Tips for Advertising on ATM Receipts

Ask any marketing or advertising manager and they’ll tell you: advertising isn’t easy. Consumers can be fickle; their media habits unpredictable. Our society has become so inundated with irrelevant ads that we’ve learned to tune them out. And, while consumer attention wanes, media costs escalate, making advertising on a large scale unaffordable for most marketers.The Advantages of ATM AdvertisingWell, advertising doesn’t have to be so challenging. Not for independent ATM deployers (IADs) and financial institutions (FIs), anyway. The ATM provides such marketers with one of the most attractive advertising vehicles available. It’s like an outdoor billboard, a TV, a computer, and a direct mail delivery device all wrapped up in one.In addition, ATMs offer:

access to often difficult to reach target demographics,

the customers’ undivided attention when their mind is on money, and

advertising costs that are a fraction of traditional media.
Who Uses ATM AdvertisingThe synergy between ATMs and FIs is too obvious to overlook. It’s the perfect outlet for banks and credit unions to drive brand awareness, or cross-promote pertinent products to a captive audience when banking is top-of-mind.But, by no means are the advertising opportunities exclusive to financial institutions. Given the large, and growing network of IADs, ATMs have become a far more common way for people to obtain their money. And their placement within high traffic areas, and proximity to high interest retail stores, broadens the scope of potential advertisers to include almost anybody.The key for IADs is determining how to package, price, and sell their media space to potential advertising clients and their agencies. Media efficiency should be a strong selling point as the ATM offers one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise to a highly targeted audience.Types of ATM AdvertisingThere are many ways to advertise through an ATM. At its most basic level, the device itself can act like a billboard, delivering a message to everyone who passes by.Another option is to use the monitor screen to deliver an ad message at a time when you have a customer’s complete and undivided attention. For instance, a FI may wish to deliver credit card offers to people with certain financial qualifications.A third option is advertising on the ATM receipt. Most customers request a receipt and carry it with them in their wallet or purse for future reference, giving the ad message longevity. Receipt ads also offer the ability to distribute a coupon or promotional offer which can later be redeemed. This feature provides advertisers with a mechanism through which to measure their return on investment, something that is far more difficult to do with other forms of media.The Efficiencies of ATM AdvertisingThe cost to advertise on an ATM will depend on the type of ad you want to run and the location of the machine. High traffic sites will draw a higher price, as will locations catering to certain demographicsThe most efficient, and arguably most effective, form of ATM advertising is delivered on the receipt. This is because ATM paper is essentially a sunk cost for the operator, and the cost of custom printing is nominal. So, the incremental expense to custom print an ad on the back of a receipt is marginal compared to what the operator would already have to pay for stock paper.On average, the incremental cost to custom print an ad on the back of stock paper can run as low as $6.25 per roll. And each roll can deliver approximately 6,250 advertising impressions. That’s a $1 CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions, the standard unit for measuring media). As you can see below, a $1 CPM is much lower than you’ll find among any of the more traditional media channels.Advertising CPM* ComparisonNetwork TV: $28Print: $17Cable: $12Radio: $10Out-Of-Home: $5Online: $2Custom ATM Receipts: $1*A CPM is the approximate cost to deliver 1,000 advertising impressions to a specified audience.In addition to media efficiency, advertisers will also want to know how effective ATM advertising can be. Custom printed receipt ads are the easiest to measure a response against as the advertiser can supply something tangible for the customer to redeem. According to leading manufacturers, ATM advertisers have achieved response rates of 10 percent and higher for their campaigns, far exceeding the 1-2 percent success rates of most direct mail campaigns, and at little-to-no incremental cost.SummaryATM advertising is one of the most effective and cost efficient ways for FIs to deliver a custom ad message to a highly specified target audience. It is also an excellent way for IADs to bring in additional revenue for their network of machines.

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