Pay for Performance (p4p) Advertising

Businesses around the world invest, or to be more precise, they spend, untold numbers of dollars to advertise, market and promote their products and services to make sales and gain new clients. In an economic downturn these expenditures may be reduced due to cost constraints and consumer reluctance to buy.

As an example it costs around $1,000usd for a small classified advertisement in the weekend editions of major USA newspapers, $2-3,000usd for a similar placement in monthly travel magazines.  Radio spots, from ‘cheap and nasty’ during the hours when nobody is really awake to prime time messages to thousands, the majority of whom may not be interested and many of the rest may just go to a competitor.  In effect, business advertisers may often pay for ‘lack of performance’.  Either the advertising copy was ineffective or the reach of the medium and quality of the audience was ineffective.

In other fields of endeavour we work, perform, produce and then get paid.  Why not in advertising?

It may be the time to rethink the effectiveness of our advertising spend and to rethink who we spend it with, what we spend it on, when we should spend it, where we should spend it, why we are spending it, how we should spend it?  Or even, ‘if’ we should spend it.