If you’re looking to improve your media buying strategy, boost your brand awareness, and drive exposure, we’ve compiled a few media buying tips and best practices to help you take your paid advertising to the next level.
One of the most crucial digital media buying best practices is knowing your audience. Your ads need to be in the right place at the right time to have the most impact on your potential leads. This is where your media planning strategy and media buying strategy become tightly woven.
Different creative might perform differently in display ads on websites versus Facebook, for example. The best way to determine which channels will have the highest ROI is to focus on your data and make sure you’ve done thorough market research. Then, build your creative to meet the expectations of the customer on the channel they’ll be viewing.
Leveraging your customer data allows you to offer tailor-made content to your audience. 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that’s provided a personalized experience. Media planning and strategy need to be grounded in your knowledge of your target customer. Deciding on what channel to use depends on how your customers currently meet their needs and where they find solutions to the problems that your brand solves.
Another consideration when enhancing your media buying initiatives are the tools, platforms, and partnerships you’re using to get the job done.
If you’re buying ad space via programmatic software, you need to make sure you’re using the right demand-side platform (DSP). A greatDSP allows you to bid for ad space across several bidding networks, as opposed to just one, such as Google Ads. It’s important to look for DSPs that offer a large selection of high-quality advertising inventory and make sure that your ad is placed appropriately to ensure brand safety.
If you’re doing manual negotiations for out-of-home (OOH) advertising, make sure you’re working with the right collaborators who will help you determine which mediums are reaching your audience. Likewise, the success of sponsorships, takeovers, and guest posts depends on the efficacy of your partnerships. These initiatives can help build trust across different brands’ audiences. Make sure that the people and fellow brands you’re advertising with are continuously connecting with your ideal audience in a meaningful way.
Exploring how your messaging is most effectively delivered is another winning strategy when it comes to best practices in planning media that can help you gain more exposure. With digital platforms like Instagram moving to prioritize video content, customers are spending more time interacting with the medium. In fact, 85% of people want to see more videos from the brands they love in the coming years. 89% of marketers leverage YouTube video ads, while 70% use Facebook video (closely followed by LinkedIn and Instagram).
When it comes to leveraging video in digital media buying strategy, 74% of marketers say video has a better return on investment than text- or image-based creative. They also report a lift in website traffic and more leads. Further down the funnel, 94% of marketers say that video has helped increase understanding of their product or service and build trust with their potential customers.
Video captures attention and allows you to deliver your brand’s message in a short time frame using memorable visuals that potential customers are more likely to remember.
Another engaging ad format to try out is expandable ad units. They are a type of rich media ad that combines banner ads with interstitial ads. When a visitor taps the banner, the ad expands to fill their screen. This means they don’t need to be redirected to a landing page to engage with the content the marketer has created for them.
Rich media ads can significantly impact your click-through rates (CTRs). This type of ad has a 1.53% in-app click-through rate (CTR) and a 1.12% CTR on mobile, while standard banner ads have a CTR of just 0.39% and 0.32%, respectively.
Tracking the success of your efforts through data is critical to understanding what your potential customers are responding to and to iterate on your strategy as you move forward. A/B testing and implementing an iterative approach are also best practices you can apply to your media planning strategy.
A/B testing is where you can see which channels and which types of creative are resonating with people and driving conversions. Remember to keep your tests as simple as possible, changing one variable at a time so you know exactly what part of your execution you might need to change going forward.
During the testing phase, you can also optimize your channel choice and creative for the segments in your funnel. Customers at each funnel stage have differing levels of familiarity with your brand and they’re looking for different types of information to lead them to the next stage of the funnel before they convert. Take a look at the lowest-performing stages in your funnel and run tests to see what types of ads further engage and encourage conversion.
To help you boost your success rate, you can also look outside your brand at your competitors. What types of ads are they running? What’s working well for their audience? This information can point you towards ways to let your potential customers know you can meet their needs better than your competitor. Competitive analysis can also reveal what tactics you can try to get similar results.
Use these three pillars as the foundation for your media planning and strategy. Optimize your channels, explore innovative ad content, and test your new variables. If you want to see higher ROAS and enhance your media planning for more high-quality leads and conversions, Major Tom offers full media buying services to help reach your paid media goals.
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