Tag: Cost Control and Management Accounting Osmania University b.com Notes

Dysfunctional Card Rate, Secondary and Effective Rate

A rate card is a document provided by a newspaper or other print publication featuring the organization’s rate for advertising. It may also detail any deadlines, demographics, policies, additional fees, and artwork requirements. The smaller the publication, the less information that may be available on the rate card.

Some larger newspapers may have a rate card for a particular kind of advertisement. They may have their rates broken down by classified ads, retail advertising, and even national ad rates.

Rate cards help the retailer understand what types of ad sizes, discounts, and other advertising the publication have to offer. When choosing a newspaper or print media, you can use rate cards to compare ad rates based on circulation before you buy advertising space.

Before placing an ad, be sure you understand the terms and conditions of advertising with the publication. In many cases where there may be a conflict between the insertion order and the rate card, the rate card will be the deciding factor. This does not mean the prices on the rate card are fixed. Most retailers will find the paper’s sales rep will offer special rates for first time advertisers or other discounts.

If you’re interested in advertising within a particular publication, check their website or call the office and ask for a copy of their current rate card. Many newspapers and magazines have their rate cards available online in a PDF format for quick reference. Of course, these rates are always negotiable.

Deal Composition

It is not just enough to evaluate effective rates but the structure of the deal or buy plays a very important role as well. Composition of a buy such as prime time second age deals for an Advertisers & Weekday vs Weekend split. Weekday primetime shows get highest TRP followed by weekends throughout the day, afternoons suitable for female TG, News channel morning slots work more efficiently than an afternoon on weekdays.

Cost Per Rating Point (CPRP)

Cost per rating point measures the price paid for GRP’s delivered. Eg: 2 media buys with the same total rates may have varying CPRP’s. One may have second age in all prime time shows, another may have second age in only shows. Technically afternoon slots deliver ratings even in male TGs. While some buyers deliver CPRPs regardless of the time slots, but an efficient planner decides not to take time slots on blind attempt but to consider CPRP on time slots.

Reach Delivered by the Buy

Reach and frequency buying is an alternative method for buying ads that lets you book campaigns in advance with predictable, optimised reach and controlled frequency.

A high-frequency strategy may be beneficial for brands that are new, have a low market share or are running shorter campaigns. Many factors influence the effective frequency level. Your market, message and media should be considered during the campaign planning process.

Reach and Frequency campaigns are fixed reservations, with set costs, dates and reach. The aim of this type of campaigns is to fulfil the prediction, but you will be unable to change these parameters under any circumstance. This is also true for bids. The only change allowed for this type of campaign is at the creatives level. Any other change will cause an alteration in the reservation.

Keep in mind that Reach and Frequency campaigns don’t ensure a final cost per results or CPM, but a determined cost and reach within set dates.

Visibility Spots

A plan often delivers the reach, but the spread of the message about their campaign is important. This is very true for low budget brands who need to maximize their on-air presence. For instance, a small FMCG brand to be able to follow a large FMCG brand’s 52-week advertisement scheduling strategy, it too will need to maximize its presence as much as possible. Hence it chooses a low-cost afternoon TV spot to maintain a constant presence along with bursts of mass channel activity to increase its potential reach.

Bonus Percentage

Also known as “value adds,” this term is relevant to sites that sell their display ad inventory directly to advertisers. Generally, bonus media is a consideration only for line items priced on a cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) basis.

It is relatively common for advertisers or agencies to request that publishers include bonus media wherever possible in order to make the most competitive proposal possible when being considered for a campaign. These are basically $0 CPM (i.e., free) ad impressions that a publisher includes with paid media in order to maximize the appeal of the overall proposal.

In some cases, a proposal template will have a column marked “Bonus Media” or “Value Add.” In this case, the appropriate value is either Yes or No, depending on whether or not there is a cost associated with the line item (this column is somewhat duplicative, since any line item with a CPM of $0 would be bonus media).

There are pros and cons to including bonus media on an ad proposal, regardless of whether the advertiser or agency explicitly asks for it to be included. Giving away something of value (ad impressions) at zero cost obviously results in a direct loss of revenue. But in some instances, the inclusion of bonus media may make the overall proposal including paid line items seem more appealing.

Some advertisers or agencies focus on the overall effective CPM of a campaign when evaluating the competitiveness of a publisher. If this is the case, a strategic use of bonus media can help to make your proposal seem like a great value to the advertiser.

Upgrades and Spot Fixing

Another brilliant way to sweeten a media deal is to fix ROS (Run of the site) spots for direct buying to ensure higher deliveries. Advertisers do not specify the position of Ad placement in return for low rates. Ads may be placed randomly in unsold, less valuable portions of the target. And spots in a particular category can be upgraded to a higher category time slots based on the Ads previous results. Upgrades and spot fixes are done as it adds value to a deal.

Sponsorships

Program sponsorships are added on to a deal in order to deliver added value. The value of sponsorships is benefitted when the brand name is used in the program content Eg: Honda Star Voice of India. These programs are promoted throughout the day and people remember the name of the show along with sponsor name. (Vivo IPL). A program on a TV can have multiple sponsors apart from the main sponsor who acts as an associate sponsor.

Gross Rating Points (GRP)

In advertising, a gross rating point (GRP) measures impact. GRPs help answer how often “must someone see it before they can readily recall it” and “how many times” does it take before the desired outcome occurs.

Gross rating points are a measure of the impact by a campaign using a specific medium or schedule. It quantifies impressions as a percentage of the target population, multiplied by frequency. This percentage may be greater, or in fact much greater, than 100.

Target rating points express the same concept, but with regard to a more narrowly defined target audience.

GRPs are used predominantly as a measure of media with high potential exposures or impressions. Nielsen Media Research is an example of a company which uses GRPs.

With “today’s fragmented media world” the value of GRP is, according to the Advertising Research Foundation’s Journal of Advertising Research, even greater than in the pre-Internet era. Since “the required frequency changes with the product and the competitive climate it is in”, the purpose of the GRP metric is to measure impressions compared to the number of people in the target for an advertising campaign. GRP values are commonly used by media buyers to compare the advertising strength of components of a media plan.

For conventional media such as radio and TV, multi-tasking has reduced the value per GRP, and a measure named Persuasion Rating Point (PRP) was proposed in mid 2020.

“One GRP is one percent of all potential adult television viewers (or in radio, listeners) in a market.” If they are exposed to the ad three times, then that is 3 GRPs.

Gross Rating Point (GRP) is a measure of the size of an advertising campaign by a specific medium or schedule. GRP is calculated by multiplying the number of Spots by Rating.

