Evaluating Other Media Buys: Radio Buys, Outdoor Buys, Cinema Buys, Internet Buys, and Mobile Buys

Radio Buys

Radio offers both a massive audience and a complex and changing pricing system. Clients rely on Capitol Media Solutions because we help them access the former and navigate the latter.

• Determine formats and top stations to target in each market.
• Explore native advertising in news, traffic, and weather reports (live-read or recorded.)
• Recommend spot lengths for promotional, branding, and informational messages.
• Establish target rating point (TRP) ranges for different types of spots.

The first step in effective radio media buying is understanding a client and a client’s marketing, advertising and overall business goals. Why do they want to advertise on radio and is it the best fit for their business goals? A media buyer will walk them through the process, and may compare the benefits of different types of strategies so that clients have a better idea of what they are working with.

If a client is committed to doing radio to start, a media buyer will do research based on the client’s target audience and demographic. It’s essential to find out which types of listeners are most likely to convert on radio advertising. This process helps narrow the field of opportunities for clients so that buyers can focus on negotiating with certain channels and networks only.

There are many different metrics that can be used to measure a campaign’s effectiveness. An essential part of a radio media-planning process is understanding the metrics that will be used to determine success. What should be measured and how does it relate to overall business goals? Once this metric or metrics have been established, it will be used as a success determiner throughout the life of the campaign. It will be used during the testing process and eventually the roll out.

Messaging and Radio Media Buying

The web copy (or ad copy) is another part of the buying process. Messaging is everything to the effectiveness of a campaign, so copy review is a must. Media buyers can put an advertiser on all of the right shows and in front of the right markets but they won’t take action without strong copy. If the messaging is convoluted or ambiguous at all, it will fall on deaf ears.

The copy for the ad(s) and for the website needs to be tweaked, tested and refined so that the client can get the best level of success for the investment. There may also need to be several different versions of the same messaging. It’s important to remember that 15-second, 30-second and 60-second spots need their own unique spin so that the messaging gets through without any important pieces missing.

Outdoor Buys

Out-of-home (OOH) advertising, also called outdoor advertising, outdoor media, and out-of-home media, is advertising experienced outside of the home. This includes billboards, wallscapes, and posters seen while “on the go;” it also includes place-based media seen in places such as convenience stores, medical centers, salons, and other brick-and-mortar venues.

OOH advertising formats fall into four main categories: billboards, street furniture, transit, and alternative.

The OOH advertising industry in the United States includes more than 2,100 operators in 50 states representing the major out of home format categories. These OOH media companies range from public, multinational media corporations to small, independent, family owned businesses.

• A lower cost per impression than other mass media.
• Targeted geographic reach.
• A constant broadcast of your message.
• High-impact, low-competition advertising.

Cinema Buys

Cinema advertising shouldn’t be confused with movie trailers the “coming attractions” that immediately precede the main feature. Movie ads come before the trailers, and they have been a presence in theaters since the first one opened in 1902.

This means that your parents or grandparents probably have fond memories of movie ads, too, if only for their comedic value. In the early days, movie ad montages were put together somewhat haphazardly, sometimes with slides appearing upside down or with sketchy lines blocking an advertiser’s phone number.

If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting with someone who sells cinema ads, you may want to prepare yourself for the distinct possibility of hearing how Americans love movies and, perhaps even more intensely, the movie going experience.

They have a point. Aside from newly released movies that you can see only in a theater, there is no doubt that watching a movie in a theater offers some distinct advantages over watching the same movie on even a jumbo screen at home. A theater offers:

There are several advantages:

• Huge cinema screens give a ‘larger than life’ impact to the message.
• The audience is a captive audience since they cannot switch channels/flip pages of a print advertisement and are unlikely to walk out during advertisements.
• In-cinema advertising is viewed by an audience which is likely to be paying close attention to the screen or the cinema hall area.
• In-cinema advertising guarantees better attention span for the message to be communicated convincingly.
• Cinema, with its huge localized reach pan India, makes it suitable to reach out to a small geography as well as the entire country.

Internet Buys

Online advertising, also known as online marketing, Internet advertising, digital advertising or web advertising, is a form of marketing and advertising which uses the Internet to deliver promotional marketing messages to consumers. Many consumers find online advertising disruptive and have increasingly turned to ad blocking for a variety of reasons.

When software is used to do the purchasing, it is known as programmatic advertising.

Online advertising includes email marketing, search engine marketing (SEM), social media marketing, many types of display advertising (including web banner advertising), and mobile advertising. Like other advertising media, online advertising frequently involves a publisher, who integrates advertisements into its online content, and an advertiser, who provides the advertisements to be displayed on the publisher’s content. Other potential participants include advertising agencies who help generate and place the ad copy, an ad server which technologically delivers the ad and tracks statistics, and advertising affiliates who do independent promotional work for the advertiser.

