In the intricate realm of marketing, constructing compelling, relatable messages is just one part of the equation. The other crucial facet is ensuring that your message precisely reaches the right audience at the opportune moment—all while maintaining cost-efficiency. This is where the art and science of media buying come into play.
Media buying encompasses the strategic negotiation and procurement of optimal advertising spaces, airtime, or program slots to convey your marketing campaigns. Given the intricacies of this process, many businesses entrust media buying agencies to secure the best placements and rates. Even if you’re delegating the complexities to professionals, a solid grasp of media buying terminology can be an invaluable asset. That’s why we’ve assembled a comprehensive guide to facilitate effective communication with media buying experts.
Media Buying 101: Essential Terminology
Our guide is segmented into three sections: general terms, television and radio buying terms, and digital media buying terms, ensuring that you are well-versed regardless of your preferred advertising channel.
General Terms
- Cost Per Thousand (CPM): The cost associated with delivering 1,000 ad impressions.
- Flight Dates: The specific start and end dates of a marketing campaign.
- Frequency: The average number of times a household or individual views a particular program, station, or advertisement within a defined period.
- Impressions: The count of homes or individuals exposed to a specific advertisement or a group of ads. In the realm of digital marketing, impressions pertain to the total number of times an ad is delivered online.
- Media Buying: The strategic approach employed by individuals or marketing agencies following the completion of media planning and campaign strategy. Media buyers leverage these insights to identify and negotiate the purchase of ad space across chosen media channels. This process can be automated or manual, contingent on preferences, objectives, audience, budget, media channels, and technology.
- Media Mix: Refers to the allocation of time and budget for advertisements across diverse platforms, encompassing television, radio, print, and digital.
- Media Planning: The meticulous process of selecting the optimal combination of media outlets to effectively market a specific business, product, or service while adhering to budgetary constraints.
- Net Reach: The number of individual people reached by a commercial or ad at least once.
- Rotation: Denotes the distribution of spots or ads across specific days and hours during the campaign period.
Television and Radio Media Buying Terms
- Audience Turnover: A radio station’s cumulative audience in comparison to the average quarter-hour audience. Turnover is calculated by dividing cume persons by the Average Quarter Hour Audience and typically represents the number of times new listeners replace an audience within a specific daypart.
- Avails: Refers to unsold units of time available for sale to marketers by broadcasters and radio stations.
- Average Quarter-Hour Persons (AQH): The average count of individuals tuning in to a particular radio station for at least five continuous minutes within a 15-minute interval.
- Average Quarter-Hour Rating: An approximation of Average Quarter-Hour Persons expressed as a percentage of the measurement population.
- Block Programming: A series of programs with a specific demographic appeal, ideal for ads targeting a particular audience.
- Cable Activity Report: A report supplied by Nielsen Media Research to cable networks, outlining data on average and cumulative household audience information by daypart.
- Cost Per Point (CPP): The cost associated with reaching an Average Quarter-Hour Persons audience equivalent to approximately one percent of the people within a specific demographic group.
- Cume: The tally of individual persons listening to a radio station during a particular daypart for at least five continuous minutes.
- Daypart: Time segments into which radio and television advertisements are divided for scheduling purposes, including primetime, daytime, late night, early morning, and total day.
- End Rate: The actual rate paid by an advertiser for a designated television commercial time after all negotiations and discounts.
- Fixed Position: A scheduled broadcast or radio spot set to air at a precise time or within a specific program.
- Pre-emption and Pre-emptible: The practice of replacing a scheduled broadcast or radio spot with another, often due to a higher bid.
- Run of Schedule or Run of Site (ROS): In television or radio, ROS entails scheduling ads across multiple dayparts and days. In digital marketing, it signifies displaying ads on a website without preference for specific pages or times.
- Spot Television: Denotes all available commercial advertising time for purchase from a local TV station, encompassing both local and national spots.
Digital Media Buying Terms
- Ad Network: Entities that facilitate connections between marketers and websites interested in hosting their ads.
- Banner Ad: A visual ad, whether static or animated, displayed within website content. It typically appears in a box or rectangle format, featuring formats such as .jpg, .png, .gif, or HTML5.
- Click Through Rate (CTR): A metric within digital marketing measuring the success of an advertisement in prompting users to click through to a website.
- Cost Per Click (CPC): The expense incurred by a marketer for each user click on a specific ad, predominantly applicable in paid search advertising.
Navigating Media with Bloom Ads
Many marketers grapple with media buying and planning, often resulting in financial setbacks. Our aim is to empower you and all our clients for success in your marketing endeavors. Sharing our knowledge can only enhance your budget utilization and affirm our value.
If you need help getting started, feel free to reach out to us at [email protected] to explore how we can assist you in achieving your marketing goals effectively and efficiently. At Media Partners Worldwide, we’ve been at the forefront of direct response media for over 26 years, and we’re committed to helping you navigate the evolving landscape of media and marketing.