GRPs are simply total impressions related to the size of the target population: They are most directly calculated by summing the ratings of individual ads in a campaign.

Mathematically:

GRPs (%) = 100 * Impressions (#) ÷ Defined population (#)

GRPs (%) = 100 * Reach (%) × Average frequency (#)

Two examples:

• If an average of 12% of the people view each episode of a television program, and an ad is placed on 5 episodes, then the campaign has 12 × 5 = 60 GRPs.
• If 50% view three episodes, that’s 150 GRPs.

Gross Impressions (GI)

Gross Impressions (GI) is a quantity denoting the number of GPRs in thousands. GPR (Gross Rating Point) while expressing the cumulative viewership of a specific ad in a given target group. Advertising agencies often place an order with a number of GIs with advertising space providers, usually paying for every thousand impressions.

Gross Impressions are used to track ads and serve as an easy way to negotiate terms when purchasing an ad. Unique user who have viewed the ad are counted as units in the GI, while duplicate impressions are not counted. Measurement methods may vary from company to company, so when concluding contracts, you need to be interested in the way measurement results are obtained.

• AQH x number of spots in a schedule.
• AQH persons estimate as a percentage of the population.

Share of Voice (SOV)

Share of voice (SOV) is a measure of the market your brand owns compared to your competitors. It acts as a gauge for your brand visibility and how much you dominate the conversation in your industry. The more market share you have, the greater popularity and authority you likely have among users and prospective customers.

Divide a target metric that represents your brand by the total in your market or industry. Multiply that number by 100 to get your percentage of market share for that particular metric.

Your brand metric / Total market metric x 100

Examples of metrics to calculate for SOV include:

• Organic keywords
• Pay per click (PPC) keywords
• Impressions
• Reach
• Revenue
• Mentions
• Hashtags

Pros of Measuring Share of Voice

• Perform competitive analysis on a market-wide scale. Get the big picture of how competitive the market is and whether you’re an up-and-comer or the dominant player in the industry.
• Use SOV as a way to segment your target audience. Calculating SOV is a powerful way to analyze your audience, but you can take further steps to organize this data into segments for more insight into your strengths and weaknesses. Look at your SOV within crucial regional markets, demographics and more.
• Evaluate the success of your marketing campaigns. If you launched a campaign recently, determine whether you made gains in your SOV that indicate your marketing message and tactics were effective.
• Improve future campaigns based on findings in SOV reports. Use the insight from your analytical reports to expand your reach, get involved in social conversations and ensure your voice is amplified across marketing channels.

There are numerous methods for measuring out of home media effectiveness, usually in relation to OOH viewing compared to radio listenership, television viewership, newspaper and magazine readership, and internet usage. OOH metrics often includes demographic and psychographic information to help advertisers determine who is being exposed to advertising, rather than how many people are being exposed to a message. A cornerstone of OOH metrics is Geopath’s Audience Measurement Ratings. They are a standardized, quantitative and reliable measurement that is consistent with other common media metrics.

Out of home advertising types include:

Street furniture: Street furniture advertisements place ads at eye-level with potential customers. Street furniture advertisements use infrastructure like bus stops, newsstands and kiosks, transit shelters, phone kiosks, and more.

Commuters, pedestrians, and motorists are the most common targets of street furniture advertising.

Billboards: This traditional form of media is most commonly displayed next to freeways, interstates, highways, and other heavily travelled areas where consumers can see them from passing cars or trains.

Wallscapes: Wallscapes are advertisements that use the exterior surfaces of existing buildings to promote brands. These ads may be painted on or be temporary, but they’re often quite beautiful, which makes them part of the urban beautification process. Consumers often view these advertisements as an enhancement rather than as an annoyance, which helps place the product in a positive light.

Transit advertising: Transit advertising includes wraps placed on the sides of busses, trains, subway rail cars, and taxis. Both users of public transportation and commuters within the city, as well as anyone else in the vicinity of these vehicles, are considered targets of the advertisements. Because they’re not stationary, transit advertisements may be able to reach more people than other forms of media.

Wildpostings: Cities are synonymous with flyers that promote events, concerts, and special appearances and seem to be plastered to every available surface. These advertisements are called wildpostings, and they’re a popular and low-cost way to get the word out about things like events, album releases, and appearances in urban areas.

Well, the first method of measuring OOH is also the simplest. Known as the before and after method, you simply look at sales figures before and after running the ad. If sales increased, the likelihood is that the ad is working. Compare the cost of running the ad against how much additional profits were generated and you can calculate your return on investment (ROI). This, however, is a rather crude methodology for measuring the effectiveness of your campaign and if conducted in isolation, it may not be producing accurate results.

Measuring OOH Impressions

With OOH, you can measure with great accuracy how many people will walk or drive past your advertisement and see its content. Impressions can be measured using travel surveys, data modelling and census data, amongst others.  However, today, there are even more accurate ways to calculate impressions that can provide information to advertisers in real time. This is achieved through Location Data or location based mobile data.

Traffic Audit Bureau (TAB)

OOH advertising is predominantly measured in four different ways.

Demographics: Census information and surveys are used to provide demographic and psychographic information that measures OOH advertising. The data is modelled into millions of trip paths, which helps advertisers understand who is being reached by their content.

Impressions: Impression’s gauge who your ad is reaching, and are typically provided in the form of weekly figures. Impressions measure the average number of times an individual consumer views an advertisement. Impressions include information about traffic data, which helps estimate the number of vehicles that have passed an advertisement. Impressions may also include travel surveys, data modelling, and census data.

Digital trails: Digital trails are a simple way to track OOH advertising. They include things like promo codes, social media accounts, links, and other online information that is incorporated into an advertisement. Each of these items can be tracked based on the number of people using a promo code, for example, or following a social media account.

Visibility research: Visibility research is calculated using contact zones that determine the distance from which an advertisement can first be seen and how fast traffic moves past the advertisement each hour. Another calculation is the time in which people “dwell” in an area while sitting in traffic, waiting for a train, or waiting for a bus. Visibility research helps to determine a person’s likelihood of actually noticing an ad based on their opportunity to see it.

Measurements:

Slogan Analytics

If you used a particularly catchy slogan or phrase on a recent OOH advertisement, you can use slogan analytics to get an idea of the ad’s effectiveness. Look on your website’s analytics tool to see how many times the keywords or tagline from your slogan has been entered into search engines.

While people might not be able to remember a promo code or a website, if the slogan stuck with them, they may try to find your brand by searching for the words they remember.

