MARKETING DURING A MARKET DOWNTURN

by Bradley at Klickly

By now we’ve seen or are living the effects of the coronavirus. As we continue to make adjustments to our daily lives, we’re finding ways to adapt both socially and economically. While we’re cautiously optimistic that our country and community will come together to help slow the spread of the virus, we are all making drastic changes from our norm.


While it goes without saying that your health is the most important factor to consider, we’ve also clearly seen a tremendous impact on businesses and the economy. Running a business in a downturn brings on many challenges. From operations to fulfillment, there are many things to consider, but all of them have fairly clear answers. There’s one business area, however, that is less clear than others: marketing.

Marketers and businesses may be asking themselves: How do I communicate with my customers? Do I pull back on spend? Should I increase spend? And while there is no concrete one-size-fits-all answer to these questions, there have been some early indicators of the landscape that might help.  

MARKETING IN A DOWNTURN ECONOMY

Arguably one of the most recognizable marketers in the world, Neil Patel, recently wrote a blog about how Corona is affecting different industries. It’s quite apparent that most of, if not all, businesses have shifted focus to eCommerce. Folks are buying more online than ever, especially as most consumers are currently confined to their homes. But in an uncertain economy, it’s been shown that organic traffic and conversions may go down. Meanwhile, CPMs and cost-per-click has gone down, due to decreased competition, which sounds good, but overall cost-per-acquisition has gone up drastically.

One of the more interesting tid-bits to note is that these challenging times can lead to less competition. And while we certainly don’t mean take advantage of the situation, we do see a tremendous opportunity to evaluate your marketing strategy. In short, Patel suggests doubling down on your marketing efforts when others are not in order to gain a competitive edge.



CONSIDER RISK-AVERSE OPTIONS

As most people are waiting in quarantine hoping this gets better, it seems like every brand we know is reevaluating their spend — especially when it comes to marketing. And it makes sense; advertising can be scary when you can't predict if customers will buy.

Traditionally online advertising works like this:

  1. Decide your budget and pay upfront
  2. Hope that the up front spend leads to engagements
  3. Cross your fingers that you ultimately see sales

Here’s the problem: brands are still paying up front on views and clicks — which means little control over ROI (in an industry that already has 20-30% fraudulent views and clicks). This is risky in today's climate.

In an uncertain economy, brands are realizing the hard truth that spending up front on decreasing budgets isn't going to work. That’s why many brands are considering performance marketing. Commonly, you see this in the form of affiliates, publishers, and most recently influencers. Performance marketing is great because it offers a risk-averse, win-win scenario for all parties.



But there are some downsides to this. Most “pay on performance” agencies have stringent contractual obligations — be it length of time or a flat percentage commission that may not fit every brand’s needs and affiliates/influencers have a limited reach — once you’ve reached their audience, there isn’t anywhere else you can go from there.

HOW KLICKLY IS HELPING NAVIGATE THIS LANDSCAPE

So how can you “double down your marketing efforts” while being friendly to your budget? The top 3 ways that we advise:

  1. Don’t overspend –– find a platform that is 100% performance-based! That way you’ll only be paying on actual sales that are driven
  2. Pay on a commission set by you –– find a platform that allows you to choose a rev-share that works for your unique budget
  3. Let it scale + make it automated –– don’t waste too much time with small, time-consuming solutions that reach only minimal consumers yet require a lot of upkeep –– you don’t want to be forced to allocate unexpected resources to a new platform; instead try to find a scalable solution that is totally automated

Originally, Klickly was created with the unpredictability of marketing costs and ROAS in mind, but it has become increasingly relevant in the current climate.

We think an advertising platform should align with the brand. It should have all the qualities of your traditional “affiliate” model that brands seek (you only pay when affiliates drive sales) BUT while eliminating the issue of limited reach — actively advertising your products across millions of premium websites.

And that’s what we aim to do with Klickly –– allow you to grow your audience in a risk-free way (no up-front spend) and pay only when we drive sales. Our goal has always been to make the most brand-friendly advertising platform out there. We created a platform that allows brands to eliminate CPCs and CPMs altogether while giving you the flexibility to pay within margins that makes sense for you. Besides, no two brands are alike! With Klickly you:

  1. Launch a campaign in 15 minutes – simple 3 step process without touching any code
  2. Choose your own commission – that’s right; you tell us what rev-share you want to pay and only pay when we help drive sales
  3. Let our machine-learning algorithm optimize – take out the guess-work and bidding process completely; after all, you only pay when it works to drive a sale

Now, it’s true we’ve always been an invite-only platform, but we’re doing our best to increase the number of brands we can onboard –– we believe in democratizing powerful tech especially in tough times, so the great challenger brands out there can fight to keep their edge against competition, even in these challenging times.

CONCLUSION

We think it makes sense to take a conservative approach and use tools (like Klickly - 100% commission based/only pay when we drive sales) that removes the risk of overspending. If you're worried consumers "aren't going to buy" right now, by using Klickly you wouldn't pay...and you'd get free visibility.

You're still taking advantage of the ability to rise above competition, BUT you're being smart and risk-adjusted about how you do it.

We invite you to check out the Klickly platform. If you’re looking for that extra edge to pull ahead of the competition, Klickly is a great risk-free resource to add to your marketing strategy. If you have any questions about how Klickly can help you, feel free to send us a message at daren@klickly.com