By Iryna Kozirevych
A memorable creative and an effective call to action are not enough for the success of a marketing campaign – it is also essential to have the right media buying strategy. However, what is media buying in advertising? How does it work and why is it important? Keep reading to find answers to these and other questions.
What is Media Buying?
Media buying is the strategic purchasing of ad inventory across different channels: websites, mobile applications, social media, TV, radio, printed media, etc. It involves negotiating costs and ad placements, using the most efficient channels, targeting the right audience, securing the most effective ad inventory, and scheduling the best timing for the ads. The goal is to reach customers who are most likely to get interested in your products or services while keeping expenses under control and maximizing ROI.
What is a Media Buyer?
Media buyers are experts responsible for the process of purchasing ad space: they communicate with website owners to discuss costs, set up targeting, ensure the right timing, track the campaign performance, and so on. However, media buyers require input from media planners.
What is the Difference Between Media Buying and Media Planning?
So, media buying vs media planning. Let’s discover the difference between these two processes.
Media Planning
Media planning can be defined as the preparation phase. It involves conducting thorough market research, identifying the campaign goals, outlining the characteristics of a target audience, deciding on the budget, and selecting the right channels.
Media Buying
Considering the definition of media planning, buying media means bringing this plan to life. Media planning is all about preparation, and media buying implies the execution of this plan.
Note that some businesses have separate teams for performing these activities – they work together to ensure effective marketing. However, in smaller companies, the same team (or even a single team member) is often responsible for both media planning and buying.
Why is Media Buying Important?
Now that the difference between media buying and planning is clarified, let’s get back to the media buying topic and discover why it matters.
Reaching the Right Customers
Buying ad space involves launching advertisements on the most effective channels and setting up targeting to make sure that the ad will reach the right audience. Yes, thorough media planning is required to do this properly, but media buyers are the ones who set everything up for the ad to reach users who are most likely to take the desired action and convert.
Getting the Best Ad Inventory
The process of purchasing ads also implies getting the most relevant ad inventory at the right time. This way, the ad gets higher chances for better performance. Additionally, experts responsible for buying ads often have extensive networks of relationships with website and app owners and other publishers. Therefore, they can help planners identify even more opportunities and get the best space for their ads. However, with programmatic marketing, securing premium inventory can be done much faster and in a more cost-effective way.
Ensuring Brand Visibility and Awareness
For building brand visibility, media buying is a crucial process. When ads are launched correctly and consistently, it becomes easy for your business to drive brand awareness and recognition. Besides, creatives supported with the right messaging help gain trust and make your business look credible.
Keep in mind that while traditional offline advertising can still be helpful, implementing a digital marketing strategy is still a must to achieve brand visibility.
Optimizing the Marketing Budget
While media planners decide on the amount of money a business can allocate to marketing, buyers are responsible for spending it. They make sure that every dollar is spent wisely, secure optimal deals, and prevent overspending. Basically, they make the campaign cost-effective and help maximize ROI.
Tracking the Performance
Besides, buying media implies tracking the ad performance continuously so that it becomes possible to identify opportunities and weaknesses and react promptly. The collected insights also help you plan and execute your future campaigns more effectively.
Overcoming Competitors
In many niches, the competition is severe, so drawing customer attention can be extremely challenging without buying the right media. However, if you succeed in securing the best inventory for the optimal price, it becomes easier for you to drive conversions and stand out from the crowd.
The Media Buying Process
The process itself can vary depending on the chosen type of buying media. For instance, if the inventory is supposed to be purchased via programmatic real-time auctions, there is no need for buyers to negotiate prices with website owners or prepare legal agreements.
Since such an option is simpler, let’s review a more complex one. So, after the planning stage is over and a buyer is provided with all the essential information, it comes time for the following steps.
Familiarize with the Plan
The first thing to do is to review the plan while paying special attention to the marketing budget, goals, and target audience characteristics. Besides, you should start thinking about the ad formats that are most relevant to the outlined objectives. This will help you find the right media outlets. For example, if you are planning to launch video ads, you will have to look for publishers who support this type of advertising.