Hashtag Metrics

Hashtags are a great way to measure the success of a billboard or wildposting campaign. Include a campaign-specific hashtag on your ad and check for its use on different social media platforms.

If you notice people starting to engage with the hashtag, you’ll get an idea of the impressions of your advertisement. Hashtags also enable you to search across social media platforms to get an idea of the number of people connecting with your brand.

Before and After

If you’re only running one OOH advertising campaign at a time, the before and after method is an obvious way to measure the effectiveness of your campaign. Take a look at sales immediately prior to starting a campaign, and then look at sales after the campaign begins. If you notice a significant increase in sales, it’s likely due to your OOH advertising campaign.

The tricky thing about using the before and after method of measurement is that it requires you to keep all other forms of marketing the same. Otherwise, the variability may be attributable to other campaigns.

Promo Code Campaigns

Adding a promo code to a billboard or flyer helps to measure the impressions of your OOH campaign. Assign a campaign-specific promo code, discount voucher, or QR code to the campaign, and run the promo code only during the period of the campaign. This will enable you to track the number of people who enter the campaign-specific code on the website, giving you an idea of how many sales your campaign has generated.

Campaign-Specific URL

Placing a campaign-specific URL on your OOH advertisement is another way to measure impressions.

Survey

Perhaps the simplest measure of all is to give customers a short survey during or after a purchase that asks them where they heard about your brand.

If they tell you that they first learned about your company on a billboard, then you have your answer about the effectiveness of your OOH campaign.

In this era of a la carte online advertising, it’s easy to forget about the enormous power of print. After all, a campaign should not be limited to just one medium but instead diversified to appear anywhere and everywhere customers might be looking. Advertising began with ink and paper and, although it has evolved, print is still a highly-effective means of conveying a message to your intended audience.

A newspaper’s circulation is the number of copies distributed on an average day. Circulation corresponds to paid circulation that is not always the same as copies sold since some newspapers are distributed without cost to the reader. In many countries, circulations are audited by independent bodies such as the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) in India to assure advertisers that a given newspaper does indeed reach the number of people claimed by the publisher.

Circulation

Circulation is a count of how many copies of a particular publication are distributed. Print circulation is the average number of copies of a publication. Number of copies of a nonperiodical publication such as a book called usually print run. Circulation is not always the same as copies sold, often called paid circulation, since some issues are distributed without cost to the reader. Readership figures are usually higher than circulation figures because of the assumption that a typical copy is read by more than one person.

Print circulation is one of the principal factors used to set advertising rates. In many countries, circulations are audited by independent bodies such as the Audit Bureau of Circulations to assure advertisers that a given newspaper does reach the number of people claimed by the publisher. There are international open access directories such as Mondo Times, but these generally rely on numbers reported by newspapers themselves.

In many developed countries, print circulation is falling due to social and technological changes such as the availability of news on the internet. On the other hand, in some developing countries circulation is increasing as these factors are more than cancelled out by rising incomes, population, and literacy.

Average Issue Readership (AIR)

Readership is an estimate of how many readers a publication has. As most publications have more than one reader per copy, the NRS readership estimate is very different from the circulation count.

Readership estimates also show:

• The demographic profile of readers.
• What else they read and do.

The relationship between readership and circulation is known as readers-per-copy.

AIR is no of copies read within the period equal to periodicity of Publication. AIR might be bumped up by a special issue that everyone goes out and buys. TR may include a lot of subscribers. They might be the same revenue and the same numbers for a given period, but TR may be more indicative of sustained readership.

Total or Claimed Reader

Not loyal readers of the publication but have consumed it in the past. Lower the gap between TR & AIR; more loyal the readership base of the publication

Sole or Solus reader

They read only 1 particular publication in that frequency. Most dedicated and loyal readers of a publication.

A particular challenge with radio is that consumers tend to misattribute radio advertising memories to other media, particularly TV. This is particularly likely to happen where there is a strong executional link between the two media and/or where there is an established history of TV advertising for the brand.

The tendency to misattribute can be offset by using matched samples of listeners and non-listeners. This way, if the increase in advertising awareness is greater among listeners than it is among non-listeners, then the effect can be attributed to radio fairly confidently even if the listeners think the advertising was in another medium. This is the approach we use for Radiogauge.

To evaluate the success of a campaign based on specific business outcomes such as response or sales, it is best to compare data across a region that receives radio advertising and a region where no radio advertising is taking place. These regions should be broadly matched in terms of populations profile and exposure to all other media activity ideally in the same TV region.

To help you track your radio effectiveness, concentrate on the following five key performance indicators (KPIs):

1. Reach

One of the greatest benefits of radio advertising is its ability to connect with large numbers of consumers. Therefore, one of the most important KPIs to consider when purchasing airtime is reach. By looking at past records and historical data, media buyers can estimate the expected reach of broadcasts in particular markets and set conversion goals.

2. Brand Awareness

Although a specific marketing message or special offer may bring consumers to your door, brand awareness is essential if you want to keep them coming back.

You can gauge the ability of specific radio spots to build brand loyalty through a range of informal and formal initiatives. For example, pay attention when clients or customers mention a particular ad when visiting your organization. More formally, you can conduct surveys of the general population both before and after the ad airs to ask whether or not they have heard of your brand. You can also measure the effects of the ad on your brand-specific social media growth.

3. Website Traffic

When it comes to measuring overall website traffic, take a longer approach to determine overall effectiveness. Compare your total number of website visitors after you began running radio ads to your total number of website visitors during the months and years that came before. Consider the effects of changes in specific website conversion rates and general increases in branded traffic (comprised of visitors who arrive at your website after typing your brand name into a search engine).

4. Gross Sales

Conduct year-over-year and month-over-month analyses to see if sales are up or down in relation to the airing of your radio ads. A radio specific discount can be an outstanding way to track its effectiveness. When consumers ask for that discount online or in your brick-and-mortar location, you will know for certain that they heard your ad spot.

5. Return on Ad Spend

After you determine your gross sales and estimate how much of those gross sales can be attributed to your radio ads, you can calculate your overall return on ad spend (ROAS) by dividing the revenue from gross sales by the total amount that you spent on the radio advertisements. This KPI will ultimately encapsulate your radio effectiveness as a whole.

Arbitron Radio Rating

Nielsen Audio (formerly Arbitron) is a consumer research company in the United States that collects listener data on radio broadcasting audiences. It was founded as the American Research Bureau by Jim Seiler in 1949 and became national by merging with Los Angeles-based Coffin, Cooper, and Clay in the early 1950s. The company’s initial business was the collection of broadcast television ratings.

