Why some Online Marketing Campaigns Fail

© March Oyinki 2017

As a result of better and secure online payment systems, a lot more people have come to embrace ecommerce, and doing business online has now become the trend. Consequent of this development, companies and individuals have thronged the Internet, trying to catch-in on the opportunities created by the ever expanding e-Commerce business. Online marketing continues to play an extremely valuable part in the whole ecommerce system, and the main reason why companies and individuals engage in online marketing is to create brand awareness, generate lead and traffic, and educate customers.

Online advertising and promotion attracts enormous investments by companies and individuals who are trying to secure a market for their products and services. There are many who engage in online marketing without the required understand of the principles of the market. Therefore, it is not unfamiliar to hear argument or read about how many have invested their time, energy and resources in marketing campaigns that have ended up to be ineffective because they delved into it without understanding or considering the principles behind the online market place.

Many companies and individuals make the mistake of signing up with advertising channels to promote their products and services without giving consideration to the target audience. Every product or service has its own peculiar target audience; it is not a one size fits all marketing campaign. It is definitely unproductive to promote car products in an online channel that has dedicated patronage mostly by teenagers and young adults.

To appropriately promote your brand and engage your target audience, there are a number of online marketing channels that caters for these needs and also serving a unique audience. Social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+ are quite effective, while for promoting visual and video contents, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo and YouTube are great channels for creating brand presence.

The whole essence of corporate brands, products and services is to promote online marketing and generate sales. Generating sales is an entirely different ball game, and the channels used for this purpose are equally different too. Ecommerce sites and other storefronts use these specific channels to generate sales. Affiliate Marketing Networks, Amazon Resellers, Google Shopping Feeds, Facebook Storefront, eBay Resellers, Google Search Network are some of these channels.

Lead generation is an aspect of online marketing, whereby information of potential customers are collected through links placed on specific marketing channels that are more suitable for that purpose. These channels include, Pay-Per-Click (PPC), Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Email marketing, Blogs and Feeds, and Display Advertising.



Understanding the role of each channel and combining them to derive the desired goal is paramount to the success of online marketing. The key word here is ‘target market’. The market is broadly categorized into three segments; male, female and general, with further segmentation into children, teenagers, adolescent and the elderly. In proposing a marketing campaign, it is critical to understand that every single product or service is targeted at one or all of these categorization.

Certain online channels are more suitable to promote products targeting children, some are best for teenager and adolescent, while others are more effective for general and the elderly, all depending on the type of product or services that you intend to promote. Choosing a channel that will provide the most efficient and effective results are key to a successful marketing campaign.

In an article published by Selligent,  it maintained that there is no such thing as a best marketing channel for your business and customers, instead, it is about what is the best mix of efficient channels for different consumer segments, rather than about which channels show the best results, but it failed to identify the fact that products and services have target audience, and so also are their different market segments.

While channels such as Affiliate Marketing Networks, Amazon Resellers, Google Shopping Feeds, Facebook Storefront, eBay Resellers, Google Search Network attract elderly individuals who are looking for tangible items, ranging from home appliances to machine tools, and they have the means to pay for products and services straight on. On the other hand channels such as Twitter, Facebook, and Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Vimeo and YouTube, are patronized by teenagers and adolescents who are mostly following the latest trends in fashion, games, movies and music.

Often times the teenage and adolescent market segment may not have the ability to convert their interest for items they find online to instant purchase, and may have to fall back on their parents to make the purchase for them at a later time. Same applies to children, whenever they find anything item online that is of interest to them, they call the attention of mommy or daddy and request for it to be bought for them. While it is strategic for online marketers to target children and adolescent market, they should know that indirectly targeting it is still the adult population that has the power to convert lead to purchase.
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