Prepare a Target List
Then, you need to create a target list that will include your potential partners: these can be media outlets, ad vendors, agencies, etc. If you are going to launch your ads programmatically, search for demand-side platforms supporting the selected type of advertising (if you have not done this for your previous campaigns).
Decide on the Budget
With the budget specified in the plan, you must decide how much you are going to spend and how exactly you will do this. For instance, you may pay a specific amount to a certain publisher or place bids via a programmatic platform.
Prepare and Send Requests for Proposals
After this, prepare and send requests for proposals (RFPs) to the publishers on your target list. Make sure to specify your goals, audience characteristics, approximate budget, and KPIs. It would also be useful to mention the response deadline.
Review the Options
When you get all the responses, organize the information and compare the options. This way, you will be able to choose the most appropriate media outlet (or outlets).
Send Insertion Orders
For every placement, you will also need to create and send an insertion order (IO). These are legal agreements outlining the run dates, cost, and other important details. Note that this is not essential in case you launch your ads via programmatic real-time auctions.
Finalize and Send the Creatives
It is also crucial to make sure that your ad creatives are finalized according to the provided specifications. When they are ready, send them to the selected ad vendors. After this, your ads are launched.
Monitor the Performance
Finally, you should continuously track the performance of your ads to be able to make adjustments on time. In case your vendors guarantee certain results (for example, the number of impressions), remember to keep an eye on this. If the results do not match the promise, negotiate this issue with the vendor.
Types of Media Buying
There are multiple ways to purchase ads, however, all of them can be categorized into three main types. Here they are:
Direct Buying
This approach implies contacting a publisher (for instance, a website owner or an ad vendor) directly and negotiating the purchase of ad inventory. Basically, that is the process we described above. Note that direct buying can be applicable to both traditional (for example, ads in printed newspapers) and digital media buying.
Programmatic Buying
Programmatic technology revolutionized online media buying and streamlined the processes. You set up your campaign via a demand-side platform (DSP), and then it will purchase the inventory automatically. With real-time auctions, you get the desired ad space much faster than if you reach out to vendors manually. However, keep in mind that to achieve the best results, you should apply as many targeting and filtering settings as possible.
Besides, direct deals are still possible within the programmatic ecosystem. After you identify the most effective publishers, you can get in touch with them and negotiate the purchase of their inventory. This way, you will secure ad space for a specified amount of money.
Another benefit is that programmatic solutions are often equipped with functionalities that help you maximize the performance of your campaigns while optimizing ad spend. If you decide to purchase ads programmatically, make sure to learn everything about your specific demand-side platform. Understanding all its functionalities will help you achieve the desired results more efficiently.
Purchasing Ads Via Social Networks and Special Platforms
Finally, you can still buy ads in a way that does not involve programmatic technology or direct buying. For instance, you can launch your campaigns on social networks that are relevant to your audience. Besides, there are multiple platforms like Google Ads that you can use as well.
Following this approach (or combining it with programmatic advertising) accelerates the process of getting ad inventory. You will not have to look for ad vendors and sign agreements with them. You will be able to launch your campaigns on your own. However, it is important to remember that direct buying still has some benefits. For example, you may count on some guaranteed results.
Media Buying Trends
To create effective media buying strategies, you need to keep an eye on the trends. This way, you will be able to gain a competitive advantage and drive greater results. To simplify this task for you, we have described the most recent trends that you should consider.
Programmatic Ad Spend Is Increasing
Investments in programmatic advertising keep growing. According to Statista, the programmatic ad spend reached almost $550 billion in 2023. By 2028, this figure is projected to exceed $770 billion.
Due to the automation capabilities, using programmatic in media buying is getting more and more popular. It speeds up the process of securing the ad inventory and eliminates the need to search for vendors manually. Besides, programmatic technology is still evolving, so we can expect even more opportunities to enter the stage.
As for direct buying, relying solely on it is not the most effective decision. More and more businesses are adopting programmatic marketing which helps them reach their goals. If you focus only on direct buying, you may fall behind. Therefore, consider enhancing your strategy with programmatic marketing.
CTV and DOOH Ads Are in Demand
To remain competitive, it is important to reach the target audience across different devices and environments, not only smartphones and laptops. Connected TV (CTV) and digital out-of-home (DOOH) ads are not something new, but demand for them is growing.
