In today’s fast-paced digital marketing landscape, reaching the right audience at the right time is critical for any business looking to scale. This is where media buying comes into play — a process that allows brands to strategically place ads on platforms where their target audience is most active. Whether you’re an affiliate marketer, a media planner, or a marketing manager, understanding the essentials of media buying can transform your marketing efforts and drive significant results.

This guide covers everything you need to know about media buying, including the types of traffic available, the key steps to executing an effective media buy, and why commerce media is a game-changing strategy for media buyers.

What is media buying?

Media buying refers to the acquisition of advertising space on media platforms such as websites, apps, search engines, social media, and email newsletters to promote a company’s products and services. The goal is to reach your target audience with promotional messages that engage them, build brand awareness, and drive sales.

Media buyers typically manage the media spend, ensuring that advertising campaigns align with the company’s marketing strategy and budget. They also work to optimize ad placement to maximize exposure and return on investment (ROI), making this a vital component of any successful advertising campaign. Unattached affiliate marketing is another strategy where marketers promote products without personal connection or extensive expertise, often using pay-per-click campaigns.

For instance, a brand may run social media advertising targeting a younger audience, while another company may prefer to run display ads on a network of websites. Media buyers help navigate these choices, ensuring that ads are shown in the right context to attract customers.

Understanding affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a dynamic form of online marketing where individuals, known as affiliate marketers, promote products or services from another company and earn a commission on sales or referrals made through their unique affiliate link. This performance-based model allows affiliate marketers to earn a commission for each sale or referral generated through their promotional efforts.

Affiliate marketers employ various strategies to reach potential customers and drive conversions. Social media advertising is a popular method, leveraging platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to reach a broad audience. Content marketing is another effective strategy, where affiliate marketers create valuable content, such as blog posts, videos, and reviews, to engage and inform their audience. Email marketing also plays a crucial role, allowing affiliate marketers to send targeted messages directly to potential customers, fostering a more personalized connection.

By understanding the fundamentals of affiliate marketing and utilizing these strategies, affiliate marketers can effectively promote products and services, driving sales and earning comissions.

Types of traffic available for social media advertising

Understanding the different types of traffic is crucial when planning a media buy. Here are the main traffic sources you can utilize:

1. Organic traffic. This comes from earned media like search engine optimization (SEO). It’s driven by relevant content and optimized web pages that help you rank higher on search engines, bringing visitors to your site without paid ads. While this method takes time to build, it’s cost-effective and drives sustainable traffic over the long term.
2. Paid traffic. Paid traffic comes from advertisements such as paid ads on search engines, social media, and other media platforms. This method guarantees immediate visibility to your target audience, but it requires dedicated media spend and ongoing optimization to maintain performance.
3. Affiliate traffic: Through affiliate networks, businesses can leverage the power of affiliate marketers who promote their products on affiliate sites. These affiliate marketers are paid a commission based on the sales they help generate, offering a performance-based approach to traffic generation. Related affiliate marketing is a model where affiliates have some connection to a niche audience, promoting products that align with their audience’s interests.
4. Email marketing traffic: Email marketing is a powerful, cost-effective channel for driving sales and customer engagement. A well-executed email campaign allows you to reach an already engaged audience with personalized, targeted messages.

Choosing the right type of traffic is essential for reaching your campaign objectives and generating leads from your potential customers.

6 steps to effective media buying

Commerce media is rapidly gaining recognition as one of the most powerful tools for media buyers to enhance the effectiveness of their advertising campaigns. It is a game-changing approach that connects marketing efforts directly to commerce, offering a highly effective and measurable way to target potential customers during their buying journey. Here are the key benefits of commerce media and why media buyers should integrate it into their marketing strategy:

1. Incremental revenue growth without cannibalization

One of the most significant advantages of commerce media is its ability to drive incremental revenue without cannibalizing other marketing channels. Unlike traditional advertising methods that sometimes compete with organic or affiliate traffic, commerce media works in harmony with existing channels. It allows media buyers to tap into new customer touchpoints without negatively affecting other campaigns or diminishing the value of earned media. For example, rather than simply focusing on general paid ads, commerce media connects with users when they are already in a purchasing mindset making it a complementary strategy that amplifies rather than overlaps with your marketing mix.

