Specific Guidelines

### Paid Search (Google Ads)

**Best for:** Capturing demand that already exists. People are searching for a solution right now.

| Element | Best Practice |
|---------|--------------|
| Campaign structure | One campaign per service/product, one ad group per keyword theme |
| Keywords | Start with exact match and phrase match on high-intent terms |
| Ad copy | Include the keyword in the headline, lead with benefit, include a specific CTA |
| Landing page | Dedicated page per ad group, not your homepage |
| Tracking | Conversion tracking on form fills, calls, and purchases |
| Budget | Start small ($20-50/day), scale what works |

### Paid Social (Meta, LinkedIn, TikTok)

**Best for:** Creating demand. People are not searching but can be targeted by interest, behavior, or demographic.

| Element | Best Practice |
|---------|--------------|
| Targeting | Start with lookalike audiences from your best customers |
| Creative | Test multiple creatives per audience; creative fatigue happens fast |
| Offer | Lead with a lead magnet, not a direct sale (cold audiences are not ready to buy) |
| Funnel | Ad to landing page to lead magnet to nurture sequence to offer |
| Retargeting | Show different messages to people who visited but did not convert |
| Testing | Test one variable at a time: audience, creative, copy, or offer |

### SEO and Content Marketing

**Best for:** Building a long-term asset that generates leads without ongoing ad spend. Compounds over time.

| Element | Best Practice |
|---------|--------------|
| Keyword strategy | Target long-tail, high-intent keywords your target market actually searches |
| Content format | How-to guides, comparison pages, case studies, tools, templates |
| Frequency | Consistency matters more than volume; weekly is better than daily-then-nothing |
| Conversion | Every piece of content should include a lead magnet CTA relevant to the topic |
| Technical SEO | Site speed, mobile-friendly, proper headings, internal linking |
| Timeline | Expect 3-6 months before meaningful organic traffic |

### Email Marketing

**Best for:** Nurturing leads and selling to your existing list. Highest ROI of any digital channel.

| Element | Best Practice |
|---------|--------------|
| List building | Every touchpoint should offer a reason to join your list |
| Frequency | Weekly minimum; test daily or 2-3x/week for engaged lists |
| Content mix | 3:1 ratio of value to ask (educate, entertain, inspire, then offer) |
| Segmentation | Segment by behavior (opens, clicks, purchases), not just demographics |
| Deliverability | Clean your list quarterly; remove unengaged subscribers |
| Automation | Welcome sequence, abandoned cart, post-purchase, re-engagement |

### Direct Mail

**Best for:** Standing out in a digital-saturated world. Physical mail has dramatically higher open rates than email.

| Element | Best Practice |
|---------|--------------|
| List quality | Targeted, rented or compiled lists matching your ideal customer avatar |
| Format | Lumpy mail (3D items in envelopes) gets opened; postcards are cheapest |
| Copy | Apply direct response principles: headline, offer, CTA, tracking code |
| Tracking | Unique phone number, URL, or QR code per campaign |
| Integration | Follow up direct mail with email and retargeting for multi-touch |
| Response rates | Expect 1-5% for cold lists, 5-15% for warm/customer lists |

## Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) Tracking

If you do not know your CAC per channel, you are guessing. Here is how to calculate and use it.

### The CAC Formula

**CAC = Total Marketing Spend on Channel / Number of New Customers Acquired from Channel**

Example: You spend $5,000 on Google Ads in a month and acquire 25 new customers. Your Google Ads CAC is $200.

### CAC by Channel Tracking Table

| Channel | Monthly Spend | Leads Generated | Customers Acquired | CAC | Target CAC | Status |
|---------|--------------|-----------------|-------------------|-----|------------|--------|
| Google Ads | | | | | | |
| Meta Ads | | | | | | |
| SEO/Content | | | | | | |
| Email | | | | | | |
| Direct Mail | | | | | | |
| Referrals | | | | | | |
| **Total** | | | | | | |

### CAC to LTV Ratio

Your CAC only makes sense in context. The key metric is the CAC:LTV ratio.

