The things we shouldn’t do and the hellfire consequences that follow always make for a good read, something like the 7 Deadly Sins of {insert Marketing Tactic or Business Practice}. These posts list the gotchas of implementing our plans and programs, letting us know that yes, someone else has been there, too.
This isn’t one of those posts. Instead, it’s a list of habits and characteristics that make for highly effective and efficient media buying— 7 “virtues” that prevent a visit to one of the 9 Circles of Media Buying Hell (yep, already published “that post”).
7 Cardinal Virtues of Media Buyers
1. Hope. Know your advertising objectives or those of your client. Don’t leave the meeting to start planning without being sure of what results the advertising campaign is meant to drive.
2. Faith. Set goals according to these objectives, use them to guide the media planning process, and have faith that the campaign will be on target.
3. Love. Do market research as though it were a hobby you love. (Maybe it is?) Whether buying in a new or familiar market, know every advertising opportunity available, including unrated stations, alternative publications, local websites and blogs, and every park bench.
4. Fortitude.Be specific in your RFP, and ask upfront for what you need (CPP goal, certain placements, flighting, etc.).
5. Temperance. Streamline your communications as much as possible. Wait until you’ve reviewed all advertising proposals before you start responding. Get organized. Get tools.
6. Justice. Measure the advertising campaign across media channels to gauge the cost of reaching a target audience by medium and overall. Multi-channel advertising can be measured by CPM, or cost per thousand: cost/(audience/1,000)=CPM.
7. Prudence. Guard time wisely, and control the communication frequency and touch points with media sellers during both active campaign planning and relationship building. After all, time is money.
Are you a virtuous media buyer? Learn more about streamlining the media planning and buying process with Avenue Right’s web-based platform.
Pretend for a moment that you’re shopping for a used sedan to make those lengthy commutes a bit more comfortable. Two vehicles are in the running, the same make and model—a blue one at Lot A, and a gray one at Lot B. Both have the same low mileage, give or take a thousand, and from what you can tell, they seem to have the same features.
You’d like to do a closer comparison of the two vehicles, their features and pricing. Unfortunately, the research and decision process is similar to the typical process for planning a media buy.
It means that in order to evaluate the two vehicles, you have to pay separately for the data needed to compare the two purchases.
In every other industry, the information required to evaluate a purchase and weigh its risks and benefits is provided by the seller. Eventually that information is provided, too, by a community of people who have experience with the product or service.
But in media buying, the data needed to consider an advertising purchase comes at a hefty price. Ad agencies subscribe to data services to support their media buying decisions, and the media outlets subscribe to this same data in order to be rated and hope for a top spot.
Why not just ask the media salesperson for the data to persuade you that their station is the right fit for the media mix?
Our sales guys at both Lots A and B would be happy to provide whatever information they had in order to sell us on why their sedan best suited our needs and was therefore the better purchase. For free.
This model could easily work in media buying, too, if agencies have the tools to collect, evaluate, and take action on precisely the information they need from sellers—no more, no less. Really, there’s no point in analyzing all that data until the media buyer first knows what inventory is available.
When data has to be purchased separately for any product—even the ink and air of advertising—the added cost is passed on to the consumer.
One advertising channel that has done well to offer verifiable audience data without added cost to the media buyer is online. Audience measurement services such as Quantcast® offer online audience information in real time, generally at no cost to buyer or seller. Savvy online media buyers have numerous ways to access data about a website’s traffic, and those sellers have the information they need to show how the target audience of the campaign is already visiting that website.
Buyers of traditional media such as broadcast radio and television should come to expect the same open exchange of information for the offline part of the mix as they can get for online advertising. Internet technology and SaaS-based (Software as a Service) products can provide the kind of streamlined, collaborative, trusting environment needed for the packaging and sale of not only online but also traditional media, making it easier to buy.
Enabling the process of collecting, managing, and collaborating on advertising information allows media buyers to get the current data they need directly from the seller, at the right time in their planning process. It eliminates the need to pay large fees for complex data sets of which they may only use half to plan and buy media for their clients that year, and time spent analyzing ratings points for dayparts that may or may not even be available.
With most agencies, the margins for pure media buying are decreasing, yet offering this service is a core necessity to providing their other high-margin services, such as design or branding. Contributing to this are inefficiencies in the media buying process, not having access to the tools and information needed, or having access but paying too much for it.
See how Avenue Right is helping media buyers and ad agencies save time and money in a demo of our media buying automation solution.
Lists are good. They tell us what groceries to buy, what projects are due this week, what’s left to do to finish the upcoming media buy.
