The cost of online advertising - options for every budget

Internet marketing is one of the key promotional tools. It works well for both larger and smaller businesses. Sometimes, however, you may find that the cost of online advertising exceeds your company budget. Fortunately, there are many ways to promote yourself, even at low cost. How much does online advertising cost and what kind of expenses should you be prepared to incur?

What are the costs of online advertising?

At the outset, it should be acknowledged that there is no single and fixed price for online advertising. This is because it depends on a number of factors and, above all, on what marketing strategy a brand decides on. Here are some of the main costs that apply when running an online advertising campaign:

• Cost per impressions (CPM) - cost per mile means cost per 1,000 impressions. It is one of the more popular payment models in online advertising. The advertiser can reach the target customer in this way. Unfortunately, this does not necessarily translate into conversions. CPM is used for reach campaigns.
• Cost per click (CPC) - also referred to as PPC, or cost per click or pay per click. Currently, it is probably one of the most widely used models. It is recommended for banner or display advertising, as it pays for each click on a banner. It is the most commonly used model when estimating how much advertising costs on a website.
• Cost per action (CPA) - cost per action is the cost incurred for the action a user performs (e.g. when they make a purchase or register). This payment model is popular in affiliate advertising.
• Cost per view (CPV) - cost per view is the most common type of billing for advertising on YouTube. It refers to the cost per view of a piece of content.
• Cost per lead (CPL) - cost per lead is the cost that an advertiser incurs for each lead, i.e. for an internet user to leave information such as a telephone number, email address, name. This often requires the use of a form.

Every brand owner should set their daily budget, i.e. the maximum amount they are prepared to spend on advertising in a single 24-hour period. Once the limit is reached, advertisement will stop displaying until the end of the day. In this way, excessive expenditure can be avoided.

The sheer costs of campaign management must also be taken into account. These are particularly significant if you employ your own team of specialists or use the offer of marketing agencies. This may include expenses related to the management and optimisation of the campaign. You should also include those that have to be spent on the creation of advertising graphics or sponsored posts. So it all depends on the strategy chosen.

Does a low budget negate the effectiveness of our online advertising?

The cost of placing an advertisement on the internet varies depending on the method of advertising (a Google Ads campaign will have a different price, while a Facebook Ads campaign or just SEO will have a different price). Determining the optimum budget is no small challenge, especially for smaller or start-up companies.

The good news is that a low budget does not necessarily invalidate the effectiveness of online advertising. There are various strategies and techniques that can be used to achieve positive results even with limited financial resources. In doing so, however, a few important principles must be adhered to:

• Skilful targeting - that is, reaching the right audience with your advertising. Before doing so, however, it is necessary to define the target audience, i.e. to consider who the potential customers are, how old they are, what their interests are, how much they are willing to spend and what their needs/requirements are for a given product or service. Targeting will allow you to target your message to the people who are interested in it. In this way, money is not wasted on publishing advertisements in a place where there are few potential interested parties.
• Optimisation - this step should be taken at the very beginning of budget setting, as well as during campaign implementation. Regular monitoring of the effects of activities will allow you to outline areas where a particular method of promotion does not work. This will allow you to redirect funds to another type of advertising.
• Use of free tools - with a low budget, an alternative to paid campaigns is to use free and generally available solutions. These include, for example, running brand profiles on social media. It is currently believed that a lack of presence, or even activity, on social media translates into less trust towards the brand.
• Creating engaging content - however, mere presence in the media and online is not enough. Audience loyalty is gained by creating unique, high-quality content. It is also worth using viral marketing practices. This involves the creation of virals, i.e. posts or videos, often of a humorous nature, which have the potential to gain popularity among users. They spread with the participation of internet users, so they do not require a large outlay of money.

However, it is worth being wary of the trap of apparent savings, especially when using Google Ads. A budget that is too low will not bring the expected results, so it may turn out to be just a waste of money that would be worth spending on another type of promotion.

How much does social media advertising cost?

Conducting marketing activities on social media is considered to be one of the cheapest (sometimes even free) methods. There is a grain of truth in this, but it is important to bear in mind that social media is now a highly developed tool with high potential that is used in many ways. One of them is the use of paid campaigns - they allow you to reach your target groups and gain an audience much faster.

The free, i.e. mostly independent, way of creating content for company profiles is a labour-intensive activity and the results may only be visible after a long time. Sometimes they require the employment of an additional person and sometimes even a small team for communication and promotion in social media. This in turn already generates additional costs. However, it all depends on the size and needs of the company.

The answer to the question of how much Facebook advertising costs will never be clear. It all depends on what the brand decides to do. However, one must certainly take into account the expenditure on graphic material/video, as well as on advertising content, which is usually created by copywriters.

Additional costs will be generated by advertising support and budget for paid campaigns. If an entrepreneur decides to use a marketing agency, the full price will consist of two factors:

• fixed fee,
• percentage of the advertising budget.

However, even when a brand promotes itself through Facebook Ads, the costs will not be the same in every case. In 2020, the cost of advertising on this social network ranged from PLN 0.4 to PLN 4 per click. The cost of one sponsored post alone is PLN 5. According to estimates, small companies spent between PLN 200 and PLN 1,000 per month on promotion on Facebook. A more important conversion factor, however, is the number of impressions or clicks. If the price of a single share is PLN 1.3, then to get 1,000 clicks, you need to spend PLN 1,300.

In a similar way, you can estimate how much it costs to advertise on Instagram. These portals are now owned by the same owner, so the principles of campaigning are similar. In fact, when determining the budget for a social media advertising campaign, you need to start by outlining the objective of the campaign. Such metrics include:

• reach, i.e. the number of recipients the message will reach;
• traffic generated on the profile;
• activity on the profile (number of likes, comments, reactions, etc.);
• conversion.

