How Media Buying Works
Competing to get a slice of that attention can be extremely hard for businesses, and sometimes organic promotion is not enough. Media buying is a quicker way of getting the brand message across to the right audience by placing it in channels with a broad reach.
how media buying works
Whether you are a novice that knows nothing about media buying or a business that wants to sharpen its skills in this department, this guide will help you get your media buying strategy on the right track. Here we will take 9 essential steps toward a complete understanding of the media buying process, software, and better campaign optimization.
Essentially, media buying involves purchasing a share of offline or digital media space and time to run advertisements and then monitoring how the ad is doing and making adjustments as needed to optimize the ad's performance. This involves judicious strategizing and negotiating to make the most of the brand's ad budget.
The main objective of both offline and digital media buying is to get a brand's ad creatives out before its target audiences in the right ad formats, at the right times, and in the proper contexts to have a successful campaign.
The media buying process starts from defining a goal that you want to achieve with it. This can be more page views, better conversion rates, and, as the result, more closed leads. Once you know why and for what you may need media buying, you go through the following stages:
They negotiate with the networks, WCAG-compliant websites, print channels, and other spaces they want the ad to appear in and ensure that they obtain the best placements within the best timelines for each ad while adhering strictly to a budget.
What is programmatic media buying, you ask? It uses automated algorithms to optimize media buys on platforms called demand-side platforms and focuses on the ad ad relevance to the audience rather than on where media should be placed.
In programmatic media buying, ad buyers and publishers buy and sell digital ads using automation and this is done through demand-side platforms. Publishers, from their site, use a supply-side platform to list their ads on the ad exchanges. This is how the programmatic media buying process occurs:
As the name suggests, managed service means the media buying campaign is fully managed by a third-party agency that helps launch it. It is obvious managed service leads to decreased transparency, control over money, and efficiencies.
Media buyers and media planners work closely together, but their roles are entirely different. In a nutshell, media planners develop the initial strategy, and then media buyers place the ads in the most suitable channels based on that strategy.
Some of the tactics they use to accomplish this include PPC campaign launch ad platforms such as AdWords, programmatic media buys to find the right ad space for the right consumer profile, and direct buys with specific advertisers.
Media buying is much more than just paying money to get ad space. Effective media buying entails forging strong, meaningful relationships with media channels to obtain the best media slots with the broadest reach, increase conversions and thus maximize ROI.
Working with white-label ad tech software to buy inventory slots, you also become a rightful owner of the platform. Thus, your media buyers can access placements of any direct publishers via an ad server or connect custom supply platforms instead of pre-defined traffic sources. This also helps avoiding middlemen such as ad networks and ad exchanges and cut bid markups by 10-30%.
Media buyers are well-versed in the art of negotiation and have extensive networks of contacts across the media space. Thus, they can get better exposure for brand ads at lower costs in case of working with the publishers directly.
In programmatic media buying, the success of your deal depends more on optimization. Programmatic platforms like Epom DSP feature algorithms like bidding autopilot (in other platforms it can be called otherwise), which allows you to set bidding rules and multipliers for a particular campaign.
If implemented right, media buying campaigns may bring you leads of your dream. Granular targeting with the ability to use custom parameters based on audience data coming from publishers (present in advanced ad servers and demand-side platforms) allows you to fine-tune your buyer persona profile as precisely as possible.
Programmatic media buying also means unlimited supply, especially if you use a white-label DSP, where custom traffic sources setup is possible. Real-time analytics also contribute to better understanding of the quality of your conversions.
Although media buying may sound complicated, it is not. It offers an excellent opportunity for brands to be inventive, tactical, and dynamic in many ways. If you are thinking of taking this route, here is how you can get started:
As a brand, you need to clarify your long-term and short-term goals. Do you want to sell more, or are you looking to boost brand awareness? Brainstorm with your team and take the time out to understand what exactly you need from media buying.
The choice of only one media buying platform is not always the choice to make. You might be wanting to master both direct and programmatic media buying, for which you might need to use both ad server and DSP (we will talk about these a bit later). Moreover, you will use Google, Facebook, and other platforms to run ads on social media. You might also be willing to strengthen your strategy with dynamic creative optimization or attribution platforms.
Not just conversion value and data is the must for the success of your advertising business. The way you treat your customers is on this decade's agenda, and for that, you might want to use a strong customer relationship management system on top of platforms for media buying.
Media buying teams and brands that brought advertising in-house typically have an array of powerful and sophisticated media buying software at their disposal to help optimize channel selection and budget allocation.
An ad server is an advertising platform, hosted on a server that manages online ad campaigns. It is primarily used by publishers, agencies, ad networks, and advertisers. The software defines which ads to display, when and on which medium (website or mobile app).
A demand-side platform is another piece of software used in programmatic media buying where publishers and advertisers do not negotiate prices; instead, participate in real-time bidding auctions. It automates the process and requires minimum human intervention for securing an ad placement.
Optimizing your media buying strategy is especially important if you are new to it. Despite large budgets dedicated to this activity, you may still want to effectively use all resources, measure your investment outcomes, and keep tweaking the strategy. Here is how you can get cracking:
Media buying can be expensive but done correctly, it can be extremely profitable. The quality media buying process is highly nuanced and focuses on acquiring the optimal ad placement for maximum conversions.
Therefore, conduct thorough research on media buying trends and choose a reputed media buying partner that has experience in your niche and can offer various offline or online media buying services so that you can make the most of your time and resources.
Media buying is a process used in paid marketing efforts. The goal is to identify and purchase ad space on channels that are relevant to the target audience at the optimal time, for the least amount of money. Media buying is a process relevant to both traditional marketing channels (television, radio, print) and digital channels (websites, social media, streaming). When done effectively, media buyers achieve maximum exposure among their target market for the least amount of spend.
Media buyers oversee the media buying process, with input from the media planning team. With an understanding of marketing goals and target audience preferences given by the media planning team, media buyers execute the actual purchase of the advertisement space. A huge part of the media buyer position is negotiating with the sites, networks, and other channels they want ads to appear on. They must ensure they are purchasing the correct placements at the correct times, for the correct duration, all within strict budgets.
Effective media buying goes far beyond the actual transaction of money for ad space. Media buying teams can create impactful relationships with media owners that result in greater reach with less investment. This enables marketing teams to increase conversions and demonstrate high ROI to clients and stakeholders.
As with all marketing initiatives, investing in experienced media buying teams and processes means demonstrating value. To do this, media buying teams need analytical capabilities that allow them to attribute conversions and KPIs back to a specific ad. They also need access to real-time metrics in order to make in-campaign updates to ads that are underperforming. The top challenges when it comes to media buying are:
The most important role of a media buyer is that of the negotiator - this ensures that clients are getting the most value for the ad space they purchase. This means working with media companies, leveraging best practices on how to get the most return for an ad placement, and developing specific contracts. As media buyers execute on media plans, there are a few negotiating tips they should keep in mind.
Media buying is highly nuanced, with a lot of pressure placed on acquiring the optimal ad placement for customer experience and conversion. By staying abreast of top media buying strategies and negotiation tactics, media teams can better optimize spend and strategy.
Media buying is the process of purchasing ad space and time on digital and offline platforms, such as websites, YouTube, radio, and TV. A media buyer is also responsible for negotiating with publishers for ad inventory, managing budgets, and optimizing ads to improve campaign performance. 041b061a72