Media Buying 101 (23)

Because I'm feeling in a giving mood. I'll post general instructions, you can spend the time to figure out the details all the info is out there.

Here's how to do a real media buy, not some self serve nonsense. Make sure you come in with a winner campaign and know your metrics (CTR, CR, eCPM, etc)

Step 1. Create a corporate site. If you're using your gmail to do this you're already fucked. Make yourself look legit create a few email aliases and act like you're a Digital Agency representing various clients.

Step 2. Get yourself a proper Ad Server. Sitescout and AdShuffle are good, but feel free to shop around. Just call up the various vendors with your new spiffy baller agency site and schedule a free demo.

Step 3. Find networks and sites to contact. Don't go for blind networks you're going to loose money. The big affs and aff networks are already there and chances are you're going to get shit traffic. They'll play the game off keep sending us more money we need more data... its BS. Use your research skills make a hit list of like 25 sites you want to contact.

Step 4. Get on the horn and get in contact with whoever you need to from your hit list. DO NOT MENTION AFFILIATE MARKTING. Just say your representing various clients and looking to purchase media on their behalf and have a $xxx,xxx budget. At this point they'll play the game of trying to get more money out of you. There's a great post Tim Ferris has about how to buy media (for print) that has a script on how to negotiate great rates. Go google that and use that to start.

Step 5. Once you get the verbal agreement you'll need to put together an IO. Again make it look professional with your "corp" looking brand. Be as specific as possible. Make sure to include the following:
- Ability to pause
- Out clause
- Daily cap

Step 6. Create your tags using the ad server send it to your sites and let 'er rip. Optimize and track everything. If there's no way to get profitable then cancell the buy, if it looks good negotiate exclusive deal or more impressions.

This way you can make a $10,000 buy quite easily because you minimize risk. Also, you never really have to send over that much money just explain your ROI focused and part of your negotiation explain you'd like to test $500 first.

There is a ton of finer points if anyone else wants to chip in, but really you just gotta get out there and loose a bit of money to learn them.

Great Start guide man!

Thanks for the post, good stuff.

I pulled together a bunch of posts from WF by Dickarmy last year about media buys. 10 pages of pure gold.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=X4O6VFM3

Sick post!

Btw this the Tim Ferris article The Angry man is talking about http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog...ing-for-10000/

Nice post! That's something I need to do first.

Great stuff. Whats the best offers to promote via media buys through agencies? I applied to a few like CasaleMedia etc. I'm thinking if I just ask them to promote an Acai or Teeth Whitener offer for my "client" that they aren't stupid and will know that Im just some affiliate since who as Acai clients? lol

Originally Posted by vidivo

Great stuff. Whats the best offers to promote via media buys through agencies? I applied to a few like CasaleMedia etc. I'm thinking if I just ask them to promote an Acai or Teeth Whitener offer for my "client" that they aren't stupid and will know that Im just some affiliate since who as Acai clients? lol

Originally Posted by mattaw

I've found casale is a brand based network, their inventory isn't the best for performance based offers. What I'd do is start on a buying platform like sitescout.com or adbuyer.com and buy brokered. Yes you'll have a small fee for the convenience, but once you find out whats working you can just cut out the middle man and go straight to the site. It's easier that way and also way less risk as most networks ask for a 5k prepay at the minimum (a lot of people don't have that cash to float around), and the ones I mentioned have low starting amounts.

Originally Posted by vidivo

Great stuff. Whats the best offers to promote via media buys through agencies? I applied to a few like CasaleMedia etc. I'm thinking if I just ask them to promote an Acai or Teeth Whitener offer for my "client" that they aren't stupid and will know that Im just some affiliate since who as Acai clients? lol

Thanks for the solid posts.

Got a question though, How should a IO look like? I'm setting up my website and logo in the meantime to look proffesional. but i don't have a clue how to set up a IO. Maybe some sort of "template" would be handy?