For instance, in the USA, CTV advertising spending is expected to surpass $42 billion by 2027 – in 2022, it was around $21 billion. In turn, investments in DOOH marketing are projected to exceed $25 billion by 2029.
Both CTV and DOOH advertising has a lot of benefits. For instance, CTV ads usually cannot be skipped, while the DOOH ones are often shown to a lot of people at once. Using these formats can help you reach your potential customers in a new way, so consider integrating them into your strategy.
Note that CTV and DOOH ads can be launched programmatically. Therefore, when choosing a DSP platform, check if it supports these formats and environments. In general, you should choose a solution that is regularly updated with new functionalities – this will help you remain competitive.
AI Starts Playing a More Significant Role
In terms of media buying, artificial intelligence can be a powerful ally. For instance, it can be used for real-time optimization, making data-driven decisions, delivering personalized experiences, more effective analysis, creative and copy generation, etc. More and more businesses are starting to use AI tools, and it is important for you to do the same – otherwise, you may be left behind.
However, it is crucial to remember that anything generated by AI should be thoroughly checked.
Interactive Ads Help Drive Conversions
Let’s be honest – ads, both digital and offline, are simply everywhere. Many people just ignore them and even use blocking software. Therefore, drawing the audience’s attention can be a challenging task, especially in a niche with high competition. Launching interactive ads (for instance, playable advertisements) can help solve this problem.
Such ads usually have higher engagement rates and are effective in terms of building brand awareness and boosting conversions. Additionally, when designed in a creative way, they are much more memorable than static ones, which is good for brand recognition.
Considering these benefits, you may want to experiment with interactive ads to see if they can help you achieve your goals.
Localized Advertising Is on the Rise
In the world of modern marketing, personalization plays a crucial role. Otherwise, if an ad does not resonate with the audience, they, most likely, will not click it. Adjusting ad content in real time, dynamic creative personalization (DCO) can help ensure personalization, but you should not rely solely on this.
Almost 70% of Internet users in the USA think that marketing from national companies with local messaging makes advertisements more relevant and shows that advertisers are investing in local communities. Therefore, it can be helpful to keep your ads more localized and tailor them to different regions, traditions, and cultures. Doing this will help you draw attention and build trust.
Contextual Targeting Becomes More Popular
Third-party cookies have been playing an important role in digital advertising for a long time but their era is coming to an end. Respecting your audience’s privacy is a way to gain their trust, so, if you have not switched to alternative targeting methods yet, now is the time to do this.
Contextual targeting is one of the options, and its adoption rate is increasing continuously. Thus, according to ExhangeWire, contextual advertising is forecasted to have a 13.8% growth annually (between 2024 and 2030).
Note that following this trend is virtually a must. Third-party cookies are still in use, but they will fade away at some point, and it is better to start preparing for this in advance. Otherwise, when this happens, your media buying strategies may be much less effective than those of your competitors.
Sustainability Is Impacting the Programmatic Industry
The programmatic advertising industry generates vast amounts of carbon emissions, so sustainability becomes a new trend for media buyers to keep in mind. Brands start integrating environmental metrics into their ad spend strategies to reduce carbon emissions. Ensuring the transparency of the supply chain and minimizing unnecessary data storage can be helpful as well.
It is important to understand that this trend is not only about being eco-friendly. Modern customers tend to prefer brands that follow environmental initiatives, so adopting such practices can help you gain their trust and get a competitive advantage.
Consider Attekmi Your Trusted Partner
Since advertising evolves continuously, mastering all the aspects of media buying can be challenging. However, our Attekmi team is always ready to help you. Thus, we offer AdTech and Ad Ops training services so that you can learn more about programmatic advertising, ad activities management, ad serving technologies, etc.
Additionally, we offer Ad Ops outstaffing services. We can pick and train a professional specifically for your brand. You will be able to focus on your core business tasks, while your advertising processes will remain effective.
And that is not all. We aim to be your trusted partner in any AdTech matter – we have built an entire range of ad exchange solutions, including a White Label option that is fully tailored to your requirements (including UI personalization and custom on-request feature development). You can also count on our custom development services.
Just get in touch with us, and we will discuss how we can help you!
