What Challenges Arise With Cross-Platform Advertising?

What Challenges Arise With Cross-Platform Advertising?

Cross-platform advertising presents a unique set of challenges, as experienced by professionals like a seasoned Digital Marketer who grappled with aligning agencies for cohesive messaging. Alongside expert insights, we've gathered additional answers detailing the diverse hurdles encountered in the digital advertising landscape. From the complexities of tailoring content to each platform to the intricacies of navigating algorithm volatility, this article explores the multifaceted challenges and strategies in cross-platform advertising.

• Align Agencies for Cohesive Messaging
• Adapt Core Messages Across Platforms
• Tailor Content to Each Platform
• Reconcile Platform-Specific Analytics
• Understand Diverse Engagement Metrics
• Account for Audience Overlap
• Streamline Ad Specifications Process
• Navigate Algorithm Volatility

Align Agencies for Cohesive Messaging

The biggest challenge that I have encountered with cross-platform advertising originates from working with startups as a freelancer. Companies will hire different agencies or freelancers to advertise on the platform in which they specialize. These are separate entities that aren't in alignment, so while they all are advertising based on the same customer journey and goal, there are several disconnects, which creates missed opportunities and confusion or loss of interest for consumers.

Adapt Core Messages Across Platforms

One significant challenge I faced with cross-platform advertising was ensuring consistent messaging across different platforms. Different platforms have varied user demographics and content formats, which made it difficult to maintain a unified brand voice. To tackle this, I focused on creating a core message that was adaptable yet consistent. For instance, when advertising a new product launch, I crafted a versatile slogan that could be easily adjusted for Instagram's visual format and Twitter's character limit, while retaining the product's unique selling proposition. This approach helped in maintaining brand consistency and maximizing reach across platforms.

Tailor Content to Each Platform

When it comes to cross-platform advertising, it's not enough to hit that share button. This is something I learned the hard way. It seems like a no-brainer time-saver to use the same post for TikTok and Instagram, for example, but this strategy has its downsides. It may even be turning your audience off.

The reason is simple: People likely follow you on multiple social venues. If they're being bombarded by the same video on two platforms, it can feel redundant and lazy—even annoying. Likely, they're on each social media for a different reason. TikTok is entertainment-based, where short videos thrive. Instagram, on the other hand, is a place where photos are still appreciated, and things like infographics can be a better way to convey information.

Sometimes, it's better to take the time to tailor your posts so they differ from platform to platform, even if it means less content overall.

Reconcile Platform-Specific Analytics

When engaging in cross-platform advertising, one major challenge is the lack of standardized metrics for measuring success across different platforms. Each platform tends to have its own unique set of analytics, making it difficult to compare performance or aggregate data into a single, comprehensive view of campaign effectiveness. This siloed information can lead to an incomplete understanding of an advertisement's impact and may result in skewed marketing decisions.

Advertisers need to invest extra effort to interpret and reconcile these differences to fully understand their campaign’s performance. To adapt to this issue, consider utilizing third-party tools that help consolidate data or work with a marketing analyst who can translate disparate analytics into actionable insights.

Understand Diverse Engagement Metrics

Advertising on multiple platforms brings the challenge of dealing with varying engagement metrics, as what counts as engagement can differ vastly from one platform to another. For instance, a 'view' on one platform might not be comparable to a 'view' on another due to different criteria for what constitutes that action. This can be problematic when trying to evaluate which platform yields the most meaningful interactions with potential customers.

Additionally, nuances in user behavior across platforms can result in varying levels of engagement, complicating the performance analysis. Advertisers should strive to understand the specific engagement metrics of each platform and tailor their analysis accordingly to improve strategy effectiveness.

Account for Audience Overlap

Another complication of cross-platform advertising is audience overlap, which can lead to misjudged campaign reach. It's common for the same individuals to use multiple platforms, so when an advertisement is shown across several channels, the number of unique viewers may be overestimated. This overestimation can inflate marketing metrics and lead to decisions based on inaccurate reach data.

Identifying and accounting for this overlap is important in order to allocate advertising budgets effectively and maximize return on investment. Marketers should use cross-platform attribution tools to gain a more accurate understanding of their true audience reach.

Streamline Ad Specifications Process

Deploying ads across multiple platforms often means grappling with a diverse range of advertisement specifications. Each platform may require different sizes, file formats, or creative approaches to ensure the ad displays correctly and effectively resonates with the audience. This variety in specifications can significantly increase the workload, requiring more time and resources to create suitably tailored content for each platform.

As a result, the process can become resource-intensive and cost-prohibitive, pushing advertisers to streamline their creations without compromising the quality. Aim to develop a well-organized creative process that includes adaptable templates and standardized workflows to manage diverse ad specifications efficiently.

Navigate Algorithm Volatility

The unpredictability of algorithms presents a significant challenge in cross-platform advertising. Each social media or advertising platform uses a unique algorithm that dictates how and when ads are shown to users, and these algorithms can change without notice, radically affecting ad performance. Understanding and staying up-to-date with these algorithms is vital, yet difficult, and a change can lead to a previously successful ad failing to reach its intended audience.

This volatility complicates optimization efforts, as strategies must constantly evolve to align with algorithm updates. Advertisers should stay informed about platform algorithm changes and be prepared to adjust their strategies quickly in order to maintain campaign effectiveness.