Online Media Buying
Advertisers are always looking for new ways to spread their message. Today, because people are immersed in so many different types of media, the options appear to be limitless. With so much time spent online, it’s no surprise that digital advertising is booming — digital ad spend is expected to surpass $330 billion globally soon.
So, how can businesses make the best decisions when it comes to communicating with their target audience? The answer is found in two steps: media planning and media buying. Our media planning and media buying guide will give you an overview of these processes and the role they play in a successful ad campaign.
What Is Media Buying?
Media buying is primarily concerned with acquiring media space and time to run advertisements. It also entails monitoring ad performance and adjusting the strategy as needed to optimise the performance of your ad campaign — this requires a lot of strategizing and negotiating to maximise your advertising budget.
So, what exactly is a media buyer? And what exactly does a media buyer do? A media buyer’s role, in its most basic form, is to get your message to your target audience.
- Advertising allows you to easily make money while also providing a significant benefit to your company.
- You can try to keep your consumers up to date through advertising.
- Advertising allows you to keep your company at the forefront of your customers’ minds.
- Advertising is the most effective way to help your company compete.
- Advertising is the most effective method for generating ongoing business.
- You can easily attract new customers through advertising.
- Through advertising, you can create a positive image of your company in the minds of current and prospective customers.
- Advertising can significantly increase company traffic in a short period of time.
Media Purchasing Goals
The goals of media buying are to get your ad creative in front of your target audience in the right context, at the right times, and in the best formats, resulting in a successful ad campaign. Your goal will determine how you measure success. Perhaps it’s to raise brand awareness or conversion rates. In any case, strategic media buying can assist you in reaching your goals.
Consider media buyer agencies to be real estate agents. Newspapers, television networks, radio stations, social media sites, online magazines, and other forms of real estate are all examples. Media buyers locate and negotiate the best properties for you to purchase. Instead of constructing apartment buildings or houses, you are constructing your brand.
The Media Buying Process
Strategizing: The majority of the strategizing that goes into an ad campaign occurs during the media planning process, rather than during the media buying process. However, media purchasing strategies are also important for success. Media buyers must determine the best strategy for achieving great results while staying within their budget. Before taking action, they may decide on the general mix of media types they will pursue and other details of their strategy.
Identifying the best media outlets: Once media buyers have a game plan in place, they can start putting it into action. The first step is to identify the various media platforms on which they would like to advertise. This could include a mix of traditional and digital media, such as print, radio, or television, or it could be solely focused on digital platforms. The media buyer will send a request for proposal to each media outlet with which they wish to collaborate.
Media buyers then negotiate with media outlets to determine the best price before officially purchasing the ad space. Much of this process is automated in the case of online advertising and does not involve traditional negotiations. Still, media buyers must make strategic decisions to ensure that your ads appear in the best places, at the best times, and at the best price.
Launching the campaign: Following that is the campaign launch, which is when your ads begin to appear in various locations based on the media buyer’s decisions. The media buying agency should immediately begin evaluating the campaign to ensure that your ads are performing as expected.
Monitoring and optimizing results: As the campaign progresses, media buyers should continue to monitor results in order to optimise it. Once the data starts coming in, they may need to make some adjustments to ensure the best results possible within your budget. Detecting problems early and finding better ways to get your message across is critical during the purchasing process.
Difficulties in Purchasing Digital Media
When it comes to buying digital media, the process has many advantages over the traditional model of contacting individual TV stations, billboard owners, and others. However, certain challenges remain in digital media buying, such as:
Brand safety: If one of your ads appears on a website or alongside content that consumers consider inappropriate or harmful in some way, your brand’s reputation may suffer. To prevent brand safety issues from affecting your company, media buyers must remain vigilant.
Ad fraud is one of the most serious problems with online media buying. Ads could, for example, be placed on ghost sites, which are websites or apps that do not exist. Pixel stuffing, in which your ad appears imperceptibly small, ad stacking, in which ads are layered on top of each other, and masked URLs, in which your ads appear in unexpected places online, are other examples.
Lack of transparency: Another issue in today’s world of digital media purchasing is a lack of transparency. Because the digital media buying process is far more complex and difficult to track than traditional media buying, some ad buyers take advantage of this.
Media Buying Technology Advancement
The emergence of the programmatic ecosystem has been one of the most significant changes to media buying as technology has advanced. Programmatic media buying is a technique for automating and streamlining the logistics of online advertising. Transactions take place in real time, just like on the stock exchange. However, in this case, the transactions are between media buyers and publishers.
One of the best aspects of programmatic advertising is that it allows you to target your ads more precisely on individual impressions rather than purchasing ad slots as you would with traditional advertising.