Also, as you have seen i also started a thread were i wanted to focus on biz ops. Now in the meantime i talked to a laywer that is specialiced in the FTC. And i was just overwelmed by the things you can not do that is seems impossible to make some converting compliant LP at this point. Would you advise me to focus on another (Safer) niche, as i am a starter in media buys or just stick with thie biz ops but do "XYZ"? I'm an international affiliate btw (dutch).

few things to consider for an IO:

Out clause - how quick you can cancel the buy - 24 - 48 hours is ok
Minimum buy - how much do you HAVE to spend minimum before you can back out
Demographic targeting options - are there any you can use to limit your irrelevant impressions
Frequency cap - How many times do you want your ad to be shown to a user per day (I personally like 2 or 3 / 24 hours, but its up to you)
Type of sites - if its a network buy, do you want certain channels to be excluded, if so what are they?
Run time - what is the time they have for the campaign and how fast is it going to be delivered? Can you budget cap your spend per day? (obviously you don't want 10k of spend to be delivered in one day without any optimization)

The benefit of buying though an exchange is obviously the ease of use, budget ec. What are your thoughts on exchanges like SiteScout, Adroll, Contextweb and Zedo?

I've been running quite a few tests on SiteScout and it allows you to target specific sites so its very transparent. They are just raping on the CPM's and I'm struggling to get anything profitable.

Originally Posted by deondup

The benefit of buying though an exchange is obviously the ease of use, budget ec. What are your thoughts on exchanges like SiteScout, Adroll, Contextweb and Zedo?

I've been running quite a few tests on SiteScout and it allows you to target specific sites so its very transparent. They are just raping on the CPM's and I'm struggling to get anything profitable.

Hey mathew, thanks for your post. But how does a real io look like? Just a pdf with the point you mentioned?

@angry russian:
Can you give me your thoughts about my last post on the first page of this topic?

Originally Posted by marcovandaar

Hey mathew, thanks for your post. But how does a real io look like? Just a pdf with the point you mentioned?

@angry russian:
Can you give me your thoughts about my last post on the first page of this topic?

Originally Posted by marcovandaar

Hey mathew, thanks for your post. But how does a real io look like? Just a pdf with the point you mentioned?

@angry russian:
Can you give me your thoughts about my last post on the first page of this topic?

oh man.. i'll forgive you for providing this eye opener (at least for me). greatly appreciated. guess it depends on the situation and how far you will go.

thanks

Originally Posted by marcovandaar

Thanks for the solid posts.

Got a question though, How should a IO look like? I'm setting up my website and logo in the meantime to look proffesional. but i don't have a clue how to set up a IO. Maybe some sort of "template" would be handy?

Also, as you have seen i also started a thread were i wanted to focus on biz ops. Now in the meantime i talked to a laywer that is specialiced in the FTC. And i was just overwelmed by the things you can not do that is seems impossible to make some converting compliant LP at this point. Would you advise me to focus on another (Safer) niche, as i am a starter in media buys or just stick with thie biz ops but do "XYZ"? I'm an international affiliate btw (dutch).

If you work on conversions you can get em up to a profitable level, it won't be the same as non compliant ones, but you can still make decent money playing by the rules... Scratch that, really good money...

I am very interested in getting into Media Buys on a larger scale and have the budget to do so. My issue is knowing when you have a campaign that is ready for a media buy. Does anyone doing Media buys have any advice on when they feel it is ready to try and scale with a media buy. Also where do you normally test your campaigns to get them ready for a Media Buy. Do you do PPC campaigns which is obviously harder to do these days. Do you do self serve platforms so you can do small tests until you feel it is ready. If you do self serve platforms can you give me a list of some of your favorites to use.

@ Clicktrack

Trying to answer with a quote stupid VBulletin times out.

Anyway here are my answers.

As soon as you have some KPI's down you're ready for media buying. The most important for media buy is your eCPM. Once you have that you know aproximately what you can bid and still have things back out (assuming everything else stays equal).

Best place to get an idea of whether something has potential is SiteScout. Recently there's a new offer I tested on there and quickly knew it had potential even though it was unprofitable, just need to either get CTR on ads much higher, or my rates lower. Anyway offer is paused and I'm working on something else now.

Comrade Mr. Angry . . . re: your manifest. I can't even imagine NOT working less than 40 hours in AM. There's so much interesting stuff to learn and to try! But, I guess some people do it for the money. (I'm a non-profit. lol)

Originally Posted by Mr Green

Sick post!

Btw this the Tim Ferris article The Angry man is talking about http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog...ing-for-10000/