It was an age of infinite possibility. A new beginning. New technologies erupted into public consciousness. New horizons opened before us all.

It was the genesis of the digital age, a time when dreamers dreamed and almost anything could happen.

There in the murky past, that halcyon age, the creators of digital advertising made a simple promise:

Digital advertising would allow any one of us to create what we’d only dreamed of before: The Magic Money Machine. 

Put a dollar in, get two dollars out. Or four. Or ten. 

With digital ads, (they told us), we could target with pinpoint accuracy. We could track the performance of every single ad. We could attribute each penny of ad spending to every dollar of business gained.

According to these Dons of the Digital Advertising Age, our biggest challenge would be to get our Magic Money Machine built and tuned right. Once we did that – once we built it and tuned it – the only limit to our earnings would be how much and how fast we could dump money into the machine.

Ah, those were the days…

Painful Question #1: Have you managed to create your Magic Money Machine yet? 

No?

Surprise! You’re not alone.

Few businesses ever experience the ROI promised by digital advertising. In fact, many suffer a negative ROI. And – as everyone with a calculator knows – the more accurate word for “negative ROI” is “expense.”

Painful Question #2: Is digital advertising an expense to your business, or an investment in your business? 

On the face of it, the question seems silly. Expenses are things you limit. Investments are things you maximize. If you don’t advertise, you don’t get leads.

No leads means no customers. No customers means no revenue. No revenue means no profits. No profits means no business.

So, the answer to the question is obvious: advertising must be an investment in your business. Everybody knows this.

Ah, but what if everybody is wrong? What if I proved that your digital advertising is really an expense? And what if I showed you that you’re doing a crap job of minimizing that expense?

Consider the gauntlet thrown down.

How to Burn Money (The Slow Way)

You already know that a huge majority of real-world advertising is useless. (You’ve experienced it. I don’t need to give examples.) You’d save time and effort if you just took that money you were gonna spend on those kind of ads, stacked it in the driveway, soaked it in lighter fluid and tossed a lit cigarette on the pile.

At least you could use it to roast marshmallows.

Digital advertising provides the same opportunity to burn money, only faster. So, get over the idea that digital advertising is some kind of magic bullet. Do it poorly, and you’ll piss plenty of pennies away. It can be done right, but it requires a focus and discipline.

So, how do you ensure that your digital advertising performs like an investment rather than an expense? Follow these 4 fundamental principles.

1. One Ad – One Goal

Don’t make your digital ads try to accomplish more than one goal.

You wouldn’t tell your toddler to “empty the dishwasher, fold the laundry and set the table for dinner.” But far too many business owners expect a single digital ad to accomplish several different things: make a sale, collect an email address, educate, entertain, illumine, promote awareness.

Make a decision. What one specific action do you want people to take because they read, saw or heard your ad?

Do you want them to buy something from you? Tell someone else about you? Visit a particular website? Scribble in their circa-1984 DayTimer?

Whatever that one specific action may be, make sure your ad makes that one specific action clear, simple, singular and impossible to screw up.

If you make your digital ads try to accomplish more than one goal, you’ll turn your advertising into an expense.

2. Keep Your Promise

The typical goal of a digital ad is to get people to your website, right? You get them to click on that link because you make a promise to them” “If you do this, then I will do that.”

What is the exact experience of a person when they click on that link?

Does the web page you directed them to fulfill the specific promise you made to them? Most pages don’t.

If the person must take a specific sequence of steps to achieve your ultimate purpose, then you know you must build a sequence of “promises made, promises kept” each step through your sales funnel. That first step into the funnel must fulfill your first promise – you know, the one promise – explicit or implied – you made on the ad.

Screw up the very first promise, and I can guarantee your digital advertising will be an expense, not an investment.

3. Start Small 

You don’t need a huge digital budget to advertise effectively. Digital platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google allow you to run campaigns with small budgets.

So, start small. Test different messages and different visuals for the same message.

4. Test, Measure, Repeat

Once you’ve proven an ad will perform, once you’ve proven that it more than pays for itself, only then should you increase the reach of that ad.

Whether that means you buy more reach on the same platform or replicate your test on a different platform, the rules remain the same. Test, measure, repeat.

This is how to avoid turning your digital advertising into a Magic Money-Burning Machine.

Your Not-Really-Magic Money Machine 

The promise of digital advertising was never realistic. Though the advantages of digital advertising were clearly understood and state, the disadvantages were either ignored or disregarded.

There is no Magic Money Machine.

However, if you adhere to these 4 simple principles, you’ve got a much better chance of making your digital advertising put money in your pocket rather than suck the life from your business.

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