Here’s a list of 45 top resources on local advertising and media buying. It covers local radio, television, print, and online advertising, with links to industry news and commentary, media calculations, and industry associations.
Know of a good local advertising resource that wasn’t covered here? Link to it in the comments.
Be sure to check out our Media Buying Resource Library for the latest white papers and case studies covering multi-channel media buying that reaches the local consumer audience.
As a form of persuasive communication, advertising seeks to guide an audience through a decision-making process that begins with awareness and results in a purchase.
We deliver rational and emotional appeals through words and sound and images that reach our audience based on who they are, where they live, where they shop.
How far that message will reach and with what impact is determined by both the creative and the media through which it’s delivered.
An advertising campaign that uses multiple media channels to target local consumers will be most effective in reaching its intended audience. This allows media buyers to leverage the advantages of each media channel and their unique properties in the overall message delivery strategy.
Different media channels deliver different experiences to different audiences. The success of an advertising campaign ultimately depends on a combination of factors—messaging strategy, media scheduling, creative execution, and audience recall.
When it comes to reaching and influencing an audience, each local media channel has unique advantages and disadvantages that result from a combination of audience media consumption patterns, popularity of the media outlet in its local market, and the nature of the medium itself.
This might be the ability to use emotion or sensory experience to increase recall, or deliver just enough information in just the right place or number of characters to influence the consumer to make that purchase or visit that website.
Understanding how media resonate with the audience through different levels of sensory and emotional engagement helps media buyers leverage the strengths of each advertising channel included in the campaign. The table below illustrates some key points of comparison not only in terms of message delivery, but ease of execution and cost to produce.
Consumers are empowered more now than they ever have been to find information when they want it, and block out unwanted or irrelevant messages on the radio, television, their favorite online magazine.
The ads that do make it through the clutter have to compete for attention.
Recent studies prove that not only are we engaged in media from more sources than ever before, but a large percentage of the population does it simultaneously—already in 2006, 60% of adults surfed the internet occasionally while watching television. Then there are those who listen to the radio while spending time online or reading a print publication. The possibilities for concurrent consumption of media—and advertising—are endless.
As we engage in these media channels, we both seek out and are exposed to advertising messages designed to inform and persuade our feelings toward a business or brand, or our inclination toward a purchase.
This brings consumers through the decision process of • Awareness
• Consideration
• Evaluation
• Purchase
• Loyalty
Shaping that path for the consumer are such factors as motivation for the purchase (physiological, social, personal fulfillment); buyer persona; and the way the consumer retains, organizes, and interprets information, which also affects purchase behavior (i.e., impulse purchase online vs. moving through consideration and evaluation stages).
Here’s a closer look at what’s going on in each of those stages. The time spent in each stage varies depending on the product or service and its price, but in general, it looks something like this:
• Awareness – Identifies a problem/need/desire, whether it’s a need for gas in the minivan or a desire that had a little help from marketing, such as a ticket to an upcoming concert or play.
• Consideration – Searches for information or solution related to problem/need/desire.
• Evaluation – Compares options and considers price, quality, benefit, and risk factors.
• Purchase – Decides what, where, when to buy.
• Loyalty – Repeats purchase behavior depending on level of satisfaction with product or service experience.
Keeping the general stages of the decision-making cycle in mind along with the attributes and message delivery capabilities of each media channel can help create a media plan that drives consumers from awareness to purchase.
Avenue Right is pleased to announce the release of Avenue Right 3.1, web-based media buying software that streamlines and automates the process of buying local advertising, across online and offline media channels.
The real-time platform helps media buyers keep up with a changing media landscape and deliver targeted advertising messages more efficiently. The release of Avenue Right 3.1 brings even greater flexibility in communicating and managing information during the media planning process.
Here are some of the new features and enhancements:
The ability for media outlets to attach documents such as an avails sheet when they respond to an RFP,
Enhancements to the Media Schedule Builder and change order process, and
Simpler management of custom fields for media types, building on the features released in May with Avenue Right 3.0.
Avenue Right 3.0 introduced customization features that allow users to add, interact with, and report on any advertising medium that’s included in the overall media schedule, such as OOH and local search advertising, in addition to the standard media types in the database. Also released was the ability for users to create custom media formulas and questions in order to capture and measure specific information in their media planning process.
The ability to plan and manage local online and offline advertising from a central location lets media buyers see where they are getting the most value based on audience delivery and budget, optimize the media mix accordingly, and communicate that value to their clients or business stakeholders.
