WHAT IS PAID MEDIA?
If you are asking the question, “What is paid media?” then you are in for some fascinating insights. Here’s what you need to know.
What is Paid Media? Should it be Included in My Marketing Strategy?
Traditional brick and mortar shops rely on foot traffic. The more people that enter the store, the more likely they are to make a sale – it’s simply a numbers game, would you agree?
The same can be said for online businesses who – today more than ever – need to make use of several marketing tactics to get eyes on their promotional messages.
That said, we need to ask the question, “What is paid media?” and determine whether we need it for our business or if it’s just another trendy word that digital agencies throw around to make us spend more money.
What is Paid Media?
Paid media in digital marketing is a method of getting a company’s message out to their audience using sponsored media, ads, videos, pop-ups and other multimedia.
Note the word sponsored?
That is what separates paid media from owned and earned media, but more on that in a moment.
What are the benefits of paid media?
With the long fingers of social media and the glut of forums and online communities, do we really need to be spending money on promoting our message? The short answer is yes, and here’s why:
- Paid media allows you to reach more people that would see your message organically.
- Paid media allows to you create a specific message for a highly targeted audience.
- Paid media can fast-track your brand recognition, special offers, and overall company growth.
Let’s just take a quick step back though, and make sure we understand the difference between the various types of media and what they look like.
PAID MEDIA VS EARNED/OWNED MEDIA
Ideally, you want to make use of all three media types to attract the right people at the right time, and nurture them until they buy from you and become loyal customers.
Eearned Media
Earned media is made up of press mentions, great reviews, recommendations, excellent customer service, great content, or a brilliant SEO strategy.
Owned Media
Owned media is what you have created to support your business and display your authority such as white papers, case studies, infographics, or how-to guides.
Paid Media
Paid media is an ad or promotional message such as you would see on social channels, google searches or within other sites. These are specific and targeted, so if you see them it’s likely because you have been identified as being relevant to the target audience of the advertising company.
Types of Paid Media
Essentially, any ad, comment, tweet, image or page that you promote by putting money behind it, falls under the banner of paid media.
While there are many (many!) options available, we’re going to touch on the most popular channels and what their key benefits are.
PPC
Pay Per Click (PPC) is one of the busiest paid media avenues. Search engines such as Google, Bing, YouTube and Yandex make use of keywords to help users find what they are looking for.
As an advertiser, when you tap into the right search terms then you become visible to your target audience on these search engines. However, as the name suggests, you only pay for your ad once the user clicks on it and is directed to your site or promotional page.
Benefits of PPC
- Offers immediate results as soon as you turn them on
- Easy to measure and track
- Creates a massive amount of usable data for future marketing campaigns
- Useful, trackable conversion stats
- When done well, you can outrank the bigger companies for the coveted number one spot
- Highly targeted right down to a 2-mile radius if necessary
- Complete control over your ad spend, and can be turned on and off quickly
Display Ads
In much the same way, search engines will show Display Ads to a predefined audience based on a variety of criteria. This includes location, age, gender, interests, keywords, or topics of interest.
Display ads generally have a lower click through rate because they are displayed to users as an advert, and not as an answer to a search query.
Benefits of Display Ads
- An excellent way to create brand awareness
- Can make use of striking imagery to capture people’s attention
- A very low-cost way of advertising
- Highly targeted and can make use of user behaviours and interests.
- Excellent for gentle retargeting of a defined audience
- Offers loads of insights and user data for future campaigns
Paid Social
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube are social channels which have mastered the art of targeted advertising. A post, article or link can be boosted, an ad can be created from a video, a series of images or a GIF.
Benefits of Paid Social
- An excellent way of expanding your reach into various markets or audiences
- Maintain control over your budget and ad timing
- Considered a more ‘friendly’ way of reaching your audience given that it’s on a social channel
- Makes use of all media from images to videos, quizzes, puzzles, apps and more
- Excellent for brand recognition
- Offers excellent market insights to improve your future campaigns
How do I Get Started?
It all begins with a well-thought out paid media strategy.
A frank conversation with a digital marketing specialist will help to guide you to find the best channels for your business or product.
Does paid media work? You bet it does! If you would like to see this phenomenon in action, please give us a call and let’s chat about what paid media can do for you.
