BLOG: Is a cheaper advertisement really saving you money?

Don’t get caught up in the false economy of thinking that a cheaply priced advertisement is really a bargain. This can sometimes end up costing you more in the long run!

Shhhhh, want to know a secret?

This is the advertising industry method (or at least it should be) of how hard your advertising budget is working for you. It’s called ‘cost per thousand’.

So, what does that mean? It’s quite simple really, but excellent at measuring how effective your advertising budget is in reaching your target audience; or if you would be better spending it in another publication. 

Here’s how it works…

It is based on the circulation of your chosen publication and the cost of your advertisement. It is always important to compare like-for-like, so using circulation and not readership is, we feel a more accurate comparison tool. 

For those who are confused between circulation and readership, circulation is the number of copies of a publication printed and circulated, and readership is how many people are estimated to read it.

Readership is a difficult figure to come by as it is mostly based on industry norms for various types of publications and not facts. Circulation is more of a proven and accurate measure as publishers tend to know how many of their publications are printed and distributed.

To illustrate we are going to use Your Local Link magazine and another local comparable type of magazine as examples.

Your Local Link magazine has a circulation of 91,000 copies per month. An 1/8th page advertisement in Your Local Link magazine (an A4 magazine) costs £175 per month and reaches 91,000 letterboxes. So, the cost to reach 1,000 letterboxes with Your Local Link is 1.93pence (£175 divided by 91).

The equivalent sized advertisement (1/4 page) costing £106 in another local A5 publication that has a circulation of 5647 letterboxes works out at 18.77pence per 1000 letterboxes (£106 divided by 5.647).

So where is your budget better spent? Paying nearly 19pence per 1000 letterboxes or 1.93pence per 1000 letterboxes? I’ll leave the decision up to you. 

If you would like to know how to work out the cost per ‘000 price for other advertisement sizes and other publications, please just get in touch with one of our expert team members on 01904 767881.