Traditional Advertising or Online Advertising: Who Wins?

TLTR

In the vast sea of marketing for small, medium, and large businesses, the clash between offline and online advertising unfolds.

The great dilemma faced by the Hamlet of the 2.0 society is: online advertising or traditional advertising? If you too are wondering who will prevail between the two, continue reading the article, and you will find out.

The Two Titans Compared

Who is the little fish?

It’s online advertising: a type of advertising that is agile, fast, cost-effective, and measurable, although, alas, still relatively unknown to most, quick, and elusive. It has the ability to reach a much wider audience compared to traditional advertising, thus reaching a larger user base.

Who is the big fish?

It’s traditional advertising, often seen as the only powerful means of communication to be considered. Buying a page in a well-known national newspaper or creating a television commercial is still seen by many as the pinnacle of commercial communication. In terms of high cost, yes, but in terms of results, is it really true? Traditional advertising is slower, more expensive, and less measurable, even though, being older and more familiar, it instills a sense of greater security in investors. Let’s see together how well-founded this blind confidence really is.

5 Points of Comparison

Speed

Traditional Advertising
Advertising on paper involves specific time frames for the creation of the communication as well as for its scheduled release in the chosen channel. Its lifespan also coincides with the support on which it is printed (newspaper, weekly, monthly, flyer, etc.). Once it’s sent to print and distributed, there’s no going back.

Online Advertising
The planning and structuring times for a Facebook advertising or Google Adwords campaign are, on the other hand, much faster. Moreover, once an online campaign is launched, there are no time constraints: it’s possible to suspend the campaign and restart it with just one click.

Target

Traditional Advertising
Someone watching TV on their couch at home and seeing my commercial, or a passerby seeing my billboard on their way to work, may not necessarily be interested in my ad. This advertising intrudes into people’s daily lives, making them passive users compared to it.

Online Advertising
On the other hand, someone who reads and clicks on your ad is certainly potentially interested in your product or service because your ads are only presented at specific moments and to users who have shown direct or indirect interest in the product or service in question. In particular, in an online campaign, it’s possible to select your target audience based on demographic factors (age, gender, language), geographic location (city, region, country), and behavioral or contextual factors, considering the searches made by a user on other sites or for specific keywords.

Costs

Traditional Advertising
In the case of traditional advertising, advertising spaces are purchased in advance. For example, in a newspaper, I pay regardless of whether the reader views the ad or not. It’s even possible that someone might not open that page or read it; the price remains the same.

Online Advertising
With online advertising, I only pay for what a user has seen, or more accurately, when they have clicked on one of my ads. I never pay in advance, only when I have actually captured their attention and received some minimal action from the user. Furthermore, there is no fixed budget for ensuring minimum results. I can evaluate when and how to spend. Certainly, however, my costs will be lower, for the same results, compared to traditional advertising.

Measurability

Traditional Advertising
I know how much the advertising cost, but I don’t have objective indicators to measure its actual performance. For example, if you placed a billboard by the roadside, distributed flyers, and paid for a radio spot, it will be very difficult for you to determine which of these three channels brought in the customers who visited your store or purchased your products.

Online Advertising
This is certainly one of the most interesting aspects of online advertising, as its actual performance can be measured. If, for example, you’re spending €500 per month on Pay per Click, you can accurately determine what return you’ve obtained, thanks to the inclusion of conversion tracking codes (in terms of clicks, page interactions, online purchases, reservations, or quote requests).

Flexibility

Traditional Advertising
Traditional marketing offers few tools to understand if and how it is necessary to intervene to change the course of an advertisement, assuming it is possible to do so. For example, once a newspaper has been printed, it is no longer possible to change our advertisement, and the only way to make modifications is to purchase another advertising space. The same applies to distributing flyers or airing a radio spot.

Online Advertising
The success of an online advertisement, as we have seen in point 4, is easily measurable thanks to the intersection of data provided by advertising providers and our website statistics. The interesting thing is that we can use these same data to improve the performance of the campaign. By analyzing statistics, for example, we can understand which ads work better than others, allowing us to decide whether to invest a larger budget or suspend ad groups that have yielded few results. We can also change the texts or images of the ads, or even completely overhaul the strategy. All of this is feasible in relatively short periods and at reduced costs.

Who Wins?

Once the pros and cons have been highlighted, it seems easy to understand which side of the balance the advertising communication will lean towards in the coming years.

However, even though I cannot read, at least for now, the magical sphere of the future, I still believe that traditional advertising will never disappear, on the contrary. While, indeed, in some aspects, such as speed, flexibility, and measurability, online campaigns may seem to surpass traditional ones; for many others, the two channels are and will continue to be complementary.

In conclusion, facing the question, “who is the winner and who is the loser?“; the most accurate answer is both. The expression “good collaborators” is the one that best describes their relationship. Online and traditional advertising represent the two legs of the same runner; although it is worth noting that while one of the two is still in its infancy and has a long way to go to demonstrate all its potential, the other is already in its mature phase.