This year, approximately 77% of companies are expected to increase their digital marketing budgets, and it's not difficult to see why. Digital marketing is one of the most important ways to get noticed these days, as if you're not online, you're cutting down your number of potential customers by thousands - if not millions. Unfortunately, no matter how hard you might try to get everything right the first time around, wasting the marketing budget from time to time is not uncommon, especially if you are working with the wrong partners. Executives have been using the phrase "half of our marketing budget is wasted - but we don't know which half" for decades now.

As a business owner or head of an organization, you'll regularly be bombarded with the latest "big thing" or "new solution" to deliver more customers and leads to your doorstep, but getting the most out of your cash means understanding what your company actually needs. Wasted marketing dollars result in a reduced chance for true innovation to take place. The internet has become an integral part of our lives, and we can't get ahead in this digital age without taking advantage of its potential. Now more than ever before there are opportunities for businesses like yours to be seen by tons - yes I mean TONS-of people online! What do you say?

Rather than simply moping within the wasted ad budget blues, use the following tips to identify your biggest issues and overcome them.

1. Know Who You're Writing For

Defining your target market is a tough, but essential part of establishing success online and developing your brand identity. The more you neglect tailoring your messages to speak to the right crowd, the more you run the risk of your content failing to resonate with anyone. Establishing clear buyer personas can be a great way to offer yourself or your content writers guidance and structure when it comes to delivering blog posts, eBooks, or email advertisements.

If you understand how your customers prefer to receive and read their information, then you'll be able to adjust your distribution to the point where you're constantly showing up in all of the right places. Understanding the language that your ideal customers speak allows you to harness crucial information and come up with a style and tone that aligns you with the way your consumers communicate. In simple terms - knowing who you're writing for will help you to avoid spending money and time on content that doesn't make an impact.

2. Pinpoint The Programs You Can't Measure

The only way to truly understand which marketing programs are the most effective in your advertising campaign is to measure and analyze metrics. Unfortunately, although using social media can be incredibly useful, one of the downsides is that it can offer somewhat fuzzy results when you're trying to determine how effective your actions have been. Although it's possible to connect metrics to a carefully planned effort on social media (example: Facebook Advertising) - or any effort that results in your business keeping, growing, or developing customers, this doesn't mean that every dollar you spend on advertising will result in a certain amount of revenue. The bottom line is that you should never spend your budget on an advertising program wherein you can't measure the results.

3. Stop Falling Into Old Habits

When the going gets tough, a lot of marketers fall back into ideas that they've tried and used before. Although this isn't always a bad thing, it's important to remember that the times are changing. Convincing the company that you're marketing for to try a new approach can be difficult, but it's also an important way of establishing an innovative and unique brand. If you're serious about growing a business, then you'll need to develop a strong case of why people should be thinking differently. Although you should avoid falling back on things that have "worked in the past", you should never bring a solution to the table without including measurable data to back yourself up. Executives are always going to want to see ROI and numbers to prove your theory.

4. Test Everything

Finally, overcome the wasted ad budget blues by testing everything and figuring out exactly where you went wrong. You can't know whether your marketing assets are performing at their best unless you test your existing content against different variations. By performing A/B tests, you give yourself a greater insight into the behavior of your website visitors, and the more information you gather, the more you will be able to apply in improving your strategy. Although doing something as minor as changing the copy that's on your CTA button may seem irrelevant, the smallest actions could save you significant money and time in the long run.

If you're not sure where to start, begin by considering the type of advertisement you're running. For instance, if you're using a PPC ad, then you should be testing at least one of the following things:

• The headline - how your content shows up in search results
• The keywords that your ad displays for
• The link - the page that your link takes visitors to
• The body text - the meta-tag description your page has within search results

Be in full control of your digital media buys. ExactDrive has a team of dedicated, experienced digital media buyers and planners who specialize in uncovering the most unique and effective strategies. We become extensions to your daily operations and can be trusted with any digital media needs because deep knowledge is always at hand.

What if you could buy digital media in a way that reduced time and increased profitability? ExactDrive does just this. We have simplified complicated schemes for advertisers by providing access to inventory from some of the largest sources, along with real-time bidding capabilities which give them peace of mind knowing their ads will be seen! Not only does it make planning easier than ever before but also provides unparalleled insight into how effective each campaign has been across various platforms making sure all aspects are covered efficiently. Let us know!