The company changed its name to Arbitron in the mid‑1960s, the namesake of the Arbitron System, a centralized statistical computer with leased lines to viewers’ homes to monitor their activity. Deployed in New York City, it gave instant ratings data on what people were watching. A reporting board lit up to indicate which homes were listening to which broadcasts.

On December 18, 2012, The Nielsen Company announced that it would acquire Arbitron, its only competitor, for US$1.26 billion. The acquisition closed on September 30, 2013, and the company was re-branded as Nielsen Audio. As a condition of the deal to allow a monopoly, Nielsen must license its ratings data and technology to a third party for eight years.

Survey

Arbitron’s syndicated radio ratings service collects data by selecting a random sample of a population throughout the United States, primarily in 294 metropolitan areas, using a paper diary service 2‑4 times a year and the Portable People Meter (PPM) electronic audience measurement service 365 days a year.

The term commonly used in the radio industry for these ratings is Arbitron book, a carryover from the era when ratings were published in a softcover report that was mailed to clients. More specifically, in the diary-measured markets these reports were called the “Spring book”, “Summer book”, “Fall book”, and “Winter book”. Between these “books”, Arbitron releases interim monthly reports called “Arbitrends”, which contain data from the previous three months known as “rolling average” reports. The two interim reports would be known, for example, as “Spring, Phase I” and “Spring, Phase II”.

Arbitron recruit’s diary survey respondents to note their listening habits in a seven-day paper diary and mail it back to Arbitron. The respondents are paid a small cash incentive for their participation. Turnaround time for release of data from the end of the survey period is approximately three weeks.

After collection, the data is marketed to radio broadcasters, radio networks, cable TV companies, advertisers, advertising agencies, out-of-home advertising companies, and the online radio industry. Major ratings products include cume (the cumulative number of unique listeners over a period), average quarter hour (AQH Share the average number of people listening in a given 15‑minute period), time spent listening (TSL), and market breakdowns by age, gender, and race/ethnicity. It is important to understand that the “cume” only counts a listener once, whereas the AQH is a product of “cume” and time spent listening. For example, if you looked into a room and saw Fred and Jane, then 15 minutes later saw Fred with Sara. The “cume” would be 3 (Fred, Jane, Sara) and the AQH would be 2 (an average of two people in the room in a given 15‑minute period).

Audience measurement measures how many people are in an audience, usually in relation to radio listenership and television viewership, but also in relation to newspaper and magazine readership and, increasingly, web traffic on websites. Sometimes, the term is used as pertaining to practices which help broadcasters and advertisers determine who is listening rather than just how many people are listening. In some parts of the world, the resulting relative numbers are referred to as audience share, while in other places the broader term market share is used. This broader meaning is also called audience research.

Measurements are broken down by media market, which for the most part corresponds to metropolitan areas, both large and small.

Dairy v/s PeopIemeter

A people meter is an audience measurement tool used to measure the viewing habits of TV and cable audiences.

The People Meter is a ‘box’, about the size of a paperback book. The box is hooked up to each television set and is accompanied by a remote-control unit. Each family member in a sample household is assigned a personal ‘viewing button’. It identifies each household member’s age and sex. If the TV is turned on and the viewer doesn’t identify themselves, the meter flashes to remind them. Additional buttons on the People Meter enable guests to participate in the sample by recording their age, sex and viewing status into the system.

Another version of the device is small, about the size of a beeper, that plugs into the wall below or near each TV set in household. It monitors anything that comes on the TV and relays the information with the small Portable People Meter to narrow down who is watching what and when.

The device, known as a ‘frequency-based meter’, was invented by a British company called Audits of Great Britain (AGB). The successor company to AGB is TNS, which is active in 34 countries around the globe.

Local People Meter

Along with changing their counting methods, Nielsen also started emphasizing their sample in 2003 in reaction to census shifts and requests from some industry sectors. Nielsen’s automated Local People Meter (LPM) technology was introduced in New York and Los Angeles. The LPM improved the method of measurement from active and diary-based to passive and meter-monitored. More importantly, the LPM provides accurate measurements to particular local markets, verse a nationwide sample from the People meter. While diary-based surveys concentrated on quarterly “sweeps” periods, the industry has been pushed towards year-round measurement, due to the automated LPM system.

“Nielsen introduced the LPM as evidence of the rupturing of the network-era business model became broadly apparent, and apprehension about the future of the industry erupted on all sectors. LPM’s more accurately reported full range of what programming viewers watched, including what was observed when channel surfing, in comparison to the diary method it replaced. It allowed Nielsen to maintain established measurement practices, but do them better”.

“While Nielsen’s LPM’s presented next-day demographic analyses on television viewership in major cities, the devices led to accusations of undercounting minorities. A lot of controversy surrounding LPM’s was driven by News Corporation-funded “Don’t Count Us Out” alliance, which exploited activists’ and legislators’ foreseeable mindless reactions to any suggestion of racism”

TRP/TVR

One single television ratings point (Rtg or TVR) represents 1% of television households in the surveyed area in a given minute. As of 2004, there are an estimated 109.6 million television households in the United States. Thus, a single national ratings point represents 1%, or 1,096,000 television households for the 2004–05 season. When used for the broadcast of a program, the average rating across the duration of the show is typically given. Ratings points are often used for specific demographics rather than just households. For example, a ratings point among the key 18- to 49-year-olds demographic is equivalent to 1% of all 18- to 49-year-olds in the country.

A Rtg/TVR is different from a share point in that it is the percentage of all possible households, while a share point is 1% of all households watching television at the time. Hence the share of a broadcast is often significantly higher than the rating, especially at times when overall TV viewing is low. A low TRP can have an adverse effect on a TV program eventually leading to its closure.

GRPs/TRPs

Gross rating points (GRPs) or target rating points (TRPs) are chiefly used to measure the performance of TV-based advertising campaigns, and are the sum of the TVRs of each commercial spot within the campaign. An ad campaign might require a certain number of GRPs among a particular demographic across the duration of the campaign. The GRP of a campaign is equal to the percentage of people who saw, multiplied by the average number of spots that these viewers saw. Targeted Rating Points are a refinement of GRPs to express the reach time frequency of only the most likely prospects. For example, if a campaign buys 150 GRPs for a television spot, but only half of that audience is actually in the market for the campaign’s product, then the TRP would be stated as 75 to calculate the net effective buy.

Gross rating point, a standard measure in advertising, it measures advertising impact. It is a percent of the target market reached multiplied by the exposure frequency. Thus, a program which advertises to 30% of the target market and gives them 4 exposures, will have 120 GRP.

