Breaking Barriers: 3 Persistent Media Myths That Limit Potential

In 1954, Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile—a feat previously thought impossible due to an arbitrary psychological barrier. His record didn’t just fall; it shattered perceptions, paving the way for others to follow suit. Similarly, in the world of media, we’ve constructed artificial barriers that hinder progress and efficiency in our campaigns. These myths, though deeply ingrained, deserve scrutiny, especially as marketing budgets tighten.

Below are three persistent media myths and practices that, if reimagined, can help marketers make better decisions and optimize their campaigns.

Myth 1: Marketers Must Adopt a Full-Funnel Approach to Ad Targeting

The idea of dividing campaigns into awareness, consideration and conversion stages—often referred to as upper-, mid- and lower-funnel—seems logical. It assumes ad platforms can accurately segment users by their awareness and interactions and that users naturally fall into these categories.

However, this approach oversimplifies decision-making, assumes unrealistic targeting precision and requires budgets most institutions lack. For higher ed marketers, it often leads to inefficiencies:

• Distributing spend across three to four campaigns diminishes budgets, decreasing placement competitiveness and overall reach.
• All three campaigns over-index for a small subset of users, reducing reach while increasing frequency within this group.
• With limited targeting options (e.g., age and geo for teens), campaigns overlap, targeting the same users across all funnel stages, further reducing reach and increasing frequency.

While full-funnel strategies may work for larger brands, they often undermine the effectiveness of higher ed campaigns constrained by limited budgets and tight timelines.

There’s a case—and it sounds compelling enough—that higher education marketers must break up their campaigns into three components on an ad platform: Awareness, consideration and conversion. This is also framed as upper-, mid- and lower-funnel. Through this model, we effectively target—and segment—users based on their awareness and interaction with our category and campaign. The promise comes with the belief that not only are these ad platforms able to distinguish between users that fall into each bucket but also those same users inherently self-identify as following into one of these three categories.

Myth 2: Re-Targeting Prospective Students Creates Personalized Engagement

Remarketing or re-targeting is a common way marketers continue to re-engage prospective students after they show interest in the institution. Once again, there’s a sense of logic built into this tactic. However, is the juice worth the squeeze?

• Impressions that do reach prospective students generally have a much higher price tag. Since the perceived importance of the audience is built into the tactic, the cost to reach these users has increased considerably over time. Beyond the platform charging you more for the same inventory you already accessed with your regular campaign, there are still quite a few elements that often go unseen.
• Bots move faster than humans take action. Ad platforms use highly trained bots to mimic real human interest, leading the platform to over-serve impressions to these bots under the mistaken belief that a genuine user is likely to return and convert. We then end up paying more to target bots.
• The scripts, or cookies, needed to track a prospective student across the web are increasingly becoming restricted. Not only does this affect the efficiency of reaching users but also the ability to effectively interpret the outcomes of re-targeting.

If you’re focused on media spending or building awareness, re-targeting is neither cost-effective nor practical due to the targeting limitations that undermine digital advertising’s effectiveness.

Myth 3: Only Digital Advertising Creates Demand

“Performance marketing” may be the greatest branding effort by marketers in the past decade. It created the perception that only some channels “perform” and that the digital ecosystem is a perfectly attributable, data-driven space for growth.

The popularity of this narrative makes sense because higher education marketers must show measurable results in a competitive landscape. CRMs tell us that branded search drove leads, ads generated clicks, and A/B testing optimized the “Apply Today” button. The data indicates performance, reinforcing the belief that digital drives demand and only measurable actions matter.

But the reality is starting to shift.

• Targeting is not the panacea we once believed.
• Awareness and reach are stronger predictors of business success than clicks.
• Made-for-advertising sites are stealing millions of dollars and inflating bot traffic.
• 96% of U.S. users have opted out of iOS tracking.
• Attribution is limited, and dark traffic is increasing.

Culturally

• Parents are becoming more influential in the decision-making process.
• Social channels and data privacy restrictions are limiting the targeting of key audiences.
• Governments are starting to regulate the platforms we rely on to reach audiences.

Categorically

• Bidding structures favor those with bigger budgets, awarding better placements and more visibility.
• Performance pressures and user trends are driving up CPMs on channels that were previously lower in cost.

This isn’t about choosing traditional over digital advertising (that distinction is outdated). I’ve argued before that how we measure advertising’s effect has directly impacted our expectations of outcomes in higher education. It’s about realizing that all media can and should perform. Digital advertising’s focus on short-term demand creation has set the performance benchmark, but as we see the flaws in this system, it’s time to rethink our approach to media. Because 50+ leads attributed to Google are rarely 50+ net new leads.

Breaking the Barriers

It was a little over a month after Bannister’s record when Australian John Landy became the second person to achieve a sub-four-minute mile. With the removal of barriers, came new ways to train, pace and believe in what could be achieved. Perhaps, the most compelling moment in the history of the four-minute mile is the race immortalized at the Pacific National Exhibition. A stunning visual moment that shows Bannister outpacing Landy just a few months later as he reclaimed his place atop the running world. 

Much like Bannister’s record-breaking moment transformed running, dismantling these media myths can inspire a new way of thinking. By re-evaluating entrenched practices and adopting a more holistic approach, higher education marketers can create more impactful campaigns. The lesson? Efficiency and innovation emerge when we let go of the artificial limits we’ve imposed on ourselves.