Cost of search engine advertising

As with social media, the cost of advertising on a website depends on several factors. These include the number of businesses advertising on a particular site or the key phrase a brand wants to promote itself on. The more popular phrases will usually be more expensive.

Such an advertising campaign is run using Google Ads and is billed in the CPC (cost per click) model. The cost per click ranges from a few PLN to as much as a dozen PLN. The advantage of this form is the possibility of targeting, i.e. the setting of specific user characteristics (e.g. gender, age) to be reached by the advertisement.

How much does it cost to advertise on mobile apps?

Advertising on mobile apps involves reaching users who use smartphones or tablets with the Android or iOS operating system on a daily basis. It is considered to be one of the most effective forms of campaigning, mainly due to the ever-increasing prevalence of various apps.

In the case of this form, the pricing of online advertising may be similar to that of search engine advertising. Certainly, the advertiser settles in the form of payment per click, and the cost of such a single action also depends on many factors, such as, for example, the popularity of the application or the frequency of display.

What is the cost of influencer marketing?

Promoting products or services by working with influencers is characterised by a slightly different set of costs - certainly different from the price list for advertising on a website. Rates can start from a few hundred PLN and go up to tens of thousands. Top influencers can even earn several hundred thousand PLN. What is the reason for this discrepancy?

• Numbers of followers/subscribers - it is common to divide influencers into those mini, medium or celebrity.
• Collaboration requirements - a one-off post with a product will be cheaper than repeatedly posting about it. The cheapest form is product placement, but few brands currently opt for this. Influencers are also increasingly informing their audience that they are advertising a brand as part of a collaboration, as this is a legal requirement.

In this case, the way an influencer is promoted and billed for their work depends on the kind of content they create on a daily basis. The terms and conditions of cooperation with a YouTuber will look different from those of someone promoting themselves on Instagram or a blog.

Cost of online graphic advertising

Graphic advertising involves the display of images that contain information about a particular product, service or simply a brand. They show up in various places on the web, such as on websites or social media platforms. If an internet user clicks on a banner, he or she is automatically redirected to the advertiser's website.

The cost of such promotion is also billed in the form of CPC. Rates can range from a few tens of pennies to several zlotys per click.

How do you choose the method of advertising to suit your budget?

You already know that the question of how much an online advertising campaign costs cannot be answered unequivocally. Therefore, every entrepreneur should approach the issue of promoting their products and services individually and adjust their forms to the amount of their budget.

The key word here is optimisation. Brands often think that in order to have an online presence and increase sales results, they need to carry out marketing activities across all areas and platforms. This is, of course, possible for international giants, but in most cases everything has to be tailored to the size of the budget. It is best to get down to it in a few steps:

1. Determine the budget and the target group.
2. Analyse where these audiences are most likely to be in the network.
3. Choose the channels of communication - if the target message is to reach a younger audience, promotion through social media such as TikTok or Instagram is a better choice.
4. Compare offers - it is worthwhile to carefully analyse the rates on different channels.
5. Identify advertising performance indicators - such an indicator could be, for example, ROI, or return on investment.
6. Monitor the effects - just launching a promotional campaign is not enough. You need to keep checking the situation and whether the activities are having any effect.

It is impossible to say unequivocally how much advertising costs on YouTube, Facebook or Instagram. Even the cost of displaying promotional material on websites can vary. The most important thing, therefore, is to determine the budget, as well as the expected results of the campaign.

The cost of InPost's online advertising - find out about our offer

Every entrepreneur has the choice of outsourcing the promotion of their offer to marketing agencies or using third-party proposals. At InPost, we care about the needs of brands, so we have created a promotional offer that will allow them to reach a wide audience. We offer several ways of promotion, both online and in the public space. What can you opt for?

• Wrapping Paczkomat® vending machines - this is advertising that reaches its recipients in the same way as the courier, i.e. 24/7. According to our data, more than 1 000 000 people a day visit the machines while collecting parcels. The net price per column of wrapping is PLN 500, with a minimum of 4 columns to be wrapped. There is also an option of wrapping all boxes, i.e. the whole Paczkomat® machine! The period of such a promotional campaign is 1 month with the possibility of extension.
• Display advertising on the screens of Paczkomat® machines - instead of wrapping the machines, you can also choose to display advertising on the screens of the machines. There are more than 20,000 of these in the country, which also increases the chance of reaching a diverse audience. The static creation can be displayed at three stages of parcel collection - the welcome, authorisation and farewell screens. Each of these costs PLN 100, PLN 150 and PLN 100 net respectively (this is the unit price for 1 month of display).
• Advertising banners - this is one of the more common and traditional ways to promote yourself online. At InPost, we offer the placement of such promotional graphics on four pages, in both computer and mobile versions:
  • Homepage - price ranges from £48,000 to £120,000 net, depending on the display period (from one week to one month);
  • Parcel Tracking - from £96,000 to £240,000 net;
  • Find a Parcel Machine - from £24,000 to £60,000 net;
  • Parcel Manager - from £44,550 to £111,375 net.
• Product sampling - this is a good solution for people who want to benefit from promotional and sales campaigns. It allows them to present their advertising materials (cosmetics samples, PET bottles, full-value food samples, etc.) by distributing samples in the vending machines' caches. The price is set individually.

A detailed price list can be found on our InPost website. In each case, there is also the possibility of creating an individual offer that takes into account the needs of the customer. Sound good? For more information, please visit https://inpost.pl/reklama .