Display advertising conveys its advertising message visually using text, logos, animations, videos, photographs, or other graphics. Display advertising is commonly used on social media, websites with slots for advertisements, and in real life. In real life, display advertising can be a sign in front of a building or a billboard alongside a highway. The goal of display advertising is to obtain more traffic, clicks, or popularity for the advertising brand or organization. Display advertisers frequently target users with particular traits to increase the ads’ effect. Online advertisers (typically through their ad servers) often use cookies, which are unique identifiers of specific computers, to decide which ads to serve to a particular consumer. Cookies can track whether a user left a page without buying anything, so the advertiser can later retarget the user with ads from the site the user visited.

As advertisers collect data across multiple external websites about a user’s online activity, they can create a detailed profile of the user’s interests to deliver even more targeted advertising. This aggregation of data is called behavioral targeting. Advertisers can also target their audience by using contextual to deliver display ads related to the content of the web page where the ads appear.  Retargeting, behavioral targeting, and contextual advertising all are designed to increase an advertiser’s return on investment, or ROI, over untargeted ads.

Impression Types:

CPM (cost per mille)

Cost per mille, often abbreviated to CPM, means that advertisers pay for every thousand displays of their message to potential customers (mille is the Latin word for thousand). In the online context, ad displays are usually called “impressions.” Definitions of an “impression” vary among publishers, and some impressions may not be charged because they don’t represent a new exposure to an actual customer. Advertisers can use technologies such as web bugs to verify if an impression is actually delivered.  Similarly, revenue generated can be measured in Revenue per mille (RPM).

Publishers use a variety of techniques to increase page views, such as dividing content across multiple pages, repurposing someone else’s content, using sensational titles, or publishing tabloid or sexual content.

CPM advertising is susceptible to “impression fraud,” and advertisers who want visitors to their sites may not find per-impression payments a good proxy for the results they desire.

CPC (cost per click)

CPC (Cost Per Click) or PPC (Pay per click) means advertisers pay each time a user clicks on the ad. CPC advertising works well when advertisers want visitors to their sites, but it’s a less accurate measurement for advertisers looking to build brand awareness. CPC’s market share has grown each year since its introduction, eclipsing CPM to dominate two-thirds of all online advertising compensation methods.

Like impressions, not all recorded clicks are valuable to advertisers. GoldSpot Media reported that up to 50% of clicks on static mobile banner ads are accidental and resulted in redirected visitors leaving the new site immediately.

CPE (cost per engagement)

Cost per engagement aims to track not just that an ad unit loaded on the page (i.e., an impression was served), but also that the viewer actually saw and/or interacted with the ad.

CPV (cost per view)

Cost per view video advertising. Both Google and TubeMogul endorsed this standardized CPV metric to the IAB’s (Interactive Advertising Bureau) Digital Video Committee, and it’s garnering a notable amount of industry support. CPV is the primary benchmark used in YouTube Advertising Campaigns, as part of Google’s AdWords platform.

CPI (cost per install)

The CPI compensation method is specific to mobile applications and mobile advertising. In CPI ad campaigns brands are charged a fixed of bid rate only when the application was installed.

CPL (cost per lead)

Cost per lead compensation method implies that the advertiser pays for an explicit sign-up from a consumer interested in the advertiser’s offer.

Mobile Buys

At a data first agency, the emphasis on mobile media buying deserves its own section on our site, despite being just one of the many media buying services we offer.  While consumer’s attention is grabbed by their mobile devices, it is our job to guide their attention to your mobile app or mobile services, all the while, understanding their cross-device interactions.

The audience available on the mobile Web is growing rapidly. Consequently, the interest in mobile advertising is growing rapidly. When an agency or advertiser asks about buying advertising on the mobile Web, they typically ask questions about media buying and questions about creative.

Advertising on the mobile Web is very similar to Web advertising. Many people try and make it complex, but it really isn’t. The primary ad units are very similar to the ad units you are used to buying on the Web: Graphical banner ads and text link ads.

The mobile industry varies from the add on subscription product services, to the free-to-download and hope we land a pod of whales making in-app purchases (while frantically trying to keep competitors off your in-app ads so you can still monetize without steering people elsewhere!).  We get it.  It’s fast-paced, and it’s important that you work with a fast-paced media agency.

Media Two offers just as wide a variety of media buying services to meet whatever need you might have.  We have campaigns that purely run on a cost per install basis.  We manage the self-serve Goliath’s of Facebook and Google’s Universal App.  But it’s how we approach the data that sets us apart.