New data reveals high ROI for Aussie SMBs in advertising
Small and medium sized Australian businesses (SMB) are reporting a positive return on their investment in advertising, new Amazon Ads research reveals.
Of the 68% of SMBs investing, 88% say they are successfully acquiring new customers. Moreover, more than half (54%) also report success in using advertising to help them grow their business globally.
This confidence in advertising led more than a third (33%) of Australian SMBs to increase their spend on advertising during the past year, while 39% kept their budget the same year-on-year.
The most popular channels for SMB spend in advertising include social media advertising (70%), followed by online search (63%) and online display (44%). Looking ahead, nearly a quarter (24%) of those sampled said they planned to spend on streaming TV advertising during the next 12 months.
SMBs that choose not to invest in advertising cite high costs (44%) and a lack of return on previous investments (38%) as the main reasons.
Even among SMBs that are currently spending on advertising, challenges remain. Over three in 10 (32%) said that their biggest challenge was lack of budget, followed by just under a third (29%) citing a lack of time and resources, and 28% saying that knowing where to focus their advertising budget was the greatest challenge their business faced when it came to advertising successfully.
Amazon Ads ANZ head of endemic advertising Kasey Jamison said: “We see many small and medium businesses testing the impact of advertising as part of their overall growth strategy and deciding if advertising provides the right return on investment to help them meet their business goals.
“We aim to make advertising as simple as possible for any small business, with easy-to-use tools and resources that offer a low cost of entry, closed-loop measurement, and the ability to introduce their products to customers at scale.”
Australian SMBs believe in the power of technology to amplify the impact of advertising and address their current challenges, with 46% of respondants believing AI will improve the performance of their advertising campaigns.
As a result, almost one in five (19%) of those sampled are currently training their teams on how to use AI technology for advertising purposes.
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