GRPs as a measure has some limitations. People like to think of it as a measure of impact, but that is really overstated. Impact should measure sales; these measures exposures, which is in fact assumed not actual exposures.

Basics of TAM (television advertising measurement):

Universe: Universe is the total or actual number of people in a defined target audience.

Program Reach & Time Spent

Reach: Reach is the number of individuals from the universe who are exposed to the medium or vehicle.

Reach is normally expressed in terms of % (percentages)

Calculation of reach:

If universe is: 1,000,000 individuals (this is approx. data, it is usually defined through sampling through people-meter):

For a single episode of a program (30 minutes or 1 hour) If out of above 1,000,000 of individuals 600,000 saw at least 1 minute of programme then:

Reach = (600,000/1,000,000) x 100

Reach = 60%

Cumulative reach

Cumulative reach: The audiences accumulate over the time

• The number of individuals within the TG who are exposed to the medium or vehicle over a certain period of time
• Total time = Total average minutes (universe) x Universe
• Total time/reach = Avg minutes viewers
• Net reach

Net Reach

Net reach is the summation of all audiences who have been exposed to the vehicle and excludes the duplication of the viewership.

Stickiness Index

An engagement metric indicating the degree to which a program is viewed. The percent of program that has been watched. The greater the percentage of the program viewed compared to all programs of the same duration in a certain time period, the greater the stickiness index.

Sticky content refers to content published on a website, which has the purpose of getting users to return to that particular website or hold their attention and get them to spend longer periods of time on this site. Webmasters use this method to build up a community of returning visitors to a website.

Examples are chat rooms, online forums, webmail, Internet games, weather, news and horoscopes.

Sticky content is also sometimes called sticky tools or sticky gear, and websites featuring sticky content are often referred to as sticky sites.

Product Stickiness Ratio is the ratio of (Daily Active Users) DAU and (Monthly Active Users) MAU. It is one of the widely used metrics for product engagement and tells us how sticky a product is. It was popularised by Facebook and was used by it to understand the true stickiness of the Facebook app.

Daily Active Users (DAU): DAU is calculated as the total number of unique users who use your product on any given day. In other words, DAU is the total count of users who use your product at least once in a day.

Monthly Active Users (MAU): MAU is calculated as the total number of unique users who use your product in a month. In other words, MAU is the total count of users who use your product at least once in a month.

DAUs and MAUs are standalone absolute numbers which can’t be compared for various businesses because the definition of active users varies for different companies. However, DAU/MAU is a holistic metric that speaks about product success. Since it is a percentage, it can be compared for various companies as well to understand their success in reaching their user engagement goals.

Marketing Team:

To segment the users on the basis of DAU/MAU ratio and increase usage of for the segment with low DAU/MAU ratio through strategies such as push notifications, educational email campaigns etc.

To create a lookalike audience of the segment with high DAU/MAU ratio since this segment has the least likelihood of churn.

Retention Team:

To pitch plan upgrades to customers by segmenting them on the  basis of DAU/MAU ratio.

To create a retention plan for customers with low DAU/MAU ratio since customers with low average DAU/MAU ratio have higher likelihood of churn.

Ad Viewership

It refers to the number of viewers that have the opportunity to view an ad during a given time period. Advertising sales executives usually have extensive data about the reach of a show’s or network’s programming, which they then use to make decisions about when and where to air their commercials. In addition, reach is a primary component in calculating gross ratings points, which is a metric often used to evaluate broad TV ad campaigns.

Measuring Reach

The Nielsen company rates the number of viewers watching TV programs for networks, and also breaks the results down demographically so businesses have more detailed information about who those viewers are. Nielsen measures audience through different survey methods, including sophisticated set-top boxes, and categorizes results based on demographics like gender, age, race and income. Nielsen then distributes to TV networks and advertisers data on reach, including details like the percentages of the viewers in specific demographic groups, weekly and monthly averages, and the estimated total number of viewers. Business owners can usually get this information from advertising sales representatives or ad agencies.

Gross Rating Points

Advertisers, media buyers and marketers evaluate ad campaigns by looking at both reach the medium offers and the frequency at which the viewer sees the ad. The tool they use are “gross rating points,” which are calculated by multiplying the audience reached by the frequency of its exposure to the message during a given period. According to Digiday, a rating point is one percent of the potential audience, meaning a show that has a rating of 10 points gets 10 percent of the viewers. So, if a TV ad has a reach of 30 percent of its target audience, and the ad shows four time, the ad campaign has 120 gross ratings points.

Effective Reach

Another way to measure the usefulness of an ad is to measure the effective reach, which tracks the percentage of the possible audience that sees an advertisement and how often that advertisement is viewed. Advertisers use effective reach to judge the quality of the exposure to the ad. Ideally, an advertiser wants many people to see an ad at least a few times. However, if the frequency is too high, the ad is thought to produce diminishing returns. Some advertisers believe an ad must be seen a few times before it becomes effective and must balance frequency with the risks of overexposure.

Using Reach

Advertisers use information about reach to target the consumer demographics or groups that are most likely to buy the product. For instance, a toy maker would want to air ads during children’s programming rather than on late-night talk shows. To make this task easier, in addition to gender, race and region, Nielsen separates ratings into the 12-17 age group, 18-49 age group, and the 55 and older age group. For larger ad campaigns, marketers often test the ad with focus groups before broadcasting it or conduct surveys after its broadcast to determine its effectiveness.

Reach

In the application of statistics to advertising and media analysis, reach refers to the total number of different people or households exposed, at least once, to a medium during a given period. Reach should not be confused with the number of people who will actually be exposed to and consume the advertising, though. It is just the number of people who are exposed to the medium and therefore have an opportunity to see or hear the ad or commercial. Reach may be stated either as an absolute number, or as a fraction of a given population (for instance ‘TV households’, ‘men’ or ‘those aged 25–35’).

For any given viewer, they have been “reached” by the work if they have viewed it at all (or a specified amount) during the specified period. Multiple viewings by a single member of the audience in the cited period do not increase reach; however, media people use the term effective reach to describe the quality of exposure. Effective reach and reach are two different measurements for a target audience who receive a given message or ad.

Since reach is a time-dependent summary of aggregate audience behavior, reach figures are meaningless without a period associated with them: an example of a valid reach figure would be to state that “[example website] had a one-day reach of 1565 per million on 21 March 2004” (though unique users, an equivalent measure, would be a more typical metric for a website).

