Last year digital ad spending surpassed $200 billion for the very first time, according to new data from eMarketer. Projections for 2022 estimate digital ad spending will continue to grow at a rapid pace hitting nearly $240 billion before growing to $300 billion by 2025, making up more than three-quarters of all media spending.
As a prominent figure in the digital advertising management space, Chase Chappell has helped hundreds of companies spend their digital ad bucks wisely thanks to his newest company called Sirge.io.
Sirge.io is a software platform for Facebook and TikTok ad attribution, allowing businesses to easily track their Facebook and TikTok ads, and website visitors, and accurately attribute results to campaigns – all from one platform.
The platform was created following Apple’s decision to allow Facebook users to opt-out of ad tracking. His solution has helped dozens of high-profile companies effectively manage their digital advertising dollars.
Like many other experts in the field of digital advertising management, Chase Chappell felt the increase in digital ad spending firsthand. While he would call the growth rates he witnessed incredibly, he doesn’t think they came out of the blue.
“Many retailers suddenly realized that they need to turn digital because everybody’s online, and those that were online realized that more people are seeing their ads. There was just a whole new audience they weren’t even tapped into yet,” he explains. “Still, the overall marketing budgets are still not at the pre-pandemic levels, even though they’re slowly getting there.”
The looming fear of a recession might put a dent in those projections, but the industry seems to have a lack of pessimism about it, if not cautious optimism. It could be just faith in the projections that say the growth will continue, or that the industry weathered one crisis after another.
Chase Chappell sees plenty of reasons why, even in the case of a recession, digital ad spending can and likely will continue rising.
“It’s true that when times get tough, marketing and advertising budgets are usually among the first cuts. But even then, businesses have a strong incentive to keep their budgets up,” he explains. “Cutting ad budgets only helps in the short term, which has a serious potential to hurt the business in the medium to long term. Brand awareness and market share are lost if businesses don’t invest in them, and they invest in them through advertising.”
If there’s one thing the pandemic has taught us, Chase Chappell adds, it’s that marketing budgets can go down while digital ad spending goes up. Businesses will shuffle their budgets to get the biggest bang for their buck. Increasingly, they’re getting that with digital. And Chase Chappell is there to help them.
“One of the best things about digital marketing is the ability to measure and calculate all kinds of things that tell you how well your ads are performing. Without proper tracking and attribution, those measurements simply become invalid,” he says.
This is what happened when Apple released the iOS 14.5 update. Apple has its own system to support ad targeting, but with iOS 14.5, users got to choose whether they want to share their Identifier for Advertisers with apps. They were able to turn it off before, but the update made it much easier. The results?
“When the update hit, people had a hard time calculating the real return on investment on their ads. Someone who made $5,000 for every $1,000 they’d spend on ads, suddenly started seeing they make only $500 per $1,000 of ad spend,” Chase Chappell explains. “In reality, the results never changed. They were still getting good results, their revenue numbers were still going up. They were just getting fed bad data.”
Chase Chappell started Sirge.io to help businesses counter the effects of the infamous update. Thanks to a proprietary script, he gave back the valuable insights businesses so desperately need to make decisions. Because, he says, “it’s really hard to make a good decision using bad data.”
If the recession is as good a time as any to get into digital marketing, or even a particularly opportune moment for some, some businesses are bound to buy their first digital ad sometime soon. When asked for three pieces of advice he’d give them, Chase Chappell knows exactly where to start.
“First of all, going blindly and without an idea is just wrong and unnecessary, even for businesses who don’t want to spend much and are not afraid of seeing no returns. Researching competitors to see what they’re doing, creating customer personas, finding the best channels to reach them – any kind of forethought is preferable,” he starts.
The second piece of advice would be, somewhat expectedly, about data. “In digital marketing, decisions are largely made based on data, and there are plenty of tools to get that data. Learn to use them.
His final tip would be – don’t forget to look for help. “There are many digital marketing professionals that can help businesses achieve their goals through marketing. The field is also densely populated with agencies. There’s simply no reason why someone would have to do it on their own if that’s not their cup of tea,” he says.
“That being said, digital advertising is something that can be learned. There are plenty of courses that explain the ins and outs of it. There’s also plenty of free content out there that can serve as a less formal source of education. I’ve created both and had the opportunity to work with some people who became serious marketers.”
Chase Chappell is an internationally recognized authority on Facebook ads and is a preferred ad partner by Facebook. Chase’s agency manages $10M in ad spend for clients and Chase is an advisor for $200M+ in placed media spend across the META and TikTok ad platforms. Chase founded Sirge.io, a software made for marketers to improve their Facebook & TikTok ad attribution and tracking. He’s also the creator of Facebook Ads & TikTok Ads Expert Mastery Class and the host of a YouTube and TikTok series that covers tips on Digital marketing that has seen incredible growth recently.