12 Reasons you shouldn’t invest in media buying
Introduction
Media buying is one of the most important aspects of any marketing campaign. This process involves identifying and targeting the right audience to deliver the message. However, if done hastily or with little knowledge about the market, it can lead to a lot of problems for your brand. Here are some common mistakes that brands make while involved in media buying:
The goal of media buying is not consistent with the overall business strategy.
Media buying is a necessary part of any marketing campaign. However, media buying is not a standalone activity; it’s part of an overall business strategy. As such, if your goals are not aligned with your overall business strategy, you may be making some mistakes in how you’re executing your media buying efforts.
The goal of media buying should be to support the overall business strategy and increase sales/brand awareness/etc., but many marketers go into media planning without considering why they want these things in the first place. They fail to link their objectives back to the main focus of their organization—and don’t understand which channels can help them achieve those objectives most efficiently and effectively across multiple platforms (website traffic, social shares or likes/followers).
Not enough testing and learning
In the world of media buying, it’s all too easy to focus on the numbers. You have a budget, and you want to get a return on investment as quickly as possible. So you run your campaigns and hope that they work.
The problem with this approach is that it doesn’t guarantee success—just because something works for one person doesn’t mean it will work for everyone else (and vice versa). You need to test different types of messages, audiences, placements and more before you can truly know whether your campaign will be successful or not.
Testing is also crucial because there are many factors at play when deciding which ad format performs best: things like audience size vs cost per click vs ad position matter more than just traffic alone
Low level of accountability
- If a media buying agency’s performance is low, it is hard to hold them accountable.
- When you are able to track the performance of your ad campaign and its impact on sales, it can help you make decisions about future campaigns. You can also use this data to negotiate better rates with your advertising partners.
- Since there are so many complex variables involved in advertising campaigns, it is important for advertisers to be able to measure their success or failure after each campaign has run its course.
No proper integration with the rest of the campaign
If you’re buying media independently, you won’t be able to integrate the results into the rest of your campaign. In order for media buying to be a part of your overall campaign strategy, it needs to be integrated into the entire process—and this is only possible when handled by a single agency that understands all aspects of your marketing objectives.
You don’t want to hire a firm that will just take your money and run with it; instead, you need an agency that can provide insights about how each campaign is performing so that adjustments can be made in real time if necessary. If a new ad campaign isn’t working as well as expected, then maybe it needs more exposure or should be retargeted at different audiences instead of spending money on already-promoted ads.
Limited use of metrics and data
As a media buyer, you’ll be able to measure the performance of your campaigns by looking at metrics. Metrics are the only way to determine if you’ve been successful in reaching your target audience and getting them to make a purchase. You’ll be able to use this data to inform future buying decisions and learn more about how your customers think, behave and interact with brands.
The target audience is not well defined.
The target audience is not well defined.
You need to make sure you know who you want to reach and what they want to buy. The target audience should be defined by the business goals, but sometimes its hard to define a clear audience if it’s a new product launch or if there are many types of customers you want to target at different times of day, in different countries, etc.
There are no targeted tactics in place to reach a particular audience.
There are no targeted tactics in place to reach a particular audience.
The media strategy is not aligned with the brand values.
The messaging is not aligned with the brand values.
The target audience is not well defined.
The messaging is not aligned with the brand values.
If your brand values are not aligned with the messaging, then you need to re-evaluate how you’re targeting your audience.
Your brand represents who you are and what people can expect from their interaction with the company. It’s critical for the messaging and media buying to reflect these values. If it doesn’t, then it might be time for a change of direction or a rebranding effort.
When there are budget constraints, it limits the extent of experimentation.
When you have a limited budget, it’s easy to get stuck in the mindset of “I can’t afford to do that,” or “I don’t need to test this because I already know what will work.” But when there are budget constraints, it limits the extent of experimentation. After all, as long as your results aren’t terrible and your competitors aren’t beating you out of every other ad campaign on their own turf, why bother testing?
That said—budget should never be a limiting factor when it comes to testing new strategies. If there is a budget constraint and you still want more data than what traditional methods provide, then simply test using different methods:
- Testing Tactics: The fastest way for companies large and small alike to access an audience is through Google Ads (formerly known as AdWords). However, if you’re looking for more refined targeting options or want more specific metrics around user behavior within an app with no website presence at all (like Snapchat), then Facebook Ads may be more suitable.
The media buying agency is not given a complete brief about the client’s business.
The client should be clear about their goals and objectives. They need to know what they are trying to achieve through the campaign and have a clear idea of who their target audience is.
The media buying agency also needs all of this information in order to be able to work effectively with the client. The agency needs to know what kind of budget has been allocated for this campaign, how long it will run for and exactly what success looks like at the end of that period.
There is very little collaboration between the client and the media buyer.
In the event that you are not able to communicate with your media buyer, there is always a chance that they will make decisions which can be detrimental to your campaign. In fact, this happens quite often in today’s digital world. Often times, clients have little knowledge about what goes on behind the scenes in terms of buying media or creating ad campaigns. Therefore it is crucial that the client should be involved in every step of this process so as to ensure maximum effectiveness and efficiency of their ad spending.
When there is no transparency in communication, it leads to misunderstandings.
When there is no transparency in communication, it leads to misunderstandings. A client will expect a certain level of service from the agency and that might not be possible. Similarly, an agency may not be able to deliver on certain aspects because they are not within their capabilities. The lack of transparency also creates problems when it comes to setting expectations and managing budgets.
For example: If you want a social media strategy that includes brand awareness, but your budget only allows for engagement growth then the two parties will end up disappointed with each other because one did not know what kind of service was expected by them (they may have thought that buying ads would give you more visibility).
Media agencies need to be more transparent with their clients
When it comes to media buying, transparency is the key.
- Your agency should keep you informed of what they’re testing and why. If you don’t know what is being tested or why, then there’s no way that you can provide feedback on the process.
- You should be involved in deciding which direction the campaign will take next. Your team at your ad agency should provide insight on which message they think will resonate best with your target audience and give reasons as to why they believe this message will work better than others.
- Clients must have access to a wide range of metrics so that they can keep track of how well their advertising is working over time (or not). These metrics include things like reach among certain demographics; click-through rates; etc., but also include things such as what keywords were used when someone searched for “XYZ” on Google within the past week: What content did these people read after clicking through from our PPC ad?
Conclusion
Media buying is not a new concept, and it has been used by many companies in the past. But, if it is not done right then the whole campaign can go down the drain. It’s important that you do your research before involving in any kind of media buying because only then will you know whether or not it’s right for your company.