As a business owner, even if you’re just starting out, you already know that there are high advertising costs that you won’t be able to avoid. Unlike in the old times, there were only certain platforms and ways to advertise your business. But with the ever-evolving technology, the platforms for advertising (along with the costs of advertising) have significantly increased. Nevertheless, we understand the pressure and anxiety brought by budgeting and planning your marketing plan and being uncertain about the advertising costs that may come your way. Worry not, read on, and learn what you must to be smart about your advertising plan and, in turn, be successful with your business.
Cost of Advertising
It is common knowledge that “Advertising drives sales”. In addition to that, though it is not always said out loud, advertising entails costs. The cost of advertising isn’t always a small price to pay. Thus, you must remember that advertising should have been a part of your budgeting from the beginning. Whether you are making a formal business plan or listing down in your tiny notebook the potential expenses that you might incur in the weeks and months of getting your business on your feet, you should have an allotment for advertising costs. Not having it on your plan can result in catastrophe. Because despite the reality that there are some things that you can do to advertise without much cost, it is still much better to be fully prepared for any costs - both offline and online advertising costs.
To give you a bit of relief, it’s good to inform you this early on that you can indeed deduct advertising costs from your tax return. That’s right, the cost of an advertisement you paid can eventually be deducted from the base of the tax that will be charged to you. As long as you can prove that the cost of advertising activities is directly related to your business, the government usually allows it. This distinguishes from lobbying expenses or other types of expenses that can help your business but are not directly related to it. An easy way to ensure to deduct advertising costs from your tax return is to always use your business name in all your advertising activities. The government allows you deductions as long as they are from efforts that directly helped your company be known by the public. Here are some examples:
- The costs of banners, posters, and tarpaulins you use for events that you organized, sponsored, or attended
- Mugs, ballpoint pens, refrigerator magnets, masks, t-shirts, notepads, and the likes that has your business name on it
- Purchased email addresses that you used for email marketing
- The cost of your website or your online advertisements
- And many more
While there are many opportunities to deduct advertising costs, make sure that you don’t lose sight that the priority is to really do what’s best for your business. Hence, if you have any specific advertising plans and are not certain whether a particular kind of cost of advertising will be deductible, you can contact or talk to a tax or law professional so you don’t get the wrong impression. You wouldn’t want to spend much thinking about how it is deductible when it really isn’t, right? Always arm yourself with the right information.
Online Advertising Costs
Before you even begin to execute your marketing plans, it’s good to have some foundation about advertising costs that are playing in the market today. With the emergence of online advertising, the cost of an advertisement (or an advertising campaign) is different than before. And as entrepreneurs, you usually have an idea of the advertising costs are - for common and offline activities. You know how much it costs to print out posters and banners. You have some idea about the costs of having items branded by your name. You have a rough estimate of the salary of your employees who will do the advertising or the cost of an advertisement featuring your promotions. You may even have a vague idea of how much it will cost you to advertise on television or on the radio station. And while all these are good advertising efforts, we have to accept the reality that you also have to invest much on online advertising costs.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
Online advertising has been gaining traction for years now. And while it is understandable that you want to hold on to the more traditional advertising methods, it can be counterproductive in the long run. The reality is that businesses are converting more people into their customers with their online advertising than with any other form of advertising they do. And not only do you want to keep up with the times and their trends, but you also want to take advantage of the ease and convenience that online advertising gives you as a business owner. Alas, we understand the hesitance because you don’t know whether you can afford these new online advertising costs. So here are some general guidelines about advertising costs for online promotions and marketing strategies.
- Google Ads (Adwords) = $2.32 per click on the search network; $0.58 per click on the Display Network
- Google Advertising Search Cost per action (CPA) = $59.18
- Keyword Clicks in Google Ads and Bing Ads = $50 or more per click
- Facebook Ad = $1.72 per click; $18.68 per action; $10 per thousand impressions
- Instagram Ad = $5 (and rising) per thousand impressions
To give you a bit more background about these advertising costs, let’s talk a little about each of them and what these types of online advertising costs refer to.
- Google Ads may be the best and most effective advertising tool you would want to spend some money and time on. In fact, many small businesses today spend the most on advertising costs on Google Advertisements. Using such will always display your website as one of the top when customers search for what you are offering. Even the smallest businesses of today use this.
- Facebook and Instagram are two of the most popular social media platforms of today. And taking advantage of the fact that they allow you to advertise your business on a platform with such a big audience is a smart and strategic move and an advertising cost that is worth it for any business owner like you.
- Cost-per-click (CPC) means that you only pay whenever a potential customer clicks on your ad (whether on Facebook, Instagram or Google). This is usually what you should use and focus on when you want your advertising costs to drive traffic to your website.
- Cost-per-action (CPA) means that you must pay whenever a potential customer is converted into an actual paying customer. If you want to drive sales more than traffic, cost-per-action is the cost of an advertisement you have to think about.
- Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) means that when your ad is viewed a thousand times, you must pay those advertising costs. This is what you should avail of when your main focus is to increase brand awareness for your business.
Advertise Your Business With Strikingly
1. Strikingly Website
Strikingly is a website builder that allows you to create a website for free. We offer hundreds of templates for you to use in making a website of your own. Today, websites are a must for businesses. And while you might need to pay a fee to bring your website to its highest potential, we assure you that it will be worth it in the end because a Strikingly website can do so much for your advertising campaign. Every penny that you spend on advertising costs with Strikingly will return much sales and revenue for you in the end.
Image taken from Strikingly Product
2. Email Marketing
Email marketing never gets old. No matter the newest, more innovative, and quicker social media platforms that exist today, marketing through email might always stay as an effective way that you can spend advertising costs. Strikingly can help you do this as well. Using your website, you can add a contact form to your website to easily collect email addresses and grow your email list. You can also allow subscriptions for your blogs or websites.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
3. Social Media Feed
Social media platforms are also, nevertheless, vital to businesses of today. Strikingly understands this and wants to help you gain more followers and get your customers to stay updated. Without spending much on advertising costs and simply connecting your social media accounts to your website, you essentially allow your customers to easily follow you and instantly be aware whenever you have new content posted. You can add a social media feed that can feature your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram feed.
Image taken from Strikingly User’s Website
There will always be advertising costs associated with the business. And while it is not always easy to compensate for the costs of advertising that you spend, have some faith in all your business offers. You need to be smart and strategic, so all of your advertising costs reap real and tangible benefits. With tools like Google Ads and Strikingly, you can monitor your progress and be comforted by the fact that your online advertising costs are getting somewhere. Start getting online advertisements with Google and sign up with Strikingly now to get your business known and popular.
