2. Are you an online marketer who needs to open up new lead generation
channels… fast? Do you need to maximize the media budget you have
been allocated and increase the ROI on it?
Consider this: your target audience uses multiple digital channels to
collect information and make their buying decisions. Therefore, the
best strategy for reaching them is by promoting your offerings on
multiple media traffic sources, so that they are exposed to your brand
as they progress from their research stage to their buying stage. But
where exactly?
According to eMarketer, successful advertisers are now investing
almost half of their media budgets on buying digital media ad spaces.
Whether they buy media directly or through third parties, the fact is that
digital media buying makes up 44% of all advertising budgets for
advertisers just like you and me.
Though getting into Media Buying may seem like a daunting
task, when you tackle it step by step, and sometimes step out
of the box, you will discover that you are only three steps away
from achieving the success you need.
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
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THE BEST STRATEGY FOR GENERATING
MORE LEADS IS BY ADVERTISING ON
MULTIPLE MEDIA BUYING TRAFFIC SOURCES
3. Having a rich pool of competitors helps you explore those companies’
digital media buying initiatives to get a better understanding of what
works with your audience and what doesn’t, such as:
You already know your target audience, right? You have studied their
profiles, know the geographies you need to target, and perhaps have a firm
grasp on which audiences have the best success rate for your product.
Now your first step out of the box is to understand your audience’s
ecosystem. This means you need to understand beyond just their profile
data. For example, if you need to buy ad spaces for Geico, the car
insurance power house, you may want to target the younger drivers'
personas that live in larger metropolitan areas. But to explore your target
audience further, you may want to assess what else they are interested in,
perhaps, new low-end car models? Maybe driving lessons? Traffic
schools? Or even car accessories?
If you figure out your target audience’s interests you might come across
businesses that you never considered to be competitors. This is the "out
of the box" ecosystem of competitors that you need to explore. Not 1st tier
competitors who are trying to sell car insurance, but rather 2nd tier
competitors who want to capture the eyeballs of young, metropolitan
drivers.
Understand your Audience’s Ecosystem
Step One
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4. How do their banners look? What about their landing pages? Any
specific color schemes that work better than others? Is the design clean
or complex? Which ad types and sizes seem to work best? Do they stick
to their own branding look & feel or adapt to that of the publishing site?
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
Creative Designs & Ad Types:
What type of CTA's do they use? Do they offer a discount, a package
deal, special insight (i.e., an ebook or a free report) Do they describe
their offering with a lot of detail or catch phrases?
What kind of publishing websites have the most success in reaching
your target audience? Those in your same vertical (i.e., blogs about
low-end cars) or completely different? Do the most successful sites
have direct competitors you could explore? Within the site, where are
the ads served? Run of site or on specific channels? Which channels are
used (Display/web, mobile, social). Are the ads placed directly or are
there any mediators (networks, exchanges, agencies) that have
particular understanding, success, or added value to this ecosystem?
Once you have a thorough understanding of the ecosystem,
you can start building your campaign for success.
Offer / Messaging
Websites / Placements
1
2
3
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UNDERSTAND ELEMENTS OF THE
COMPETITORS’ CAMPAIGNNS:
CREATIVES, MESSAGING, AND PLACEMENTS.
5. Building an Effective Media Buying Campaign
Step Two
There are many aspects to digital media campaigns and each of
them can (and should!) be given special attention when building
your campaign, for example:
Your Offering: what are you offering on your ads and landing pages
(free trial of your game or a new prize for the top score?) and how are
you offering it (wording, content & attractiveness, creative design)?
Geo Targeting: which locations are you targeting or not yet
targeting? A good rule of thumb here is to find what works well for
others and imitate it (while avoiding the strategies that didn’t work well
for them). So, if a competitor is having fantastic results by targeting a
certain location, target it!
At the same time, always keep your eyes open for new opportunities
that others haven't tried. For example, if your research leads you to find
that everyone is focusing only on American markets, why not give the
EU nations a try?
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
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6. Connecting With the Right Partners
Step Three
When you are comfortable in your comprehension of the ecosystem
and feel that your campaign is ready to launch, the final important
step is to connect with the right players at the right entities who will be
dedicated to your success. Whether you choose to work directly with
publishers or through a mediating network, in this case like in many
others, who you know is as important as what you know.
For your Media Buying campaign you should aim to consider all of the
important elements and get it right the first time, but as you know,
campaign optimization is an ongoing (and never-ending) process. When
you find a winning formula that works, it may not work forever. You will
need to tweak it to allow for seasonality, changing trends, new
competitors, etc.
There will always be some testing required to determine what works in
your own case, but by properly understanding the ecosystem and
tracking the actions of your competitors and other industry players, you
can diminish the time and resources you spend testing.
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
FIND WHAT MEDIA BUYING PLAN WORKS
BEST FOR OTHERS AND IMITATE IT.
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7. Digital Media Buying Tools
As with any task, there are tools that can make your digital media
buying easier and more effective. Imagining opening a can of peaches
without a can opener is like imagining buying digital media without a
tool that gives you the insights you need.
Media Buying solutions can expose everything you need to know about
the ecosystem (how else will you know what works for other players?),
build your campaigns based on highly-converting benchmarks, and
connect you with the right contacts.
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
In digital media buying, however, “knowing” someone does not necessarily
mean sitting down to coffee with them. By virtually connecting with the
right people (in email, on social networks, within comments on blog posts
or articles), you are increasing probability for success.
BY VIRTUALLY CONNECTING WITH THE RIGHT
PEOPLE AT THE RIGHT ENTITIES, YOU ARE
INCREASING YOUR PROBABILITY FOR SUCCESS.
DIGITAL MEDIA BUYING TOOLS CAN EXPOSE THE ECOSYSTEM,
OPTIMIZE YOUR CAMPAIGNS BASED ON HIGHLY-CONVERTING
BENCHAMRKS, AND CONNECT YOU WITH THE RIGHT CONTACTS.
This business paper was produced by AdClarity, the leading digital media
buying solution. We invite you to learn more and start your free trial
www.adclarity.com