To see media buying automation in action, request a demo.
Media buying is a fast-moving, complicated process that demands a mix of both hard data and intuition to be executed successfully.
It’s not as easy as making a few phone calls and plugging some numbers into a spreadsheet, neither for ad agencies nor the businesses and organizations that plan and buy their own advertising.
Each media channel is measured differently, and the formulas used to determine the best placements vary depending on the advertiser’s goals, the different media used, and how the campaign results will be measured. And if you stare long enough, the formulas can turn into one big circular reference.
There’s a mountain of information to collect and manage that—if printed out and piled—would rival the height of the campaign budget in dollar bills.
To make sense of it all, Michael J. Massey and Chrissie VanWormer offer their media buying experience and expertise in their new book Your Ad Here: De-Mystifying the Business of Media and Advertising.
In fewer than 100 pages, the book provides a high-level overview of basic advertising concepts and how to implement them in a media plan. The chapters are laid out in an order that follows the process of a media buy, making it a quick read with easily digestible tips, tricks, and examples. It’s worth the time spent following the case study of retailer Crazy Boy Jeans, who is making a buy to promote an upcoming denim sale.
Not only does the book demystify the esoteric language of media buying by providing clear definitions for words like flighting and makegood, it also offers practical tips on negotiating placements and for managing and organizing all the information related to a media buy.
In the first section, Massey and VanWormer cover
Audience profiling and targeting
Budgeting
Account management
Avail requests
Data management
Trafficking and creative
The second section reviews all media and the strategy and tactics behind the ads—from broadcast to word of mouth—and provides tips for incorporating those media channels into an advertising campaign.
Your Ad Here captures some of the key challenges that media buyers face, especially when working with a tight budget. There’s also an overriding theme of “win-win” that applies to everyone who participates in getting the message out there—agency, media outlet, the business, and even the interns looking to get into the advertising space.
And above all, note Massey and VanWormer, the message needs to be good, too, to help it spread.
Top 10 Tips from Your Ad Here: De-mystifying the Business of Media and Advertising
Your Ad Here is written from the perspective of media buyers who have been there, done that. Readers with any level of background in advertising will benefit from the practical advice and examples.
Here are 10 of my favorite tips from the book. What are yours?
1. Hire a college intern to work on target audience profiling.
2. SPEND the budget. If a business is going to advertise at all, it should spend enough budget to capture the attention of its target audience.
3. Layer the message across multiple media channels for increased impact.
4. When buying radio, plan to reach listeners 7 times before they start to retain the message.
5. Target locally.
6. Use a three-ring binder, or technology like Avenue Right to help gather and manage the information related to a media buy.
7. Don’t call the media outlet if you don’t have to.
8. Get an audience duplication report to help you determine whether a lower-rated radio station would also reach your audience and save you money. Get a click-through rate for the ad placements you’re buying.
9. Share as much budget information as you’re comfortable with in negotiation process, but use caution. Give a budget range rather than an exact number.
10. Use social media channels to position yourself as an expert in your field.
Learn more about De-mystifying the Business of Media and Advertising and purchase the book at www.YourAdHereTheBook.com.
Among the most time-consuming tasks in media buying is gathering, organizing, and analyzing information, making sense of the piles of spreadsheets, PDFs, Word docs and other formats to get a clear picture of the advertising marketplace before finalizing the media plan.
Let’s say a media buyer has decided that it’s a mix of local radio, TV, online, and few print pubs that will best reach the target demographic. That was the easy part.
Now it’s a matter of finding the latest information on the advertising opportunities in that local market, and having the tools available to act on that information throughout the planning and execution of a simple or complex media buy.
Meanwhile, the media buyer is accustomed to engaging in social media in her personal and professional life, savvy enough to include those outlets in the advertising plan.
No matter what industry we’re in, we’re used to getting information the instant it becomes available, and being able to act on that info with the proverbial “few clicks” and to share it with a hashtag or two. We like to see what our “friends” are up to without having to ask them. We watch trending topics to gain insight about the world around us, as it happens.
It’s this same real-time technology that powers Avenue Right’s media buying platform, providing not only more accurate and up-to-date market information, but also increased efficiencies by automating manual tasks.
Last week Avenue Right had the opportunity to show off our product at the Speed Geeking demo hour at ReadWriteWeb’s Real-Time Web Summit in New York City. This post expands on the talk we gave during our demo—why real-time matters to media buyers—with all the juicy details that didn’t fit into the 5 minute timeslot.
