Print advertising decline

UK businesses are taking their ad spend away from print media, now more so than ever before, claims latest research commissioned by digital marketing agency Marketingsignals.com. Over half (56%) of UK based businesses have turned their main focus away from spending on print advertising during the past 12 months.

Top five reasons why companies are turning away from traditional advertising

1. Transparency over ROI, making spend easier to attribute to sales (64%)
2. Increased conversions compared to more traditional advertising methods (62%)
3. Lower investment and a more targeted audience reach (55%)
4. Social media targeting (37%)
5. Flexibility to change a strategy mid-course (24%)

The top reason for this shift away from print to digital is the increased control companies have over their ad spend, with results being much more measurable, as they are fully trackable and most importantly, attributable.

In addition to being able to accurately measure ROI, almost the same number of respondents (62%) say that the increase in conversions (compared to traditional advertising methods) is a major reason why they shift their budgets.

Discussing why digital marketing is on the rise at the detriment of print, Gareth Hoyle, managing director at Marketingsignals.com comments: “Of course companies like ours are aware of the benefits of digital marketing and SEO, it’s the reason why we exist! It’s fantastic to see that in 2019, more companies than ever have become fully on board with the digital age.

“Pretty much every company has some form of online presence, as it’s almost a necessity to survive in this day and age, though it’s really interesting to see some of the reasons behind the upscaled shift in budgets being researched and published.”

Hoyle concludes: “In short, British businesses are fast seeing the benefits to their bottom line when their marketing departments focus their advertising spend on digital.”

Methodology

The findings are based on a survey of 1,325 UK marketing professionals