Choose the Best Channels to Reach Your Audience Effectively

A key aspect of digital media buying best practices is understanding your audience. Your ads need to be at the right place and time to have the most influence on your potential leads. This is where your media planning strategy and media buying strategy work together closely. 

Different creatives might have different results in display ads on websites versus Facebook, for example. The best way to determine which channels will give you the highest ROI is to rely on your data and make sure you’ve done comprehensive market research. Then, create your creative to match the expectations of the customer on the channel they’ll see. 

Data

Using your customer data allows you to offer customized content to your audience. 80% of consumers are more likely to buy from a brand that’s provided a personalized experience. Media planning and strategy need to be based on your knowledge of your target customer. Deciding on what channel to use depends on how your customers currently meet their needs and where they find solutions to the problems that your brand solves. 

Resources

Another factor when improving your media buying initiatives is the tools, platforms, and partnerships you’re using to get the job done.

If you’re buying ad space through programmatic software, you need to make sure you’re using the right demand-side platform (DSP). A great DSP allows you to bid for ad space across several bidding networks, instead of just one, such as Google Ads. It’s important to look for DSPs that offer a large selection of high-quality advertising inventory and make sure that your ad is placed appropriately to ensure brand safety. 

Collaborators 

If you’re doing manual negotiations for out-of-home (OOH) advertising, make sure you’re working with the right collaborators who will help you determine which mediums are reaching your audience. Likewise, the success of sponsorships, takeovers, and guest posts depends on the effectiveness of your partnerships. These initiatives can help build trust across different brands’ audiences. Make sure that the people and fellow brands you’re advertising with are continuously connecting with your ideal audience in a meaningful way. 

Create Engaging Creative to Attract More Attention 

One of the best practices in planning media that can help you increase your exposure is to experiment with how your messaging is best delivered. With digital platforms like Instagram shifting to prioritize video content, customers are spending more time interacting with the medium. In fact, 85% of people want to see more videos from the brands they love in the coming years. 89% of marketers use YouTube video ads, while 70% use Facebook videos (followed closely by LinkedIn and Instagram). 

Video 

When it comes to using video in digital media buying strategy, 74% of marketers say video has a better return on investment than text- or image-based creative. They also report an increase in website traffic and more leads. Further, down the funnel, 94% of marketers say that video has helped improve their understanding of their product or service and build trust with their potential customers. 

Video captures attention and allows you to deliver your brand’s message in a short time frame using memorable visuals that potential customers are more likely to remember. 

Expandable ad units 

Another engaging ad format to try out is expandable ad units. They are a type of rich media ad that combines banner ads with interstitial ads. When a visitor taps the banner, the ad expands to fill their screen. This means they don’t need to be redirected to a landing page to engage with the content the marketer has created for them. 

Rich media ads can significantly impact your click-through rates (CTRs). This type of ad has a 1.53% in-app click-through rate (CTR) and a 1.12% CTR on mobile, while standard banner ads have a CTR of just 0.39% and 0.32%, respectively. 

Experiment & Target Strategically 

Tracking the success of your efforts through data is critical to understanding what your potential customers are responding to and iterating on your strategy as you move forward. A/B testing and implementing an iterative approach are also best practices you can apply to your media planning strategy. 

A/B testing is where you can see which channels and which types of creative are resonating with people and driving conversions. Remember to keep your tests as simple as possible, changing one variable at a time so you know exactly what part of your execution you might need to change going forward. 

During the testing phase, you can also optimize your channel choice and creativity for the segments in your funnel. Customers at each funnel stage have differing levels of familiarity with your brand and they’re looking for different types of information to lead them to the next stage of the funnel before they convert. Look at the lowest-performing stages in your funnel and run tests to see what types of ads further engage and encourage conversion. 

To help you boost your success rate, you can also look outside your brand at your competitors. What types of ads are they running? What’s working well for their audience? This information can point you towards ways to let your potential customers know you can meet their needs better than your competitor. Competitive analysis can also reveal what tactics you can try to get similar results. 

Put it All Together 

Use these three pillars as the basis for your media planning and strategy. Optimize your channels, explore innovative ad content, and test your new variables. If you want to see higher ROAS and enhance your media planning for more high-quality leads and conversions, CresZak offers full media buying services to help reach your paid media goals.