10 Reasons Why 10DLC Has Been A Disaster for Text Marketing

‍

Photo by Ron_Hoekstra on Pixabay

‍

Today, many brands are moving away from text-only SMS marketing and Towards Digital Content Marketing. In other words, they are moving away from the Traditional Text Marketing and Towards Digital Content Marketing. So why do we say that 10DLC has been a disaster for text marketing? Well, because it has! That’s right – we think that the continued adoption of the 10% DLV (digital content marketing) rule by brands is going to have seriously negative repercussions on text-based communication strategies in the near future. Here’s why…

Lack of Transparency in Content Marketing Costs

Advertising is a business, so it’s only natural that brands want to maximize their return on investment. However, there is a big difference between maximizing a return and inflating a cost! The former is a strategic decision – the latter is fraudulent! Unfortunately, it is impossible to accurately and transparently estimate how much digital content marketing campaigns will cost. This is because there are so many variables. For example, if you are creating a video campaign, you need to consider factors such as production costs, duration of the campaign, and lead-time for the creative to be created. That’s why it has become extremely common for brands to inflate the cost of their digital content marketing campaigns by adding a huge markup for things like - “cost of the channel”, “inventory”, “desktop vs mobile clicks”, and “retargeting campaigns”. Unfortunately, this makes it extremely difficult to compare different channels of marketing because there is no standard way of calculating “cost per channel”.

Brands Still Think Consumers Want SMS Spam

Unfortunately, there are still brands out there who think that sending out a high-volume of unwanted text messages is a good idea. They are wrong! Sadly, the 10% DLV rule is not helping to put a stop to this kind of spam. Instead, it is helping to facilitate it! When brands were restricted to sending out a single SMS per month, very few people were annoyed by the occasional unwanted message. However, when the 10% DLV rule was introduced and brands were allowed to send out more than one message per month, things took a turn for the worse. That’s because marketers who were previously sending out a low volume of unwanted messages per month, decided that they could ramp up their efforts even further with no consequences. Unfortunately, the 10% DLV rule did nothing to help consumers avoid getting these unwanted messages – it only helped to facilitate them!

Limited Inventory and Exclusivity for Platforms like Google Adwords and Facebook

The rise of digital content marketing has corresponded with a decrease in the amount of inventory for channels like Google Adwords and Facebook. Unfortunately, this is not entirely surprising – after all, advertisers are now paying much more for their ads. In fact, the average cost per click for Google Adwords has increased by 15% since 2017. That’s why it has become a lot more difficult for brands to find available inventory for their digital content marketing campaigns. In fact, according to some reports, Google Adwords has been so overloaded with advertisers over the past few years that they have completely shut off new sign-ups! Unfortunately, when brands are forced to increase their budgets to access the limited inventory, they have to make up the difference by inflating the cost of their ads. This means that the cost per channel is increasing, which leads us to the next problem.

The Rise of Ad Blockers

If we are being honest, the rise of ad blockers is not really a problem caused by the 10% DLV rule. After all, if brands have been creating poor quality content, then they have no one to blame but themselves for losing revenue. However, we do think that the 10% DLV rule has played an indirect role in the rise of ad blockers. That’s because when Google Adwords and Facebook both saw an increase in their average CPCs, they reacted by increasing the number of ads that appeared on each page – which then led to a rise in people installing ad blockers! This has had a hugely negative impact on digital content marketing. After all, if people are blocking your ads, then you cannot show your content to them. That’s why brands have had to increase their budgets to ensure that their ads get through the ad blockers. That’s why we have seen a huge increase in the average CPCs for both Google Adwords and Facebook over the past few years.

Summing up

Over the past few years, we have seen a huge shift in the way that brands go about marketing their products and services. Instead of relying on traditional text-based SMS campaigns, many brands have begun to prioritize their digital content marketing strategies. While this shift has definitely been for the better, there have been some downsides. For example, the 10% digital content marketing rule has had some negative repercussions on text-based communication strategies. That’s because brands have relied on the 10% DLV rule to determine how much content they should be creating. Unfortunately, when you rely on a percentage to determine how much of something you should be creating, it’s very easy to fall into the trap of creating too much content – which is bad for both your customers and your brand.

‍