Your digital funnel isn’t broken — it’s just starving for brand

Posted 22 Jul

Let’s be honest: the glory days of cheap clicks are long gone. Meta CPMs are up nearly 20% year-on-yea. ROAS is down 0–10% across most industries (Varos, 2024). It’s not just Meta. Google CPCs are rising too — with average search ad costs up 17% since 2022 (WordStream Benchmark Report, 2024). Meanwhile, attention spans are shorter, competition is fiercer, and paid media channels are more crowded than ever.

If you’ve been relying on digital to carry the full weight of your marketing, you’ve likely felt the pinch — rising costs, shrinking returns, and harder-won conversions.

THE ISSUE
THE ISSUE

Paid media shouldn't be propping up a broken funnel

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: Paid media should amplify what’s already working — not patch a broken funnel. If you can’t attract, convert, or retain customers organically, paid media won’t fix that — it’ll just magnify the inefficiency at a higher cost per acquisition. You end up in a cycle of overpaying to convert the same customers your competitors are also chasing.

A 2023 Nielsen study found 55% of sales impact comes from brand-building channels, while performance channels account for only 45%. Yet, most businesses over-invest in short-term activation because it’s “trackable.”

That’s short-termism — and it’s expensive.

THE SOLUTION THE SOLUTION

This is why smart brands don't cut the top of the funnel

Strong brands aren’t playing the short game. They know:

• People need to recognise your brand before they search
• People need to trust you before they click
• People need to recall you when they’re ready to buy

That’s where Out-of-Home (OOH) shines. With guaranteed reach, zero auction inflation, and mass awareness at scale, OOH builds mental availability — the psychological shortcut people use when making buying decisions (Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow).

A Meta & Kantar CrossMedia study (2022) found adding OOH to digital campaigns increased ROI by up to 23%, especially when paired with high-quality creative.

And a MOVE 1.5 analysis (2023) in Australia showed campaigns with OOH experienced a 14% higher uplift in branded search compared to digital-only campaigns.

Out-of-home doesn’t replace digital — it fixes it

Smart marketers use a blended out-of-home strategy to:

• Lower digital acquisition costs by warming up audiences before they click
  
• Break out of the auction spiral — OOH impressions aren’t bid-based, you own them
  
• Reach new customers outside their usual digital bubble, growing brand demand
  

In fact, Google’s Decoding Decisions (2020) study highlights that 70% of brand decisions happen before customers ever hit your website — out-of-home keeps you in that decision set, driving preference before performance channels take credit.

Why most brands miss this

It’s easy to fall into the comfort zone of trackable clicks. But performance without brand support leads to plateauing returns, especially in saturated markets. Without a strong top-of-funnel strategy, you:

• Pay more for every click
  
• Suffer from inconsistent demand
  
• Become invisible to new audiences
  

As Les Binet and Peter Field’s long-term research (IPA Databank) shows, brands with balanced brand + activation spend achieve higher market share growth and more stable, cost-effective marketing performance.

If your ROAS is declining, your funnel likely isn’t broken — it’s underfed.

• OOH fills the funnel by building awareness and trust before people search.
• OOH makes your digital channels work harder and cheaper.
• OOH brings you fresh audiences your competitors can’t outbid you for.

Clicks close sales. Brand builds demand. Get both working together — and your results will follow.

Want to see how OOH can make your digital more efficient? Let’s talk.