Media buying in advertising refers to the process of negotiating and purchasing ad space on one or several marketing channels. The purpose is to find the right spot, time, and context to deliver your content to the right audience.
Tv Media Buying 101
Most of us have some awareness of TV media buying, the process by which advertisers purchase time to run their commercials, but the media buying definition covers a much wider spectrum of media purchases than even that.
When engaged in direct buying, a media buyer reaches out directly to a specific publication, website, or other advertising entity to hash out the price and other details of their desired ad placement. Direct buying can, therefore, be more customizable than other methods of bulk or targeted media buying in advertising (like programmatic media buying), but it can also be significantly more time-consuming.
Though they may seem different, the practices of media planning and buying are connected on a fundamental level, so much so that the process of media planning could be considered the first and arguably most important step in the process of media buying itself.
In other words, if the media buying definition encompasses the entire process of purchasing ad space, the media planning definition would encompass the entire process of selecting which ad space to purchase.
And modern media buyers come in many forms. There are large media buying agencies, small media buying companies, and even online digital media buying platforms designed to facilitate direct media purchases by brands or advertisers.
Likely somewhere in between you having a few clients to you being in a position to hire a media buyer, you have created standard operating procedures (or SOPs) that you can scale as your company grows. This can include processes that can make your employees even better at their jobs. These SOPs can be basic protocols that you learned from writing bad copy vs copy that actually converted.
Take the time to keep an eye on the cold hard stats. This affords media planners and buyers the opportunity to change their media buying strategies mid-stream, so that they may be able to correct errors in their initial plans before too much damage is done.
Having a clear goal in mind to begin with will help you target marketing channels and avoid pitfalls. It will also give you a baseline for determining whether or not your media buys were successful later on.
Doing so is obviously important in optimizing your campaign and avoiding errors, but it will also grant you a more comprehensive perspective on your media mix, which will in turn be a direct benefit to your individual media buys.
A good media buy exposes your brand to the right people at the right time in the right place and in the right light. It helps make a meaningful connection between a brand (or creative project) and its audience.
As an advertising medium, TV is one of many options available to businesses alongside radio, print, display ads, social media, and numerous other digital and offline channels. But it offers several features and advertising advantages that distinguishes it from other ad channels.
No matter which provider you choose to work with, the media rep at that cable company will talk with you about your goals for your business, evaluate options, and customize a plan that will meet your goals.
In advertising, Media Buying is the process of actualizing the Media Plan which includes buying strategy, media research, RFPs, insertion orders (IOs), performance tracking, vendor bill reconciliation, and campaign reporting.
When digital was just a tiny slice of budgets, immature, and complicated by technology, the digital media team was separate from the seasoned core media team. In fact, digital media was so distinct that standalone digital Media Buying agencies were common.
Instead of the digital Media Buying team off in one corner, the social team off in another corner, and traditional media team in another corner, we now see Media Buying teams integrated across media channels.
Your Media Buying strategy should consider the goals, budgets, timing, reach, frequency, costs, and KPIs in the Media Plan. Of particular consideration are the media channels because the strategies for each channel vary wildly. For example, strategies for television and social media will be quite different from each other.
Your consideration set is far from a final list of media buys. In fact, you should plan to abandon two-thirds of your consideration set. As a rule of thumb, only one third of the consideration set ends up in a media buy.
However, in my experience, setting terms and conditions is a power play. Powerful media vendors will insist on their terms and conditions. Powerful brands will insist on their terms and conditions. Powerful agencies will insist on their terms and conditions.
To say that media buying and planning has changed in the past 20 years is an understatement. Technology has changed this essential aspect of advertising and marketing strategy as much as it has the way we shop, work and connect with others.
While media buying has always been integrated across available channels, today the process is integrated across practices into activities that used to be considered separate. Technology has intertwined social media, blogging, PR, communications and branding such that media planning and buying must take all of them into consideration. It has also enabled targeted messaging to custom audiences at a deeper level than in the past.
In the convert stage, where you are actively trying to turn prospects into customers, the PESO model for PR and advertising helps you create content, design social media strategy and create videos, retargeting ads, geo-fencing, keyword and contextual advertising and landing pages that generate leads for your business.
As you follow up on leads and activate your sales team to close those leads into new customers, media buying and planning can help to keep your brand top of mind. Tactics that deliver value to the customer and educate them on what differentiates your brand will prove to be most successful during this stage. Those tactics may include:
Finally, after you gain new customers, you continue to advertise to them. Connecting with them again and again through communications and social media engagement as part of an overall inbound marketing strategy.
OBI Creative is a full-service advertising agency, which means we have the talent and expertise to handle placements of all traditional and non-traditional media, including television, radio, audio, digital, OTT (over-the-top/streaming), social media, OOH (out-of-home) and print/publications.
Not every agency is skilled in performing effective media placements in both traditional and digital media. Thankfully, our media buying team has more than three decades of experience executing successful media buying strategy and placements.
All of our marketing services, including social media management and search engine marketing are handled in-house, which is something you want to look for should you decide to engage the services of a firm to help you with your media buying planning and digital media strategy.
All media buying efforts should be focused on increasing your conversion rate and decreasing your cost per conversion. Set SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely) goals at the start of your campaign to serve as benchmarks for your media buying strategy and to guide the implementation of your tactics.
Paid search campaigns generate the highest click-through rates of any digital marketing tactic, so it only makes sense to include PPC advertising as part of your media buying and planning process. A successful PPC campaign follows a three-step process:
Within the PESO model, social media falls primarily in the shared media component, but may also be considered paid media when exposure is boosted through paid media campaigns. Determining which channels to advertise on depends on who you are trying to reach and the specific goals of your campaign. We have seen success targeting key individuals on LinkedIn, running paid campaigns with influencers on Instagram and ad campaigns on Facebook.
Once your placements are made and your campaign is in full swing, your work is not done. In addition to honing your campaign efforts and making any necessary adjustments, you want to evaluate all of your media invoices and cross-check them against insertion orders to make sure you received everything you were promised during media buying negotiation.
The truth is that ad inventory is actually limited in supply. Broadcasters know that if they sell to the biggest buyers at the lowest rates, they can never make it up with small agencies. As a result, the size of the agency makes no difference to the media rate.
Another media strategy that buying power has no, well, power over is remnant advertising. When broadcasters are unable to sell all their inventory, they try to cut their losses by selling remainder inventory off at heavily reduced prices [2]. This unsold inventory is called remnant media. In some cases, media publishers may discount their inventory by as much as 90%. Buying power and negotiation play little to no role in remnant, because the broadcasters are eager to sell the inventory before it expires.
Online media buying can be a very effective way to increase your website traffic. By buying space on websites whose audience closely matches your target market, you can generate click-through traffic that has a high conversion potential.
In addition to bringing potential buyers to your site, media buying can also increase brand awareness. When your audience sees your banners on their favorite sites, they will quickly become familiar with your brand. Customers will then think of you first when they need to purchase products and services in your niche.
The first step to gaining success with media buying is to identify your target market. How old are your potential customers? Male or female? What are their interests? Answering these questions will help you decide where to place your ads. You need to choose sites that have audience profiles that closely match the demographics of your target market.
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