Reach of television channels is often expressed in the form of “x minute weekly reach” that is, the number (or percentage) of viewers who watched the channel for at least x minutes in a given week.

Reach is the number of people in the Media Market that will likely be exposed to one Spot. Estimating reach is tricky because when you run an ad multiple times, the same person may see the ad more than once but you only want to count them once in Reach. There are many different methods to estimate reach. Most rely on software.

Cumulative/Frequency Reach

Cumulative frequency analysis is the analysis of the frequency of occurrence of values of a phenomenon less than a reference value. The phenomenon may be time- or space-dependent. Cumulative frequency is also called frequency of non-exceedance.

Cumulative frequency analysis is performed to obtain insight into how often a certain phenomenon (feature) is below a certain value. This may help in describing or explaining a situation in which the phenomenon is involved, or in planning interventions, for example in flood protection.

This statistical technique can be used to see how likely an event like a flood is going to happen again in the future, based on how often it happened in the past. It can be adapted to bring in things like climate change causing wetter winters and drier summers.

For impressions, use this formula:

Impressions = Cost / (Clicks Per Impression/1000)

And for frequency, use this formula:

Frequency = Impressions / Unique Users

Discrete & Cumulative distribution

For the different distributions which I will cover in these articles, they are classified as either a Discrete Probability Distribution or Continuous Probability Distribution. A simple way to understand if your data is discrete or continuous is to answer the following question: “Are the number of your outcomes finite?”

If the answer to the above is yes, then you have a discrete dataset. Otherwise, you likely have a continuous dataset.

To put things in a marketing perspective, imagine that you are looking at the number of likes that your Facebook campaign generated, you know that likes are finite because you count the number of likes as 1,2,3, …100, there is no chance of getting a 1.2 or 2.6 likes or other smaller value that isn’t exactly 1 or 2. These outcomes are a set of values rather than a continuous length of values.

Example of a continuous distribution would be the profit margin from your online store. On any given day, the store may report that it’s profit margin is $320. The actual profit margin may not be exactly $320. It could be $320.60, $320.06, or even $320.31415. All these values are different from the other and as such as referred to as a continuous range of values.

Average Opportunity to See (AOTS)

Average OTS is the number of times on average that a member of your target audience will see your ad. Opportunity to See or OTS is a measure in advertising media which denotes number of times the viewer is most likely to see the advertisement. It is basically frequency of media exposure. It is used in media planning or advertising media selection to answer the question- how many times.

Calculation:

OTS is calculated by dividing your TVRs by your reach: At 300 TVRs we have about 70% reach. That means the average OTS is 300 / 70 = 4.2.

Reach = TVRs /  OTS. So if you are planning 50 TVRs at 1.5 OTS it would seem that your reach would be 30%. However, reach is not easily predictable. This is for two reasons:

First with you will see that whilst the growth in TVRs is linear, the growth in reach is non-linear i.e. it decreases as you add on every 100 TVRs. Between 0 and 100 TVRs we generate 50% reach. But when we add on the next 100 TVRs we only generate 65% reach at 200 TVRs.

Different types of campaign on different stations, phased in different ways, with different use of daily schedules (dayparting) will increase reach in different ways. For example, a campaign that runs in weekday daytime between 9am and 5pm may struggle to get over 50% reach even at more than 300 TVRs. This is because you will not be reaching the audience that is working during the day.

Effective frequency/Reach

Frequency is the average number of times the advertisement will be presented to the Reached Population. One way to calculate frequency is to divide the number of Impressions by the Reach. Another way is to divide GRPs by Reach Percentage.

Reach can also be expressed as a percentage, which indicates the percentage of the Population that is exposed to at least one Spot.

Gross Rating Points (GRPs)

Gross Rating Point (GRP) is a measure of the size of an advertising campaign by a specific medium or schedule. GRP is calculated by multiplying the number of Spots by Rating.

In advertising, a gross rating point (GRP) measures impact. GRPs help answer how often “must someone see it before they can readily recall it” and “how many times” does it take before the desired outcome occurs.

Construction

“One GRP is one percent of all potential adult television viewers (or in radio, listeners) in a market.” If they are exposed to the ad three times, then that is 3 GRPs.

GRPs are simply total impressions related to the size of the target population: They are most directly calculated by summing the ratings of individual ads in a campaign.

Mathematically:

GRPs (%) = 100 * Impressions (#) ÷ Defined population (#)

GRPs (%) = 100 * Reach (%) × Average frequency (#)

Road Block

Marketing roadblocks are used to eliminate competitors from the playing field by placing an obstruction before them. The obstruction typically takes the form of overwhelming ad buys that leave no recourse for the competitor to even make an attempt at keeping up. Marketing roadblocks are often the tool of large corporations who have the buying power to carry them out, although they can take place in smaller form across all markets.

Broadcast

There are several ways to create a marketing roadblock when it comes to broadcast advertising. Some companies may choose to purchase all or most of the airtime during a given show or event. This eliminates the competition from making an appearance during the show that is deemed most watched by its target audience. Other companies may aim to dominate an entire network or time slot regardless of programming. Still others may opt for a less all-consuming tactic, by purchasing all the slots leading into and out of commercial breaks. These are considered the most desirable spots, because the viewer is most likely to see them while watching a given show. Such domination of prime ad real estate is an effective targeted roadblocking method.

Print

Print advertising is difficult to roadblock, because magazines or newspapers can just add more pages if there is a need. Where a print ad roadblock can be effective is in the case of an exclusive advertising space deal. For example, if company X is able to secure a contract that eliminates competitors from advertising in a specific print publication, the roadblock technique is in effect. You can find this practice commonly among sports teams who sign up an “official car company” who from that point onward is the only car brand that will appear inside the stadium or on any team paraphernalia.

Internet

Internet advertising combines elements of both broadcast and print advertising, and the roadblocking techniques used take advantage of the best of both media. For example, a company may purchase all the banner ads on a given site for a given period so that no one else can get a foothold. Internet advertising roadblocks can also take place when a company sponsors sites or events with an online presence. The logo of the sponsor company is often integrated with the site and no other company can take part. E-commerce roadblocks are similar to broadcast roadblocks in that they take place over a specific period of time on a specific site and are open to all viewers. They are similar to print roadblocks in that they are non-linear and remain present for the entire allotted period without interruption.

Signage

Marketing roadblocks can literally take place on the road in certain circumstances. Let’s say a local business wants to attract travelers passing through on the interstate. When the business buys up all the existing billboards for 20 miles in either direction so that no competitors can edge in, a marketing roadblock has taken place. Such a technique is particularly effective with transient consumers who do not know enough about the immediate area to understand that competitors may exist. They instead head for the only game in town, according to the ads they’ve seen, and bypass any other options.

