I recently advertised in a newspaper and was amazed at the complexity. Print media is not only expensive, but the bigger you want your ad, the more colours, the ore you have to pay. Then it is also not even guaranteed to look good or even be seen.

I asked a friend of mine in print media about the differences colour makes to an ad. His reply was:

You will pay more for the amount of colour used. 1 colour < 2 colour etc < full colour.

Artwork must be CMYK, not RGB.

Must accept that colours will come out somewhat duller due to the poor quality of newsprint paper

Must avoid small white text on mixed colour backgrounds... The print registration can shift dramatically due to the high speed print process and colour plates (cyan, magenta, yellow black) don’t always line up, filling in the text and making it illegible. Not an issue if the white text is on a pure process colour (cyan, magenta, yellow black). Not an issue if you run small black text onto the mixed colour.

Make sure that the artwork pdf you supply passes pdfx1a criteria. That checks all compatibility.

All that excludes the price of the ad and the risk of not even hitting my target market.

I placed an ad on Google AdWords, created about 7 variations for different banner and image sizes. I have text ads, ads for videos. I am running two campaigns and have various keywords set up to let my target market find me. There are no restrictions on colour, no extra charges for size or format. I only pay for the clicks.

So far my average cost per click is R8.50. My ads are seen 10,000 times a day and I only pay for those who WANT to click it.

How much money are you wasting on traditional advertising?

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