3 STEPS TO
SUCCESSFUL DIGITAL
MEDIA BUYING
AdClarity
MEDIA INTELLIGENCE
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
Generating Quality Leads Through Smart Media Buying 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: when your target audience runs their research for products, they use 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 from the publishers 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.
THE BEST STRATEGY FOR GENERATING MORE LEADS IS BY ADVERTISING ON MULTIPLE MEDIA BUYING TRAFFIC SOURCES
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.
*http://www.emarketer.com/Article/US-Total-Media-Ad-Spend-Inches-Up-Pushed-by-Digital/1010154
2
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
Step One Understand your Audience’s Ecosystem 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 parallel businesses who are looking to target the same exact audience as you. 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:
3
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
1
Creative Designs & Ad Types:
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? 2
Offer / Messaging
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? 3
Websites / Placements
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?
ANALYZE ELEMENTS OF THE COMPETITORS’ CAMPAIGNNS: CREATIVES, MESSAGING, AND PLACEMENTS.
Once you have a thorough understanding of the ecosystem, you can start building your campaign for success.
4
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
Step Two Building an Effective Media Buying Campaign
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?
5
3 Steps to Successful Digital Media Buying
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. FIND WHAT MEDIA BUYING PLAN WORKS BEST FOR OTHERS AND IMITATE IT.
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 parallel businesses, you can diminish the time and resources you spend testing.
Step Three Connecting With the Right Partners 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.
6
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 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 like AdClarity 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.
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 report was produced by AdClarity, the leading digital media buying solution. We invite you to learn more and start your free trial