- Lately, the digital marketing industry has been questioned for its carbon footprint.
- Data says that an average media campaign generates around 70 tons of CO2.
Digital Marketing is slowly traversing the realm of carbon footprints, and marketers are trying to find ways to maximize ROI while reducing carbon footprints. In 2022, fifty-five published a study showing that the average media campaign generates around 70 tons of CO2 emissions, which is equivalent to seven people’s carbon outputs in an average year.
Major countries worldwide are trying to reduce carbon emissions at a hefty price point, and somehow, businesses got caught in the mix. They need to balance maximizing the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and return on investment and minimizing their carbon footprints.
Digital Marketing and Carbon Emission
The study focused on breaking down the components of a digital marketing campaign and calculated the CO2 equivalence for different scenarios. Then, they aligned these outcomes to favorable business outcomes and showcased that marketers can improve ROI while providing a sustained reduction in carbon emissions.
Studies suggest that digital technologies account for nearly 1.4% to 5.9% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Also, an average marketing campaign could emit around 70 tons of CO2. These carbon footprints emerge from various aspects, including creative development, such as designing video ads, graphics, website elements, campaign execution, ad service technology, and ineffective targeting.
Aligning Businesses, Marketing & Environmental Goals
Business owners and marketers must align their operations with environmental goals to reduce carbon footprints. Advertisers must research to identify the areas that contribute the most to an increased carbon footprint; then, they can work on specific goals, one at a time, to help reduce this overall impact.
Marketers must set measurable goals that balance marketing success and the reduction of carbon footprints. They can define success metrics like website traffic, lead generation, sales conversion, etc. Start with a baseline measurement of the current digital marketing footprint using tools like the Bilan Carbone method, then set specific and achievable targets for reducing carbon emissions over time.
Moreover, they can set a business strategy to improve the performance of digital campaigns and decrease carbon emissions. They must avoid chasing clicks or impressions and instead focus on delivering high-quality, targeted content that resonates with the target audience and brings results. Reduced spend on ads can lower the environmental impact of irrelevant impressions.
Marketers can use the following strategies to reduce carbon emissions while maximizing the campaign’s effectiveness.
- Audience Targeting
- Ad Creativity Efficiency
- Real-time Bid Optimization
Using these strategies can significantly reduce carbon emissions and help gain desired results.
- Audience Targeting
Businesses must know that digital activities account for around 4% of the global carbon footprint, and energy consumption increases annually by around 9%. Data suggests that given the growing impact of online activities, optimally targeting the correct audience is essential for the campaign’s success and environmental perspective.
Marketers must first assess how often the target audience is exposed to your activities. Then, they can determine when the users begin to lose interest. These insights allow marketers to understand people’s behavior across multiple campaigns and help them find the optimal frequency cap.
When a campaign is seen at fewer but more effective times, it balances carbon emissions and reduces the number of devices used to display the ads. Insights also allow them to see whether people exposed to the campaign are behaving as expected, and this data can be further used to refine effectiveness while reducing carbon footprints.
- Ad Creativity Efficiency
Digital marketing campaigns must be designed to be as effective as possible and have a minimum carbon footprint. Traditionally, the creative part of any digital marketing campaign involves multiple revisions and large file sizes for graphics and videos, including server storage for creative assets, and energy consumption peaked during design and production.
Marketers can focus on quality over quantity. They must avoid creating multiple ad variations and hoping that one sticks; rather, they should invest in in-depth audience research to create targeted creatives that should resonate on the first try. Large image and video files consume significantly large storage space and energy during delivery. Using compression techniques and choosing the right formats could ensure high quality with minimal file size.
They can also prioritize reusability and create versatile ad components that can easily be adapted for different campaigns and platforms with minimal tweaks, thereby avoiding the need to create new assets from scratch. Many platforms offer pre-designed templates, stock images, etc. Using them can save time and resources compared to building everything from scratch.
Simplicity can be the key here, as visually complex creatives, even if they look good, often require more processing power and storage and lead to higher emissions. Hence, marketers should work on making clear, impactful messaging with simpler yet engaging designs, which usually have a smaller footprint.
In 2022, data centers used around 460 terawatt-hours, equivalent to 2% of global electricity consumption. This consumption is believed to climb, and sustainable advertising and marketing methodologies can significantly reduce consumption and carbon footprint.
- Real Time Bid Optimization
In digital advertising, real-time bidding (RTB) is where advertisers compete for ad impressions through automated bidding auctions. However, this constant bidding activity largely contributes to a larger carbon footprint by pressuring servers; Real-Time Bid Optimization (RTBO) can be a viable option.
Studies have shown that nearly 18% of digital ad spend is wasted due to inefficient bidding strategies. This wastes a company’s resources and leads to unnecessary energy consumption associated with ad delivery infrastructure. Traditional RTB involves placing bids on many irrelevant impressions, and frequent small changes in bids require constant processing power.
RTBO for a Sustainable Future
Instead of being at the auction all the time, marketers can opt for real-time bid optimization (RTBO), which uses advanced algorithms to analyze data and automate bid decisions. It can lead to minimizing wasted impressions and lesser energy consumption. RTBO utilizes data like user demographics, browsing history and past campaign performance to identify the most relevant impression for your brand.
This targeting reduces the possibility of placing bids on irrelevant placements and minimizes energy wastage in delivering ads to unlikely viewers. Instead of simply bidding high for every impression, RTBO considers factors such as the potential conversion value of a click, allowing more targeted bids, maximizing ROI, and minimizing wasted resources.
The RTBO algorithm can make fewer and more calculated bid adjustments based on real-time data, significantly reducing the constant processing power usually required for frequent micro-adjustments. For example, an e-commerce website can use RTBO to identify users who have abandoned their carts and prioritize bidding on ad impressions to reach such high-value potential customers.
In conclusion, reducing digital marketing’s carbon footprint can offer multiple benefits and positively impact the business and environment. Reducing digital marketing footprints helps fight climate change by minimizing greenhouse gas emissions. Focusing on carbon reduction demonstrates the brand’s commitment to environmental responsibility.
