Despite the recent Cambridge Analytica/Facebook scandal, we all know digital advertising is here to stay. It will probably account for 40% of global ad-spend by 2020. Another 40% will be owned by TV.

The difference will go to Print (whatever is left of it), Radio and Out Of Home, including in-store.

It’s important to note that the two main advertising channels (online and TV) have very different characteristics.

· TV is a shotgun approach with a very good bang for your buck as long as you have the budget and are targeting a very wide audience

· Online basically has no entry barrier and can be extremely effective for brands that are more performance oriented or SMBs that have to gradually up their spend

Despite the ongoing war between offline and online, the two channels realized that they can’t live without each other. Lidl is slowly reducing its digital spend after realising it did not have the proper marketing mix in place.

The truth is that, as a brand, you can’t have one without the other. If you focus exclusively on one channel, it will plateau eventually and the required budget to increase performance will outweigh the benefits. That’s the reality, no matter what miracle programmatic solution you’re promised.

Any skilful marketer will tell you that diversity is key. The more touchpoints you are in, the higher the chance to convert the viewer into a customer. That’s easy to do in the digital ecosystem, where you can (still) easily retarget and follow consumers, while TV blasts audiences at a generally low CPM.

How about other channels? People with disposable income (AKA your ideal customer) spend a good portion of their time commuting to and from work. Americans collectively spend almost 30 billion hours per year commuting. Whatever they see or hear during those (very long) hours influences their purchasing decisions wether they admit it or not.

That’s what Radio and Outdoor are for. But with those, it’s like shooting blind. You have no idea what the impact is and the entry barrier is usually high (you can’t just spend 100$ to test it out).

And that’s where the digital revolution will strike next: taking old channels and making them accessible and transparent. If you want to be part of the new wave, think of channels who haven’t seen true innovation in the past 10 years.

For example — and yes, we’re mentioning this because it’s our business and we know the space well — digital billboards, which can host dynamic content and react in real time to what’s happening around them, all at a fraction of the cost, are the perfect opportunity, which is why the change is happening as we speak and we’re spearheading it.

Online and TV will keep steadily growing and optimizing, there’s no doubt about that, but where you’ll see real changes is in channels that were late to the party until now.

This article was originally published by Matei psatta on medium.