Beyond a Digital Media Buy

Every ad, every impression served results in an insight, a behaviour or an action. It maps out the customer journey down the path to purchase. Through media, brands are able to deliver relevant personalised messages to the customer at the moments that matter. It eradicates breadcrumb marketing and begins to build a strong performance machine to deliver on business objectives.

Breaking down the “walled gardens”

Media buying in this new world of marketing has become more complex and demanding as customers control the path to purchase. Customers are now on multiple channels making it difficult for media planners to show channel effectiveness without fully understanding the consumer journey. It’s also time for media owners such as Google and Facebook to break down the “walled gardens”. These giants have held a monopoly on data for so long and it’s time they broke down the walls and became more transparent. If all advertising on digital results in a wealth of data about your customers, surely you should be able access this “data?” Who owns the data? Is it your agency as they manage your media buying tools? Do you have sight of the data? Are you using the power of 1st and 3rd party data to drive your desired goals? It’s time clients started to play a more active role in media buying and unpack the vast opportunity digital presents to drive bottom line growth for your business.

The continuous stream of media innovation and tools are allowing brands to connect with their consumers in a more personalised way. It’s also paving the way for marketers to apply more science to marketing than ever before. I think it’s both exciting and frustrating times for both agency and clients as they find their feet in this new world.

Transparency in media

There are a few glaring trends which are influencing the media world, such as Programmatic Buying, Performance Marketing and the rise of Marketing Automation Tools. Data is forming in real time and the opportunity is lost if brands don’t fully optimise. 2015 has seen the rise of Programmatic Buying in SA, the agility of dynamic creative and mostly the transparency of the media ecosystem. Previously media agencies controlled the conversations with media partners. Now we see that clients want to see what’s happening behind the scenes. And so they should as it means that clients are able to make more informed decisions and ensure that their digital media investment drives ROI and becomes this automated sales engine in the future.

This media world is in a state of transition and disruption. 5 years from now it’s going to be looking vastly different. We are still playing the numbers game in media buying but pretty soon you will want to be in the “data” game as that’s where all your “moola” would be coming from.