What are the best ways to allocate your digital media buying budget?

1 Define your objectives and KPIs

Before you start spending any money, you need to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve with your digital media buying. Are you looking to raise awareness, generate leads, drive conversions, or build loyalty? What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) that will measure your success? How will you track and report them? Having a well-defined strategy and a set of measurable goals will help you allocate your budget more effectively and efficiently.

3 Choose the right channels and platforms

Once you have a clear picture of your objectives and your audience, you need to choose the right channels and platforms to reach them. There are many options available, such as search engines, social networks, websites, blogs, podcasts, video platforms, and more. Each one has its own advantages and disadvantages, depending on your goals, budget, and audience. For example, search engine marketing (SEM) can help you increase your visibility and traffic, while social media marketing (SMM) can help you engage and interact with your audience. However, SEM can be costly and competitive, while SMM can be time-consuming and unpredictable. Therefore, you need to weigh the pros and cons of each channel and platform, and select the ones that best suit your strategy and budget.

4 Optimize your campaigns and creatives

After choosing your channels and platforms, you need to optimize your campaigns and creatives to ensure that they deliver the best results. This means testing different variables, such as keywords, headlines, images, videos, colors, fonts, calls to action, and more. You also need to monitor your campaigns and creatives regularly, and analyze their performance using metrics such as impressions, clicks, conversions, cost per action, and return on ad spend. By doing so, you can identify what works and what doesn't, and make adjustments accordingly. You can also use tools such as A/B testing, multivariate testing, and artificial intelligence to optimize your campaigns and creatives automatically.

5 Allocate your budget dynamically and flexibly

Finally, you need to allocate your budget dynamically and flexibly, based on your objectives, audience, performance, and market conditions. You should not stick to a rigid and fixed budget allocation, but rather adapt and adjust it as you go along. You should also allocate your budget across different channels and platforms, and diversify your media mix. This will help you reach your audience more effectively, and avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. You should also allocate your budget based on the value and potential of each channel and platform, and not just on the cost. For example, you may spend more on a channel that has a higher conversion rate, or on a platform that has a larger and more engaged audience. You should also allocate your budget based on the stage of the buyer journey, and the type of content and message that you want to deliver. For example, you may spend more on awareness campaigns at the top of the funnel, or on remarketing campaigns at the bottom of the funnel.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?