Problems

Expense is the No. 1 problem for companies engaging in marketing roadblock techniques. For major corporations, the cost is often gladly absorbed in exchange for the exposure. For small and mid-size businesses, the tactic can prove prohibitively expensive. The development of ad wars is also a factor when two companies battle using roadblocks. For example, if a magazine knows that two rivals are trying to play a game of exclusion or generally outdo one another, the rates tend to rise quickly for both. Companies can defeat themselves by spending on ads just to eliminate their competition with less return than a simple and straight-forward campaign would have brought.

Day or Day part

This established phrase expresses an obvious goal for every project – to be completed on time, according to plan and within the allocated budget.  Of course, there’s a lot that goes into realizing that goal.  Even the best plans change and there is no guarantee that the “project” you start with is the “project” you will end up with.  That’s why it’s so important to have a scheduling strategy that is appropriately comprehensive, consistent and flexible.  That’s what strategic project scheduling is all about.

Depending upon the nature of the project, and related management directives, different approaches can be taken to project sizing and scheduling.  Scheduling strategies are driven by the scheduling trigger (the circumstance driving the scheduling approach). Based on individual needs and circumstances, scheduling triggers demand either a forwards or backwards planning approach.

Working with Scheduling Strategies

Forwards Planning:

Forwards planning strategies are used when no specific project deadline is set, and the tasks are used to determine the schedule, and related completion deadlines. In this case, you start at the beginning of the project and work forward. The project timeline is determined by the total estimated duration of all anticipated tasks. Factoring in dependencies and prerequisites, these durations are added together to form an overall project schedule.

When you are involved in the forward planning scenario, it is a good idea to look at each task at multiple timing levels, based on known, realistic planning assumptions:

• Shortest Completion Time (assuming everything else goes as planned).
• Likely Completion Time (assuming that some problems and changes will occur).
• Longest Completion Time (assuming that whatever can go wrong, will go wrong).

Backwards Planning:

Backwards planning strategies are used when the completion deadline is pre-determined and the project must be managed and scheduled to meet that deadline. In this case, planning starts with the completion date and works backwards, analyzing and organizing tasks and events by their individual end dates in an “if – then” fashion, until a start date is identified.   (Also Read:  Managing Project Milestones)

Key Variables for Schedule Estimating

The first step in the schedule estimating process is to identify your scheduling trigger. In all likelihood, projects will require both approaches based on organizational structure (phases) and task complexity. Regardless of the scheduling trigger, you will need to factor the following elements into your timing estimate:

• Task Durations: The estimated length of time that it will take to complete a task using available resources.
• Parallel Tasks: The tasks that can be completed concurrently.
• Predecessor Tasks: The tasks that must be completed before other, dependent tasks can begin.
• Dependent Tasks: The tasks that cannot begin until predecessor tasks are complete.
• Slack/Float Time: The slack or float exists whenever task completion can extend beyond initial completion dates without delaying the start of subsequent tasks.
• Critical Path: The series of tasks that must occur as scheduled for a project to be completed on time. There is no slack or float time along the critical path, if any tasks on the critical path are delayed, the project will be delayed.

Sales Pattern

The sales pattern is a collection of data about the sale of a particular product or group of products in the business for a given period and displaying it graphically to understand it’s behavior. These sales patterns are used in retail businesses to identify whether the business goals are being met, the effect of price changes of a particular product impacts sales, sales response to advertising, etc.

Understanding the sales pattern in retail business always helps to correlate the sales variations with respect to the various events happening in and around the business every day. The continuous monitoring of the sales pattern would certainly help the retail business to foresee the upcoming risks and take precautions.

Purchase Cycle

The buying cycle, sometimes known as the marketing or sales cycle, is a patterned process consumers and business buyers go through when contemplating a purchase. Various labels and steps have been assigned to this process, though the basic elements are consistent across most diagrams and outlines. Understanding the pattern buyers go through in your industry is key to effective marketing and promotions.

Awareness

The first step in virtually all buying cycle depictions is awareness. This is the point at which a buyer recognizes that he needs something or the point at which he recognizes your product or service and views it as a possibility. Much of a company’s market research and promotions are geared to reach customers with brand messages at the point they first become aware of a need or in an effort to stimulate this reality. Billboards depicting restaurants, for instance, are often used to trigger hunger recognition.

Consideration

The next broad stage in the buying cycle is consideration. This is one of the most impacting stages in terms of your company’s status with a buyer. During this stage, the buyer formulates a consideration set and evaluates each option on factors important to him. A business buyer may consider the scalability of a software solution, for instance, in case his company wants to expand use over time. Your ability to convey benefits that coincide with target customer needs is crucial during this time. Advertising, public relations and sales efforts all contribute to this communication effort.

Purchase

The point of purchase is essentially crunch time in the buying cycle. This is the point at which a buyer has determined which product or service best matches his needs at the most affordable price. If your product, price and promotions have effectively wooed enough customers during the consideration process, you should be in good shape at crunch time. Capturing customer contact information to develop an ongoing relationship for future sales is important if you are the winner of the customer’s purchase decision.

After-Sale

While most buying cycle models include awareness, consideration and purchase stages, not all go beyond those three steps. Those that do depict after-sale buying activities as ranging anywhere from one to four additional steps. In general, after-sale buying cycle stages include application or use of the product, discussions on additional uses, advocacy of the brand or product with others and intention to repeat purchases. Follow-up support, inquiries and genuine customer care are keys during these stages. Customers assess their experiences, which impacts future buying and the positive or negative word of mouth they spread to others.

Product Availability

Product availability is an important supply chain performance measure and appears as a KPI in most companies. However, if the way of measuring it is sub-optimal, we would end up with a supply chain that underperforms on this measure.

Most companies define it at the point of invoicing. Do we have sufficient stocks to service the distributor orders (protect primary sales)? More progressive companies define it at the distributor level. Do our distributors have enough stocks to service the retailer orders (protect secondary sales)? The best definition is, of course, at the retail level where we protect consumer offtake, but the data is not comprehensive.

Availability is normally measured against the customer demand. If you are still measuring it against forecast, it’s a low hanging fruit to start measuring it against actual demand and improve it. A well-known pharma company was actually measuring availability to forecast as the prime measure and reporting a performance of 98%.

Meeting customer requirements is a basic mission of the firm. Business is not only about generating demand but also about fulfilling it. It seems logical, offhand, that firms should have complete stock 100% of the time.