| Ratio | Meaning | Action |
|-------|---------|--------|
| LTV:CAC > 5:1 | You are under-investing in marketing; scale aggressively | Increase budget on top channels |
| LTV:CAC = 3:1 | Healthy, sustainable growth | Maintain and optimize |
| LTV:CAC = 1:1 to 2:1 | Unprofitable or barely breaking even | Reduce spend, improve conversion, or increase LTV |
| LTV:CAC < 1:1 | Losing money on every customer | Stop the campaign, diagnose, fix before resuming |

## Organic vs. Paid: A Partnership

Organic and paid are not competitors — they are partners. Each serves a different function.

| Dimension | Organic | Paid |
|-----------|---------|------|
| Speed | Slow — months to build | Fast — results within days |
| Cost | Low cash, high time | High cash, low time |
| Sustainability | Compounds over time | Stops when you stop paying |
| Trust | High — earned attention | Lower — bought attention |
| Scalability | Limited by content production | Limited by budget |
| Best for | Authority, SEO, long-term pipeline | Testing, speed, immediate leads |

**The ideal approach:** Use paid to buy speed and test messages while building organic channels that compound over time. As organic grows, your dependency on paid decreases, and your blended CAC drops.

## Attribution: Knowing What Works

Attribution is the process of determining which marketing activities produced which results. Without attribution, you cannot optimize.

### Attribution Models

| Model | How It Works | Pros | Cons |
|-------|-------------|------|------|
| Last touch | 100% credit to the last interaction before conversion | Simple, easy to implement | Ignores all earlier touches |
| First touch | 100% credit to the first interaction | Simple, shows what drives awareness | Ignores nurture and conversion touches |
| Linear | Equal credit to every touchpoint | Acknowledges the full journey | Does not weight important touches |
| Time decay | More credit to recent touches | Weights conversion-driving touches | Still somewhat arbitrary |
| Ask the customer | "How did you hear about us?" on forms and in sales calls | Captures what the customer remembers | Relies on memory, often inaccurate |

**Practical recommendation:** For most small businesses, use last-touch attribution in your ad platforms combined with "How did you hear about us?" in your forms and sales conversations. This gives you both quantitative and qualitative attribution data without requiring complex multi-touch models.

### Setting Up Tracking

- Use UTM parameters on every link in every campaign
- Set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics and your ad platforms
- Use a CRM to track lead source through to closed deal
- Add "How did you hear about us?" to every form and sales script
- Review attribution data monthly and reallocate budget accordingly

## Exercises

### Exercise 1: Channel Evaluation

Complete the Channel Selection Framework scoring table for your business. Which channel scores highest? Is it the channel you are currently spending the most on? If not, why?

### Exercise 2: CAC Audit

Calculate your current CAC per channel using the formula and tracking table. Do you know these numbers? If not, set up tracking this week.

### Exercise 3: Direct Response Audit

Take your current best-performing ad or marketing piece. Score it against the 7 Rules of Direct Response Advertising. Which rules does it follow? Which does it break? Rewrite it to follow all seven.

### Exercise 4: The 90-Day Single Channel Plan

Choose your highest-scoring channel from Exercise 1. Create a 90-day plan: What is your budget? What offers will you test? How will you track results? What is your target CAC? At what point will you scale or abandon?

### Exercise 5: Organic-Paid Integration Map

Draw a simple diagram showing how your paid and organic channels work together. Where does paid drive traffic? Where does organic capture long-term interest? How do they feed into the same lead capture and nurture system?

## Checklist: Advertising Media Complete

- [ ] Evaluated at least 5 potential channels using the Channel Selection Framework
- [ ] Selected one primary channel based on scoring
- [ ] Confirmed the primary channel aligns with target market watering holes
- [ ] Applied all 7 direct response rules to your campaign creative
- [ ] Set up tracking (UTM parameters, conversion tracking, CRM source field)
- [ ] Calculated (or set up tracking to calculate) CAC per channel
- [ ] Compared CAC to LTV for a healthy ratio (target 3:1 or better)
- [ ] Created a 90-day single-channel plan with specific budget, offers, and targets
- [ ] Planned organic-paid integration for long-term efficiency
- [ ] Scheduled monthly attribution review to reallocate budget
