Digital media buying and planning is the creation of online advertising campaigns. These campaigns include but are not limited to banners, social media ads, SMS messages, Google Adwords, video advertisements, etc. Digital media buying can also include “real-time” optimization.
This means that changes are being made to the campaign on the fly based on how people interact with it. For example, there is a banner ad for an upcoming event that has a click-through rate of 25%. If there are new banner ads available with a click-through rate of 35%, the ad server may swap out the ad with more engagement potential.
Why Media Buying is Important?
Media buyers can purchase ads across a mix of media, with traditional and digital media working together—such as radio and digital advertising, or television and Amazon display advertising running in tandem to help drive the best results.
Experienced media buyers may also successfully negotiate with media outlets or channels to ensure that advertisers maximize performance against campaign goals. By doing this well, media buyers can:
- Achieve the best possible results for their budget, driving the most impressions, or views of an ad, at a lower cost.
- Secure ideal ad placements.
- Receive “value added” impressions, included with no extra cost, to make a campaign more successful. For example, a brand could receive a certain number of digital impressions on top of expected impressions from TV ads.
Difference between Media Buying Vs. Media Planning
Marketers sometimes use the terms media buying and media planning interchangeably. They work together, but are different pieces of the advertising puzzle.
Media planning is the precursor to media buying—it’s the roadmap that media buyers follow when they negotiate and purchase ads. Media planning is the research-based, strategic process advertisers go through before buying and launching ads, in order to gauge effectiveness and maximize return on investment (ROI).
A media plan includes:
- Campaign goals and objectives: Common goals include brand awareness, consideration, conversion, or loyalty
- Marketing metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs): These are dependent on your goals and objectives. Some KPI examples include impressions, store visits, app installs, ad engagement, video views, email list sign-ups, web site visits, sales, repeat purchases, and more
- Audience: Details about whom the campaign should reach
- Budget: The maximum spend for the campaign
- Research or relevant market insights: This will inform audience selection, messages, and media mix
- Media mix: The ideal combination of media types that will best reach key audiences and be the most cost effective
- Timeline: Including time to write, design, and produce creative
- Measurement tools: How and where you’ll monitor campaign progress
- Creative specifications
Media Buying
Without proper media planning, there is no guide for media buyers to follow, which may result in an ineffective media buy. Media buying is putting the media plan into action, focusing on buying the right mix of media to deliver on the campaign goals effectively.
There are several ways to purchase media:
- Direct: Purchasing ads directly with a specific channel or publisher
- Network: Bidding and purchasing ad space through demand-side platforms and supply-side platforms
- Programmatic: Using technology to buy and sell digital ads
Media buying is the process by which media companies create and use advertising to bring customers and clients onto their platform. It’s also called “selling air time” or “buying ad space.”
The decision-making process that takes place before a client has their advertisement made, is called media planning. Media planners are often in charge of designing campaign strategies, defining budgets, tracking the success of an advertisement campaign through various means including sales figures, and forecasting future costs while adjusting for changing factors.
The type of advertisements that are used depends on the audience being targeted with certain imagery or messages more appropriate for one group than another.
Utilizing Media Planning and Media Buying in Your Campaigns
In today’s digital world, media planning and media buying look a lot different. Yet, they are critical to a digital marketing strategy. From start to finish, we will help you understand how media buying works in a digital marketing. It provides a thorough explanation of both how it is done and why it is important in order for campaigns to succeed.
With an experienced marketer, you can reap all of the benefits and avoid the major challenges that stem from media buying. If you still don’t know where to begin, you can reach out to media buying agency India or visit digitalthinkhub or call us at +91-8800689292 for all your marketing needs.
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