After a year growing your business you will be in a position where your turnover is now dependant on traffic driven from pay-per-click adverts and affiliates. If the price of these adverts go up your margins could be squeezed or even wiped out completely.
Similarly, if competitors see you are making strong profits they may choose to out-bid you for this advertising. If you do not have a strong overall online presence there is nothing for you to defend your market share with and once again your profits could be squeezed.
Alternatively, if you have spent a year growing earned, owned and paid media you will be in a less reliant position. You will have invested in online resources and have a strong content-rich website to drag in traffic so you are not completely dependent on paid media.
Perhaps you begin offering a new service or your product gets some extra exposure or advertising and you choose to grow your business, if you are reliant on Paid Media you only have one main avenue to grow.
Also, as you are ‘paying’ for the majority of your traffic you may end up paying for people looking for vacancies or information about your product but not interested in buying.
If you choose to reduce your spending online and you have only spent money on ‘paid media’ you will have invested in very little beyond a few landing pages as most of your money has gone into temporary adverts.
If you have invested in Earned and Owned media you will continue to have a strong website with content, inward links and an active social media profile that will offer returns even with minimal oversight and you can choose to invest in growing again at some point in the future.
