To begin, let me clarify what I mean by paid acquisition. When brands bring in a new customer, it falls under acquisition. When paid is associated with the acquisition, it implies there was a cost to bringing in sed customer.
Much of paid acquisition falls within the digital ecosystem, although it’s not exclusive to digital channels. For example, Netflix executed OOH (out of home) marketing with their viral campaign just about one year ago.
Digital & social paid acquisition is often looked at as a more cost efficient, and many times measurable, aspect in customer acquisition. So this begs the question: what role should paid acquisition play in a brand’s strategy?
Spoiler alert – the answer is a winding road filled with “if, and + buts” but let’s simplify in this scenario. The truth is too many brands look to paid acquisition as the answer to profitable and sustainable growth. The correct approach is to think of a brand like a bicycle wheel, with the brand being centered as the hub, and hundreds of spokes stemming from it. One of those spokes is paid acquisition. It’s crucial these spokes work together. In other words, paid acquisition needs to work with product, customer experience, operations, retention, etc.
Paid acquisition certainly helps grow the brand, but it does not define the brand. There is a reason paid acquisition generally falls under an employee with ‘Growth’ in their title. It grows the brand, but it is not a solution to cover up other areas of a brand. Quite frankly, if the other spokes aren’t in place, there is nothing to grow.
The best brands use paid acquisition as a way to throw fuel on the fire. No fire, and paid acquisition won’t be sustainable.
Paid acquisition at its finest delivers the brand’s and product’s core benefits. It allows a consumer to envision how he/she will achieve a desired result with the brand’s product being integral to the process.
At the end of the day, keeping the ‘hub and spoke’ comparison in mind will keep any brand ahead of much of the competition. With the cost to acquire a customer continuing to increase, and measures being taken that makes attribution more difficult than ever before, brands that use paid acquisition as their strategy will die out. Brand that integrate it into their strategy, a strategy that considers the other spokes, are the ones that will thrive.