Making products available entails costs, from the design, manufacture, storage, and delivery of an item. Firms are sensitive to investing in capacity or in keeping more inventories to anticipate unforeseen demand. On the other hand, firms are also conscious that product un-availability could mean lost sales and possibly lost opportunities, sometimes to the point that it can determine the long-term survival of the business. Unless one’s product has quality characteristics unmatched by others or has a monopoly in utility, impatient customers will switch to competing brands if their brand of first choice is not available.

Competitive Activity

Company facing a severe market competition will opt for more continuous advertisement through multiple media. The rule is, the more is the intensity of competition, the higher the frequency of advertisement will be.

Marketing Task

Many businesses see the task of marketing as generating leads for salespeople to follow-up. It’s a short-sighted view that is costing small businesses millions. Marketing is the whole process of taking your goods or services to market. It’s made up of many different disciplines, each with their own skills and expertise.

• Developing Marketing Strategies and Plans: The first task is to identify the organization long-run opportunities given its market experience and core competences.
• Capturing Marketing Insights: Marketers must closely monitor the marketing environment to continually asses market potential and forecast demand.
• Connecting with the Customers: The firm must determine how to best create value for its chosen target markets and develop strong, profitable, long-term relationship with customers.
• Building Strong Brands: Marketers need to understand how customers perceive their brands strengths and weakness.
• Shaping the Market Offerings: At the heart of the marketing program is the product, the firm tangible offering to the market, features, and packaging.
• Delivering Value: How can the firm deliver value to its target market? Channel activities are need to make the product offering accessible and available to customers.
• Communicating Value: Marketers must adequately communicate to the target market the value embodied by their products and services.
• Creating Successful Long-term Growth: The marketing strategy should take into account changing global opportunities and challenges.

Budget Constraints

It shows an ability of a company to spend for advertisement. The rule is, the more is the ability to spend, the more continuous the advertisement will be.

Target Group

A target market is a group of people with some shared characteristics that a company has identified as potential customers for its products. Identifying the target market informs the decision-making process as a company design, packages, and markets its product.

Target marketing involves breaking a market into segments and then concentrating your marketing efforts on one or a few key segments consisting of the customers whose needs and desires most closely match your product or service offerings. It can be the key to attracting new business, increasing sales, and making your business a success.

A target market may be broadly categorized by age range, location, income, and lifestyle. Many other demographics may be considered. Their stage of life, their hobbies, interests, and careers, all may be considered.

Demographic Segmentation

Demographic grouping is based on measurable statistics, such as:

• Gender
• Age
• Income level
• Marital status
• Education
• Race
• Religion

Geographic Segmentation

Geographic segmentation involves segmenting the market based on location. Home addresses are one example, but depending on the scope of your business, you could also use:

• Neighbourhood
• Postal or ZIP code
• Area code
• City
• Province or state
• Region
• Country (if your business is international)

Psychographic Segmentation

Psychographic segmentation divides the target market based on socioeconomic class or lifestyle preferences. The socioeconomic scale ranges from the affluent and highly educated at the top to the uneducated and unskilled at the bottom.

They should be as specific as possible, and as actionable as can be reasonably expected. Avoid terms like “endeavor to” and “make best efforts”.  If there are concrete exceptions to an expectation, list them out.  If there is a process for having exceptions approved, document it. If there are expected seller consequences for non-compliance, identify them.

Buying Guidelines should be specific to the client’s business conditions and communication objectives. These should drive tactical goals in areas such as preferred or restricted content, commercial separation requirements, quality vs. efficiency expectations, competitive exclusivity, etc.

Include a brief target audience and media objectives overview including considerations beyond gender/age, secondary targets, recommended buying demographic or metrics, reach versus frequency or engagement priorities.

What are your delivery expectations versus Planned and Purchased? These are often expressed as a target percent vs. the goal (i.e. Actual delivery from 95-105% vs. Planned). These may also be further stratified to include expectations by week/flight/brand/message/commercial length (+/- 10% for example) within what may be broader annual or corporate buys.

What level of vendor contracts is required on your behalf? Detailed, current (and signed) orders should protect your investment for every media property order and include the relevant terms and conditions. These are the link between agency and seller in the media supply chain. If you have a broken link, you have no accountability. This expectation should be outlined in the buying guidelines.

How are post-performance methodologies defined? Provide definitions and timing for reporting as appropriate per media type: broadcast media posting rules, circulation analysis methodology, buy types and count-of-record source for digital payments.

What are the provisions and timing for recovery of delivery shortfalls or non-compliance: credits, makegoods, bonus weight, under delivery recovery, etc.? What is the unit of measure for delivery? For example, in National TV, delivery is often measured over the course of a full broadcast year by network. Best practice in local TV is quarterly delivery at the station level (not market).

Do you have time of day (daypart) and other placement requirements and preferences including definitions?

What are your reporting requirements that support an appropriate and timely performance feedback loop? How often will post performance reports be delivered, and how long after the end of the media measurement period in question, and what will be consequences to the seller (and agency, if applicable) for any performance shortfalls vs. agreed compliance items?

Have you defined expectations for financial management including timely invoice reconciliation and payment? Consider specific target dates by media channel (i.e. 60 days end of quarter, etc.). Be aware of the client’s own payment terms to the agency and how these might impact agency payment to sellers.

Phase 1: Pre-placement

Advertising isn’t as simple as making a really good-looking ad design and slapping it up on a wall. There’s an entire strategy that is put in place. Coming up with that strategy often takes the most time, as there are several factors to consider.

Phase 2: Placement

It’s time for takeoff! You’ve found your target audience and discovered where they’re most likely to interact with your campaign. You’ve met with vendors and decided on the ones that are priced the best and located in the optimal spots.

In this phase, media buyers make sure that the media is actually delivered to the vendor and that the vendor fulfills the requests that have been made. The buyer is responsible for making sure that the ad actually appears where it was paid to appear and is in the right environment.

It’s always best to prepare for the worst. If your advertisements aren’t doing well in one place, move them elsewhere. If they’re getting more interaction at certain times of the day, adjust settings and your budget accordingly. Constant review and reevaluation isn’t optional it’s necessary. Nothing is set in stone.

Phase 3: Post-placement

What was this all for if not for measuring advertising effectiveness?

When working with a media buyer, this is a good point to touch base with them and look at the data. Were the places you chose to put your advertisements effective? What worked well? What could have been better? Was too much money spent in one place, and not enough in another? Search for both negative and positive patterns, and make a note so that your next campaign runs even better than the last.