Article

How to turn your ATM into an ROI machine

There's no 'Abracadabra' to it. It's just a matter of conjuring up a solid, workable ad strategy.

August 26, 2013

by Graphic Tickets & Systems

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.

Advantages of ATM advertising

Advertising doesn't have to be so challenging. Not for independent ATM deployers and financial institutions, anyway. The ATM provides these 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 hard-to-reach demographic groups;
customers' undivided attention when their mind is on money; and
advertising costs that are a fraction of traditional media.

Users of ATM advertising

The 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 to cross-promote pertinent products to a captive audience when banking is top-of-mind.

But by no means are advertising opportunities exclusive to financial institutions. Given the large and growing network of IADs, ATMs have become the common way for people to obtain their cash. And off-site placement in high traffic areas with proximity to high interest retail stores broadens the scope of potential advertisers to include almost anybody.

The key for IADs is to determin 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 advertising

There are many ways to advertise through an ATM. At its most basic level, the device itself can act as a billboard, delivering a message to all who pass by.

Another option is to use the screen to deliver an ad message at a time when you have a customer's complete and undivided attention. For instance, an FI might wish to deliver credit card offers to customers who meet certain financial criteria.

A third option is advertising on the ATM receipt. Most customers request a receipt and carry it with them for future reference, giving the ad message longevity. Receipt ads also offer the ability to distribute a coupon or promotional offer that can later be redeemed. This feature provides advertisers with a mechanism for measuring their return on investment — something that can be far more difficult to do with other forms of media.

Efficiencies of ATM advertising

The cost to advertise on an ATM will depend on the type of ad and the location of the machine. High traffic sites will draw a higher price, as will locations catering to certain demographics.

The most efficient — and arguably most effective — form of ATM advertising is delivered on the receipt. This is because receipt paper is essentially a sunk cost for the operator, and the cost of custom printing is nominal. The incremental expense to custom print an ad on the back of a receipt is marginal, considering what the operator already pays 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 cost per thousand (the standard unit for measuring media costs), much lower than you'll find among more traditional media channels:

network TV: $28
print: $17
cable: $12
radio: $10
out-of-home: $5
online: $2
custom ATM receipt: $1

A custom printed receipt is also one of the easiest response measurement tools, since the advertiser can supply a tangible coupon 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 percent to 2 percent success rates of most direct mail campaigns. And again, at minimal incremental cost.

ATM 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. ATM operators looking to bring in additional revenue through their network of machines can look far and wide and still not find a more effective and cost efficient way to deliver a custom ad message to a highly specified target audience.

Graphic Tickets & Systems is a provider of stock and custom ATM paper solutions. The company helps FIs enhance ATM paper transactions by making them more meaningful, valuable, effective and profitable. Visit them at graphictickets.com.