Power of the Platform
Avenue Right incorporates all media channels—online and offline—into a single platform without interfering with inventory supply and demand or negotiations, biasing information with a commission structure, or remaining static in a digital world grown accustomed to real-time information.
Powered by its user community, Avenue Right is not an ad network or an ad exchange, but rather a resource that brings offline and online local media planning and buying together, staying out of the commission chain in order to provide a non-biased exchange of information between buyers and sellers.
Media buyers can search the local media outlet database using any combination of search criteria and get an up-to-date list of relevant advertising opportunities and contact information. The database includes local radio, broadcast and cable TV, online, and print media outlets, and users can add any other media type they’d like to include in their campaign, such as OOH.
Users can assign search terms to media outlets and make them available to other users, and local media outlets not found in the database can be added and made available to other Avenue Right users. The information on media outlets in local marketplace stays up to date through a combination of efforts, including the media sellers who are actively engaged in their Avenue Right portal to help promote their inventory.
And to give things that social feel, media buyers can just check out their dashboard to see what outlets have updated their profiles lately, or responded to an RFP from the media buyer.
Managing the information collected and the schedules negotiated is a daunting task. Depending on the media mix and complexity of the buy, this could result in any number and combination of placements, and a whole lot of calculations to go with them. And sometimes—unless a format is specified—with the proposals received in as many different formats as there are response to an RFP.
Better Information = Better Media Buys
Rates and inventory change daily depending on supply and demand. Even in familiar markets, media buyers need to keep track of things like media outlet sales rep contact changes, or even format, programming, or editorial changes.
Many companies provide data designed to give some level of perspective and education into local markets; however, most of that data is already stagnant given its outdated survey methodology. But throughout the past 30+ years, this data has been considered the standard in media planning, resulting in educated guesses being made from data that in many cases is not relevant to your buy today.
Avenue Right is building a new “living” ecosystem to bring greater visibility, transparency, and efficiency to the media buying process. By taking advantage of modern data management techniques such as crowdsourcing, Avenue Right is able to get faster and constant updates for marketplaces from people who already know and understand that local market. We capture data passed through our platform during the collaborations between buyer and seller and create non-biased benchmarks, based on current, real-time information.
The information is current, relative, immediately available, and actionable NOW.
Avenue Right’s platform learns, grows, and evolves with the changing local media landscape. The technology leverages the real-time web to
Enable instant, streamlined communications and collaboration between buyer and seller,
Provide better insight into a local advertising marketplace, and
Increase efficiencies for media buyers by automating information collection, negotiation, and confirmation of media schedules.
Avenue Right is the first web-based media buying software to deliver a multi-channel media outlet database, real-time communications and marketplace data, an automation engine, and contact management as a comprehensive media buying solution. To learn more or see how Avenue Right can help your agency gain a competitive edge in the marketplace, request a demo today!
A good way to get the information you want is to ask for it. In media buying, including specific questions on proposal requests results in better information with which to compare advertising opportunities and less time spent in negotiation volleys.
The local media buyers we’ve talked to all have different processes for planning and measuring their buys. No matter what the process or depth of information collected on an RFP, being specific means being efficient.
The questions on an RFP don’t need to be cryptic and complex. But asking them in that initial communication touch—the RFP—not only saves time spent in the evaluation and negotiation process, but helps the buyer communicate goals and objectives to the seller.
The request itself indicates to the seller how the buyer is measuring and comparing the media buys for a campaign. This allows media outlets to respond with competitive proposals that focus on what matters most to the buyer (i.e., target audience delivery, overall reach and frequency, CPP, CPM, and so on).
Think about an upcoming media buy. If you could ask three specific questions of the media seller, what would they be? And what answers are you looking for?
The Three BEs
Until a magic formula or template exists that can be standardized for every local advertising RFP, suitable for campaigns of every size and shape, here are 3 tips for getting the information you need the first time around:
1 – Be strategic in your RFPs. Develop a planning strategy before sending proposal requests, not the other way around. Know what metrics you want to collect and how, rather than waiting to see what the media outlet provides.
Let the media outlet know who the client is and the purpose of the campaign—branding, immediate sales, introduce new product or service, event promotion, etc. It will help the seller prepare a proposal tailored to the campaign goals and parameters.
2- Be clear in what you’re looking for and how media outlets can win your business.
Duration of campaign
Budget range. Let them know approximately how many stations/sites/publications/etc. will be included in the buy.
Primary demographic? Secondary?
Is the purpose of the campaign to remarket to existing customers, or raise awareness in a new location?
