Media Buying 101: What is Media Buying?
If you want your business website to get more traffic, you have to consider online advertisement on top of SEO. Media buying, otherwise known as banner advertising, is one good way to capture website traffic via ads. In this post, we will concentrate on media buying 101 and discuss how you can use media buying to your advantage.
Media buying allows you to purchase banner inventory from specific websites or from ad networks. You can either approach the website owner/s or sign up through ad networks that many websites subscribe to.
Most media buying 101 guides will tell you that there are three (3) primary billing schemes:
- CPM (cost per thousand impressions),
- CPC (cost per click),
- and a flat rate (pay a fixed amount for a specific time period regardless of the performance of the ads).
Most advertisers and ad networks prefer either the CPM or CPC models because they are performance-based. A flat rate may be disadvantageous to any one party because of fluctuations in website traffic.
When using the CPM or CPC models, advertisers may provide a budget. Banner ads are then rotated with other advertisers’ banner ads until the specified budget is fully consumed. This allows you to control the amount spent on online advertisement prior to the start of the campaign.
The key to the effective use of media buying is proper research, especially when you are paying on a CPM or flat-rate basis. Do not rely on the information provided to you by the agent or the website. Instead, conduct independent research and look at the market segment that your target website attracts.
A simple Google search may achieve this. Just put in your keyword and then contact the first few websites that come out on top of the results. Ad networks also allow you to narrow down the websites that your ad will be rotated around to specific categories. Tools such as the Google keyword tool and Compete.com are just some of the few other tools that you can make use of. Tanks for stopping by media buying 101.
