7 Killer Media Buying Tips

Get better at media buying. That’s not only advice, that’s a call to action. And that’s not speculative advice either, it’s data driven.

Here’s what’s going on. Between RTB exploding to a $7BLN by 2016 and the clear trend of mobile computing taking over desktop – media buying is becoming the skill of the age. With SEO in the dumps and PPC prices soaring the old schools of traffic thought are just that… old. Media buying isn’t just a source of traffic. It’s a methodology used across multiple sources and technologies.

Some of the highest level affiliates today utilize some form of media buying. You just can’t beat the scaling opportunity it offers.

Those are the upsides. The downsides of media buying is that it’s perceived as expensive with a steep learning curve. RTB is helping make the expensive part a thing of the past. But there is still a learning curve. Whether or not that curve is steep is a matter of opinion.

The team over at What Run Where is doing a fantastic job of helping cut that learning curve down to size. They’ve started a new interview series on their blog called “Meet The Media Buyer”

This series offers the reader incredible insight into the process of media buying through interviews. These are no run-of-the-mill interviews. They’re interviewing some of the best media buyers out there, guys in the trenches. It’s one of the best new content series I’ve seen.

Below are a few nuggets of gold that I’ve come across while reading these interviews.

Gold Nugget #1

One big area of growth is we can now1 monetize countries that we weren’t able to in the past few years. Countries such as Russia, Turkey, and the Scandinavian region have offers that didn’t exist two years ago. Maybe in a few years we’ll be able to make money off huge audiences like China and Indonesia.

– From our friend Charles Ngo

Gold Nugget #2

Most people would benefit from reading less and doing more; keep launching campaigns and keep testing.
– From our friend Charles Ngo

Gold Nugget #3

A lot of marketing folks forget to develop a full strategy complete with target customer profile before rushing into media buys. So research is important; competitive analysis is important. Identify answers to questions like, where is your competition advertising? Where are your consumers hanging out? What are they reading, watching and listening to? What trends are they following and what motivates them to spend in your vertical? Answer those and identifying the right media channels to spend in, becomes a lot easier.
– Liz Gazer

Gold Nugget #4

we have found that mobile RTB campaigns generate solid results when they overlap with online display and/or video RTB campaigns. Mobile RTB works well to compliment other components of a targeting strategy as long as each channel is continually optimized and performance metrics are used as drivers for channel decisions.
– Corey Pollack

Gold Nugget #5

Assuming a similar niche, content that works for my competition will often work for me or my clients. I also look at the competition’s top pages for patterns – use of video, infographics, long form content, short form content, calls to action, etc. For example, if I notice a lot of instructional/how to video in a particular space, I might test a similar video format. Of course, I use my competitors as a guide. The goal is not to duplicate, but to outperform.
– Corey Post

Gold Nugget #6

How can you improve your chances of success? For starters, stay away from the big verticals and big payout offers. It takes a much smaller budget to optimize a $2 offer than it takes to optimize $150 offer. So, try to target offers in $2-$5 range outside of very competitive verticals like Dating, Diet, Education, and Loans. In the beginning, you just won’t be able to complete with the big boys.
–Stan Ivanov

Gold Nugget #7

Don’t try to be clever. Identify your target audience through testing and then find reliable ways to reach them. A mistake I see all too often is to hop from network to network looking for the one traffic source that will magically lower the CPA. Chances are, that time would be better spent optimizing creative or landing pages.
– Chris Cole

There you have it. 7 absolutely killer media buying tips that will make you more money. The best part of these golden nuggets is that there are A LOT more where they came from. Each interview in the series is only a handful of questions long and packed with in the trenches point of views. These guys and gals know their stuff.

Thanks WRW – keep writing these up and we’ll keep reading.