Specific programming or editorial?
Specific placements or dayparts?
CPP if applicable (what they can provide in the initial proposal, not your target CPP goal)
What’s more important—as many eyes and ears as possible, or the eyes and ears of a specific demographic, alongside specific programming/content? If it’s a rated station, for example, ask for audience delivery information for the specific demographic you’re targeting.
3 – Be consistent. Collect the information in a consistent format from each media outlet (and for each media channel) in your consideration set for more accurate and efficient evaluation once all proposals have been received. At minimum, get proposals in spreadsheet format rather than pdf for easier cross-media analysis for the entire campaign. Or do it better with media buying automation technology.
Gather information from each media outlet in a consistent format, put it all together, and run your formulas to evaluate and place media. (For example, if you run your own calculations for CPP and 3+ Reach, request TRP, Reach, and Frequency in the RFP.)
Keep it Simple
One factor in determining the complexity of an RFP and analysis of proposals is the degree to which the buy is based on ratings data. For many stations, ratings data is unaffordable, but they are still viable advertising mediums for a client’s message. For these buyers, the information request may be as simple as “looking for placement next to Widget Parade story.”
The number of questions on an RFP and their complexity depends on and varies by each campaign, no matter what media channels are used (traditional, online, or any combination). Knowing what information you need to evaluate and place media for a local ad campaign is the first step in saving time in the request and negotiation process and ultimately gathering better information for analysis and decision-making.
Read about negotiation after all the proposals have been collected, or get a demo of Avenue Right’s media buying automation platform to see how easy it is to streamline media planning, information analysis, and scheduling.
Buying media and advertising inventory is a lot like buying seats on an airplane.
The buyer knows the price of the commodity fluctuates, and the guy in the seat (or placement) next to yours may very well have gotten a better rate.
Rates are influenced by how far in advance they are confirmed between the buyer and seller, how much inventory is left at the time of sale, and how desirable that inventory is. Again, it all depends on supply and demand.
Paying the right price for a great seat on that flight to Jamaica is an art form. So is negotiating placement and rate in media buying.
Here are a few ways buying airline tickets is similar to planning and buying advertising inventory:
Time it right. Media buyers bring a great deal of value to their clients in their ability to determine the right timing and delivery of an advertising message. Likewise, the process of requesting information and negotiating specific placements should also be done early enough to get good seats, so to speak, but not too early in the event that market conditions change or audiences move away from a given local media outlet in favor of another. This is where it’s helpful to get an idea of the average rates over a period of time.
Gather information and compare offers. Once the buyer picks a destination (or, a local radio station, for example), the next step is to determine how to get there (how to deliver the message), and how much to pay to get there in that way. A conscientious buyer gathers information and compares offers from multiple sources, be it airlines or media outlets.
Placement–Where to sit on the airplane. Window or aisle? First class, or back by the lavatory? In the radio buy example, peak drive time, or Run of Schedule, when the bulk of the ads in the schedule could air overnight, when the target audience is asleep?
Rate–Keeping an eye on trends in rates, gathering current information, and scheduling not too early but enough in advance to secure a good seat at a decent price as the inventory fills up.
Time Spent–Is it a long flight, driving up the overall cost of a campaign with that local radio station? In media buying, this is similar to the volume of inventory purchased and the relationships established with the sellers, whereas in purchasing an airline ticket, it’s like using frequent flier discounts as a loyal airline customer.
Other considerations for the media buyer are alternatives to vying for mainstream advertising opportunities, such as the most popular country station. Increased relevance might be found in more niche outlets, such as a talk radio or alternative music station, with content offerings and programming that are a good fit for the demographic being targeted.
Getting the best placement and rate depends on the buyer’s understanding of the inventory available, market conditions, how rates have fluctuated over time, and how they might change between planning confirming, and ultimately running the ads. Or flying to Jamaica.
Gathering up-to-date information on a buy is no longer an option, but a necessity. Internet technology eases the process of finding the best seat at the best rate for media buyers and frequent fliers. Think about travel sites like Kayak, Orbitz, or Expedia.
Media outlet contacts change just as quickly as inventory rates and audiences can change, so while gathering one piece of information, why not collect the rest in a standardized electronic RFP? For media buyers, technology addresses the need for
Affordable access to more up-to-date, accurate, and actionable information on an advertising marketplace, and
Elimination of redundant and manual tasks related to gathering, analyzing, and acting on information required for planning a media buy.
The answer to that is media buying automation, and more information on that can be found here.
Read more about advertising rates and negotiating placement:
