It is not clear to many: Unfortunately, online marketing is often anything but sustainable. Our guide for sustainable online marketing will give you tips and show you the advantages you can achieve through sustainable online marketing measures.
Ecologically, economically and socially. Sustainability rests on these three pillars, an issue that has come to the fore on the political, social, and economic agenda.
What surprises many: Unfortunately, even online marketing is often anything but sustainable. It starts with websites containing a lot of unnecessary data to collect user data that is never evaluated and used.
Sustainable management and thus also a sustainable online marketing strategy can bring some advantages to your company. In this guide, we explain which and how you can achieve them.
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“Online Marketing Is Always Sustainable” – A Fallacy
The trend in marketing from print to digital does not automatically mean more sustainability because of what companies are often not aware of: The Internet consumes enormous amounts of electricity and causes just as much CO2 emissions as the aviation industry.
Online marketing plays a massive role in this as advertising or tracking makes any website bigger. From a social point of view, online marketing, including user tracking, is not necessarily sustainable. The personal data collected using so-called marketing cookies can be used to create detailed profiles for targeted advertising. Privacy concerns may also arise in connection with cookies and promotional emails. This contradicts responsible corporate behavior and tends to lead to lasting damage to consumer confidence.
Even from an economic point of view, standard online marketing measures, for example, by incorrectly measuring their effect, are not always practical. In addition to a climate-neutral website, electricity from renewable energies, and environmentally conscious use of information and communication technology (ICT), you can also align your marketing measures with sustainability criteria.
Sustainable Online Marketing Vs Sustainability Marketing – What’s The Difference?
During the research for this article, we noticed: People often speak of “sustainable online marketing” when sustainability marketing is meant. Therefore, we want to briefly explain the two terms because they mean two different things.
Sustainability marketing, also known as green marketing, is marketing about a company’s sustainable or socially responsible products and services. To put it simply: When a company reports on a product that, for example, is manufactured in an environmentally friendly manner, it is doing sustainability marketing. So it writes ABOUT environmental friendliness.
On the other hand, sustainable online marketing means measures with which companies ultimately implement their marketing strategy. So it describes the HOW it is reported. The aim is a tailor-made and lasting effect of the marketing instruments used.
What Is Sustainable Online Marketing?
Sustainable online marketing also uses digital marketing instruments such as email marketing, social media marketing, and search engine marketing to increase the visibility of advertised products, brands or the company on the Internet.
A long-term orientation is fundamental for the sustainability aspect. The goal is a lasting effect of the measure; it is not about short-term success.
This Is How Sustainable Online Marketing Works
There are three main areas in which it is worthwhile for you to implement sustainable measures in online marketing. You address the economic and ecological, and social aspects of sustainability.
Optimize Your Website
The web’s energy requirements are around two percent of global consumption. This would put the Internet in fourth place if it were viewed as a country. It’s a simple calculation: The more data above are transferred, the higher the energy consumption.
A lean web design not only reduces the ecological footprint but also significantly shortens the loading times of your website. This not only pleases your users: Search engines also prefer websites that load quickly and are optimized for mobile devices. To reduce the data on your website.
Pay Attention To The Data Protection Of The Users
Web tracking tools such as Google Analytics or tracking tools from advertising platforms such as Facebook Pixel and LinkedIn Pixel are used on numerous websites. With the help of the data collected through tracking, advertising success is to be improved.
However, this data is often rarely used or misinterpreted. The example of Facebook shows that you shouldn’t rely too much on data collected through user tracking. The company was fined $ 40 million in 2019 for posting incorrect numbers through video ads. Since the average time users spend watching videos was glossed over, many have focused their marketing strategies on video ads. It can be assumed that the companies advertising via the platform have suffered considerable damage.
Sustainability works differently:
- Avoid unnecessary accumulation of data: Check which data you need and use.
- Replace invasive tracking and instead switch to analysis tools that are unobjectionable under data protection law. Some examples of privacy-friendly tools are Fathom, Koko Analytic or Etracker.
- Make sure that your cookie information complies with data protection law. Checking boxes in advance or making access to the website dependent on consent to cookies is not compliant. In this way, you are not only on the safe side legally but also improve user-friendliness.
Rethink How You Run Ads
As a general rule, place a few ads as possible. Avoid pop-ups and use more user-friendly advertising options instead.
- Focus on building relationships. Interact with your target group by commenting on posts, being active in groups or answering questions.
- Rely on search engine optimization (SEO) and design your website to be ideal for search engines to read. This will ensure better positioning among the search results.
- Another alternative to ads: Generate added value with unique content and disseminate it. This way, you generate attention without following potential customers with advertisements.
The additional effort associated with this procedure is worthwhile, as the measures have a more sustainable effect. You can then use advertising in the classic sense as a supplement.
Don’t rely on ads; rely on building relationships and producing unique content.
Your Advantages Through Sustainable Online Marketing
If you implement sustainable marketing measures, you will benefit on several levels. You save costs through reduced but all the more effective advertising measures. In addition, you achieve better and long-term customer loyalty through a user-centered orientation of marketing measures. In addition, you can make your online marketing more environmentally friendly and more sustainable in an ecological sense.
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