Media buying

In advertising management, media buying is the procurement of media inventory. The media buying function negotiates price and placement for advertisements.

Media Buyers

Media buyers (also known as "practitioners in media") negotiate and purchase audience targeted time and advertising space to convey a marketing message.

They consider station formats, pricing rates, demographics, geographic, and psychographics relating to the advertiser's particular product or key performance indicator. All media inventory goes through phases of optimisation, which is dependent on budget, type of medium (radio, internet, TV, print etc.), target audience and targeting. Media buyers can purchase media inventory regionally or nationally. National media buyers might have to factor in considerations based on their particular geography.

TV Buying

Rates, demand of leads, space, and time, and state licenses vary by state. National media buyers need national media planning to generate national media marketing strategies and national media advertising that can be adaptable from area to area but also work on a national level.

Media planning

Media planning is generally outsourced to a media agency and entails sourcing and selecting optimal media platforms for a client's brand or product to use. The job of media planning is to determine the best combination of media to achieve the marketing campaign objectives.

In the process of planning, the media planner needs to answer questions such as:

Choosing which media or type of advertising to use can be especially challenging for small firms with limited budgets and know-how. Large-market television and newspapers are often too expensive for a company that services only a small area (although local newspapers can be used). Magazines, unless local, usually cover too much territory to be cost-efficient for a small firm, although some national publications offer regional or city editions.