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You might think media buying is much more of a science than an art. However, I find that the reverse is actually true.  By that, I mean media buying requires much more creativity and out of the box thinking than just crunching a few numbers or following a standard equation.  True, the key measurements such as ‘click through rate’ and ‘click to conversion’ must be precisely measured.  However, the only way to really influence improving numbers is to proactively place yourself in the end user’s shoes and do your best to determine what factors are influencing this user’s surfing or browsing behavior.  This is crucial as it relates to how these same users are responding to your campaigns at any particular time. In other words, the key to any successful media plan is relevancy. The placement of the advertisements to the traffic demographics of the publisher or direct site placements is crucial.  So, before any buy or placement of creative, some key questions must be asked. For instance, what are the age demographics, gender demographics, site topics and categories, timing statistics, as well as geographical location and socioeconomic status of the users?  It is also extremely helpful when you are able to pinpoint your audience’s primary shopping behaviors’ or preferences and their browsing preferences. In order to proceed with the media buying process the campaign and the answers to the above questions must relate to one another. The campaign will be much more successful when determined and selected based on the psycho graphic information and data collected beforehand.  In the next series, we will cover, key measurements for tracking and optimizing.

“Good quality traffic,” is always every advertiser’s end goal.   That’s really the key isn’t it?  It’s such a challenge, particularly these days in our performance marketing driven world to really hone in on and pair down on the most relevant traffic sources for the advertiser. While staying true to the yield needs of our publishers.  This is the fine line we as a network must walk every day.   Too many times we as performance marketing networks are limited within our own scope of buying on a performance basis, when our advertisers are also selling on a performance basis.  The downside to this, mainly, is concern for quality, site validity, as well as the potential for fraud, which has a greater tendency to surface as a result.  I suggest that its time for a paradigm shift.  In order to achieve the diversity, quality and ultimately relevancy for our precious clients, we must do our part as networks to think outside of CPA buying.  By avoiding non CPA based buying, and focusing more on CPC, CPM and CPV buying  we will open the market up to other media types, including search, display, email, contextual, blogs, etc.  Its critical to develop a strategy, maintain a plan and execute on action items as it relates to non CPA based buying.  If our goal is to sustain our advertiser / client relationships for the long term as well as secure an expanding budget, this is the best solution for both respective businesses to grow.  In the following series of posts, I will cover various media buying strategies for non CPA based buying including the most basic to the more advanced.