What to Expect from a Digital Media Buy

Media buying is a booming industry. With ad spend expected to top 330 billion dollars worldwide soon, it’s no wonder that making your first digital media buy can be intimidating. With so many options, it isn’t easy to know where to start and what to expect. Allow us to break down some of the complexities of this process.

What is a Digital Media Buy?

Let’s start by simply defining a digital media buy. A digital media buy is the process of purchasing ad space or time on any digital platform.

Examples include:

• Purchasing promoted posts on social media
• Running pre-roll videos on YouTube
• Buying audio ads on Pandora

A media buyer is the person who is responsible for negotiating with publishers for ad inventory, managing budgets, and optimizing ads to improve campaign performance per HubSpot. When you hire an agency to do your media buying, they act on your company’s behalf to achieve your advertising goals. In other words, they are doing the leg work.

Setting Ad Performance Expectations with Your Media Buying Partner

Digital media buying via an agency should start with a conversation about your goals. To begin with, it is okay to start with a generic goal like increased website traffic, phone calls, or brand awareness. Be sure to narrow the goal by making it SMART. SMART goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

• Poor goal: Increase web traffic
• SMART goal: Increase annual web traffic by 10% compared to last year.

Creating a clear goal early in the digital media buying process helps each party know what they’ll be responsible for and how their performance will be measured. The goal-setting and clarification process is crucial to getting all parties on the same page.

Clarifying Additional Expectations

Aside from campaign performance, there are many other expectations to review with your media buying partner. Be sure to discuss:

Frequency of communication

• How often will the client hear from their media buying partner?

Billing and invoicing schedule

• When will invoices be sent? When are invoices due? What method of payment is preferred?

Reporting frequency and depth

• When will reports be sent? What metrics will the report contain? Will reports we received with the media buyer be in person or on a video call?

Turnaround times

• How quickly will work be completed? Do holidays and weekends affect turnaround times?

Cancellation policy

• Should the client or media buyer choose to terminate the partnership, what is the length of notice?

Non-disclosure agreements

• Both parties should sign non-disclosure agreements to protect proprietary information.

Both parties should sign a written agreement with all expectations spelled out.

Be sure to ask “what if” questions and discuss various scenarios with your media buyer. This is a crucial step to building trust with your media buyer.

Interested in buying digital media?  At KeyMedia Solutions, we pride ourselves on taking time to set clear goals and discuss expectations with our partners. Give us a call today to get a custom digital advertising strategy for your business.