Comparing Google Ads to local newspaper ads from 20 years ago

I was digging through old files last week and found a receipt from 2004 for a half-page ad in our local paper. That one ad cost me $450 for a single Sunday run. Now I can run a Google Ads campaign for the same amount and get clicks for weeks, track exactly who visits my site, and adjust the messaging overnight. The newspaper ad brought in maybe 3 or 4 phone calls, tops. With Google Ads I can see which keywords actually bring in jobs and dump the ones that don't. Is there anyone else who remembers the old days of print marketing and feels like we wasted a lot of money on guesswork?

3 comments

3 Comments

west.casey13d ago

@sean_green44 your landscaping buddy nailed it with the flyers comparison, we were all just gambling with our money back then. Did you ever run a newspaper ad and actually ask how your customers found you, or did you just assume the ad worked because the phone rang a few times? I feel like nobody really tracked results in the old days, we just threw money at whatever seemed like a good idea and hoped for the best.

sean_green4414d ago

My buddy runs a landscaping company and he told me about the old days of dropping flyers on every doorstep in a new development. Hundreds of dollars in printing and gas money, and maybe one call from a guy who wanted to complain about his neighbor's dog. Now he throws a hundred bucks at Google Ads targeted to people searching "lawn care near me" and gets five solid leads in a weekend. He said the flyers felt like throwing cash into a sewer compared to what he does now. That half page ad for $450 sounds like a total nightmare when you think about what you get for it today.

logan56114d ago

Oh you mean you actually bought into that whole "print is dying" thing before? lol I was the same way honestly. I used to swear by flyers for my own side gig because my uncle told me that's how he built his whole business in the 90s. Then I tried one of those Facebook ad things for $50 and got three calls in an afternoon. Felt like an idiot for wasting all that time and gas money on paper that people just throw in the recycling bin. The targeting is just so much better now, you can literally pick who sees it instead of hoping someone walking past their mailbox is in the mood to hire you.