Media Planning

Inventory - a term that is used often interchangeably with ad placements. It can also describe the amount of ad space a publisher has to sell or a media buyer chooses to buy. It applies to ads in traditional and digital advertising.

Media Mix - the entire combination of media channels an individual or agency uses to achieve their specific marketing objectives. *If you use social media, radio, and TV to promote your marketing campaign, that’s your media mix. If you’re using direct mail, SEM, and online videos, that’s still your media mix.

Request For Proposal (or RFP) - a document submitted by an agency (in our case a media planner) often via a bidding process; intended to express interest to a supplier (or media vendor) in buying particular ad inventories.

Scheduling - the specifications a media planner and buyer puts around a marketing campaign that indicate what time and day certain ads will be served across their various media. Typically depends on target audience.

Guaranteed Inventory (or Direct Buys) - this strategy allows a media planner and buyer to secure bulk inventory (or ad placements) at a fixed CPM. There are situations when this method makes most sense, like when a business wants the security of knowing that a certain number of eyes will be on their ad and they have the budget to support the higher cost of that guarantee. *It’s a “bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” type mindset.

Targeting - the act of identifying the ideal audience that should receive a marketing message. Part of the internal and external market research portion of media planning.

Manual Bidding - this is the act of manually changing the bid on a particular set of ads based on factors such as keyword performance, engagement, cost, etc. *This is the opposite of automation or programmatic buying.

Real-Time Bidding (RTB) - allows media vendors to sell ad impressions (views) through an ad exchange platform where each impression is sold as it becomes available, in real time. Advertisers can automatically adjust their bid based on changing market conditions.

Happy Learning!

Anamika Gupta

IAAN