2. Targeted and personalized ad experiences

Commerce media thrives on delivering highly personalized and contextually relevant ads to consumers. This is crucial for media buyers, as personalized offers and targeted ad experiences can drastically increase conversion rates and customer engagement. Commerce media leverages real-time data to understand consumer behavior and intent, allowing advertisers to reach their audience with timely offers tailored to specific needs, using attention rather than forcing it.

This level of personalization helps media buyers create more effective campaigns that resonate with users, increasing the chances of turning leads into actual sales. Personalization can be the difference between a passive viewer and an engaged customer ready to make a purchase.

3. Full transparency and measurability

One of the common challenges faced by media buyers with traditional digital advertising platforms is the lack of transparency in ad placements and performance data. Often referred to as “black-box” systems, these platforms make it difficult for advertisers to see where their ads are placed, how they are performing, and how their budget is being utilized.

Commerce media offers a stark contrast by providing full visibility into where ads are shown, how much is being spent, and the results being generated. This transparency empowers media buyers to make informed decisions, optimize their campaigns in real-time, and allocate their media spend more effectively. With measurable results and clear insights, buyers can continuously improve campaign performance, maximizing the return on investment (ROI).

4. Cross-selling and up-selling opportunities

Commerce media allows media buyers to unlock new opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling. By placing ads in environments where consumers are already making purchasing decisions—such as retail media networks or e-commerce platforms—media buyers can present related or complementary products that consumers are more likely to purchase.

For instance, if a user is shopping for fitness gear on an e-commerce site, commerce media can help display ads for supplements, workout apparel, or fitness tracking devices, increasing the likelihood of additional purchases. This approach helps brands increase the overall customer lifetime value (CLV) by presenting products at the right moment in the consumer’s journey.

5. A cost-effective strategy

Commerce media can be a cost-effective alternative for media buyers, especially when compared to broader digital advertising channels that may not offer the same level of specificity or relevance. Because commerce media focuses on consumers who are closer to the point of purchase, it often results in higher-quality leads and better conversion rates, which means less wasted ad spend.

In addition, commerce media’s non-cannibalizing nature ensures that brands are not simply shifting revenue from one channel to another but are instead creating new streams of revenue through incremental opportunities. This efficiency makes it easier for media buyers to stretch their budget and achieve more with less.

6. Enhanced consumer trust and engagement

Commerce media also helps build consumer trust by placing ads in environments where users are already comfortable and familiar. By embedding relevant ads into the shopping experience, brands can deliver promotional messages in a non-disruptive, native manner, fostering positive engagement. As consumers interact with these ads while already actively involved in shopping or browsing, they are more likely to view the brand as helpful and relevant, further boosting trust and brand affinity.

Top 5 ad exchange platforms for digital marketing

For those managing a media buy, choosing the right ad exchange platform is key to maximizing reach and efficiency. Here are five top platforms that media buyers should consider:

1. Zeropark Commerce Media. Robust performance marketing solutions, enabling media buyers to access diverse sources of conversions. With advanced targeting options and managed media buying services, Zeropark empowers advertisers to effectively reach their desired audience while optimizing their campaigns for maximum impact across various publishers without hidden fees.
2. Google Ads. The biggest player on the market. It offers a massive reach across the Google ecosystem, providing access to high-quality traffic with precise targeting options, and allowing brands to connect with their target audience in various formats. However, it’s limited only to Google Search traffic, which may be limiting for some advertisers. The most common objection to Google Ads is the lack of transparency, although the scale of supply is incredible.
3. Criteo. Performance-driven advertising, leveraging algorithms to deliver personalized ad experiences. Criteo offers a wide reach across multiple channels, enabling brands to effectively retarget users and drive conversions.
4. Sovrn. It connects advertisers to a diverse inventory of high-quality traffic. The platform offers advanced targeting in the RTB ecosystem, enabling brands to reach their desired audience effectively.
5. PubMatic. Known for its premium publisher relationships, PubMatic allows advertisers to connect with audiences via programmatic advertising on a variety of digital platforms.

Conclusion

Media buying plays a pivotal role in shaping your overall marketing campaigns, helping you reach your audience and achieve your business goals. By leveraging the steps outlined in this guide—conducting in-depth market research, choosing the right platforms, and incorporating commerce media — you can create effective, high-performing campaigns that attract customers and generate leads.

Most importantly, commerce media offers a forward-thinking approach to media buying, providing an incremental, transparent, and non-cannibalizing solution. By integrating it into your strategy, you can maximize your media buying efforts and drive long-term success for your business.

Gabriela Cendrzak