Media Buying

‍MEDIA BUYING‍

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In the advertising ecosystem, advertisers entrust their marketing partners with media buying, which is the buying of advertising space to promote their business. Advertising placements can be bought on traditional channels such as TV, radio and billboards but also on online and digital channels such as websites and mobile apps. We will focus on digital media buying.

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What is Media Buying?

Media buying is the process of wholesale buying of digital advertising placements through negotiations and agreements in order to run advertising campaigns. 

Advertisers buy ad spaces on publishers’ websites or apps, where they can show creatives and ads in order to promote their businesses. 

In the context of paid user acquisition and app install campaigns, media buying can happen in different ways and we will make a distinction between traditional media buying and programmatic media buying. 

The former is the actual process of negotiating the buying of ad spaces between advertisers and publishers. Finalizing these arrangements takes time and it is often a slow and manual process. The prices vary depending on negotiations, publishers’ ad inventories and the ad formats.

The latter refers to programmatic advertising, where ad placements are managed automatically by software and operating systems. It happens within digital marketplaces named Ad Exchanges, where technological platforms buy and sell digital ad placements on behalf of advertisers and publishers, replacing the traditional media buying. Negotiations happen in the form of real time auctions which take place in milliseconds and are entirely managed by algorithms. 

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Why is it important?

Media buying requires an effective strategy to be in place, but it represents the core of advertising activities and especially app install campaigns. It allows advertisers to acquire high volumes of traffic for their mobile apps and increase their revenues.

Programmatic media buying especially boosts app install campaigns because of its technological and automated nature. Indeed, Demand Side Platforms (DSPs), which buy ad placements on behalf of advertisers, can optimize the media buying process by leveraging machine learning algorithms. 

Real time optimization improves the traffic acquisition targeting only those users who are more likely to engage with the app and become high-quality users. Advertisers can benefit from these optimizations increasing their in-app revenues and the overall Return On Ad Spend (ROAS) of their app install campaigns. 

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What you need to know about Media Buying?

• Media buying is the process of buying digital advertising placements;
• Traditional media buying happens through negotiations and agreements between advertisers and publishers;
• Programmatic media buying takes place in Ad Exchange and is a fully automated process;
• Mobile DSPs can optimize programmatic media buying in real time through machine learning algorithms;
• Media Buying helps advertisers scale the results of their app install campaigns.

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