Media Buying 101: Introduction To Inventory (A Step-By-Step Guide) – Part 1
With quality score becoming stricter and stricter it seems that affiliates are turning to media buying to drive targeted traffic to their offers. Media buying, also referred to as Display Advertising, occurs when you purchase banner inventory on a site, network of sites, or an Ad Exchange (ie: AdBrite). Media buying is a very powerful resource that has the potential to generate almost an unlimited amount of traffic to your offers. I’ve personally been involved in media buying for over ten years now; both as an advertiser and as a publisher.
Since 1999 I’ve owned websites where my primary business model was to sell as much banner inventory as I could at a high CPM (cost per one thousand impressions). Throughout the years, I’ve been very successful doing this, making hundreds of thousands of dollars. I can remember the days before “pop-ups” where you could sell 468×60 US inventory for $4 CPM with an unlimited cap. Nowadays this is very rare. Sites not only sell 468×60 inventory, but they’ve expanded their sizes to 728×90 leaderboards, 300×250 boxes, 120×600 skyscrapers, 160×600 wide skyscrapers, and pop-ups/pop-unders. This provides affiliates with many more options at a lot lower prices!
All of this sounds great, but to even the most experienced SEM (search engine marketing) affiliate, media buying can be a daunting task getting started. I’ve talked to several affiliates at conferences that think since they’re purchasing traffic from Pulse 360 and/or AOL Sponsored Listings that they’re media buying. While you are buying media on a particular network of sites, you’re still purchasing your traffic by-the-click, so I still consider this a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign. Media buying is when you actually approach a website, network of sites, or an ad exchange, agree on the amount of inventory at a particular CPM, sign an Insertion Order, and proceed to run your campaign.
Let me explain further using a real-life example…
Let’s say I have my offers/landing pages/tracking software ready to go. I use my research (I’m going to write a post on media buying research very soon) I decide I want to advertise on WrestlingNewsWorld.com (this is a site I own, so I’m using it as an example). According to my research, this site seems to match the exact demographic s for my offer and I strongly feel I can generate a ROI (return on investment). I contact the webmaster of the site via email. A sample email could look like the following:
To Whom It May Concern:
I’m interested in purchasing banner inventory on your website, WrestlingNewsWorld.com. I own a direct response marketing company based in the United States, and according to our research, your site matches the demographics to one of our latest campaigns. We’re very flexible and would love to begin a relationship that would be mutually beneficial. If you could, please email me back with your media kit and rate card at your earliest convenience. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at (XXX) XXX-XXXX.
Thank you very much for your time, I greatly anticipate your response.
Sincerely,
Ryan Gray
SuperAffiliateTwins.com
Feel free to use my email as a template, just remember who helped you out;). Most-likely the site owner will contact you back with their advertising information. Once you decide how much money you’re willing to invest on this particular campaign, you tell the site owner how much inventory you want to purchase. They’ll then draft up an Insertion Order. This is a formal document that displays the amount of inventory you’re buying, the price you’re paying, and the terms you agree to pay on. If you’re a new media buyer, chances are, you’re going to have to pre-pay this webmaster to gain their trust.
I recommend starting with a low amount (an amount you don’t care burning if things don’t work out). This could be an amount as low as $100. You don’t have to purchase a ton of inventory to become a successful media buyer. Start small and expand as you become more confident in your skills.
All Insertion Orders carry an outclause. These range from 24 hours until a week. If you’re new to media buying I suggest negotiating no more than 48 hours, so if the buy doesn’t work out, you can stop without any further financial commitment.
Once you start your buy be sure to track, optimize, track, optimize, track, optimize, etc. If you think your campaign is optimized, you better optimize some more. By completing these steps, you have the potential to take your affiliate campaigns to a whole new level. In the coming week’s I’m going to be conducting a series of posts titled “The Newbie’s Guide To Media Buying.” If you’re a newbie or expert affiliate, you’re not going to want to miss the tips I give to aide your campaigns, so be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed!
Good luck!
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RSS20 Responses to “Media Buying 101: Introduction To Inventory (A Step-By-Step Guide) – Part 1”
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Look forward to the new series… I just started media buying through some ad networks (adbrite, buysellads.com etc.)… Not a huge result as of yet, but there’s a ton of potential
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Ryan says:
Thanks for the comments guys.
My future posts are going to talk in-depth about how to track and optimize your campaigns as well as how to use an ad server effectively.
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Ryan, I’ve recently stumbled upon to your blog. I can honestly say you guys run one of the most informative affiliate blogs in the industry.
I personally try to help the newbies in affiliate marketing as much as I can, and I know how time consuming it can be to write informative posts like this one.
Keep up the great work.
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Ryan says:
Thanks Kirtok for the compliment, that is much appreciated!
Yes, it does take time to write posts such as this, but I have to say it’s one of my hobbies. My very first website I EVER created in 1998 was a resource site dedicated to helping webmasters developing their sites. Since then, I’ve always wanted to start another ‘webmaster resource’ but until now, I haven’t had the opportunity (one of my companies were in deep negotiations a few years ago to buy one of the larger webmaster sites, but the deal fell through). Thanks again for your support, I hope to see you continue to visit!
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Ryan, superaffiliatetwins.com is already added to my daily RSS.
What a coincidence. My first site was a geocities site I’ve started back in 1996, and it was about helping people to build sites and make money online (at that time, I had no clue about how to make money online) 
Hope to meet you guys at one of the next industry events. And when you guys are in NYC next time, I’d like to invite you to lunch/dinner to meet my team.
I have one “not a big deal” recommendation about the blog. Enabling threaded (nested) comments really helps with creating a nice discussion below your posts.
Again, keep up the great work.
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Ryan says:
Yeah, I’ll def let you know when we’re in NYC next.
BTW: Great Suggestion. I’ll have our designer make the necessary changes to the template! 
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I have been trying to get in to media buying. When I find a site and send them an email I never hear back, I reckon less then 5% respond. Hard to stay motivated.
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Ryan says:
ubot… It seems like we’ve ran into this a lot recently (especially internationally). I would recommend using some direct negotiation techniques. Offer to pay them upfront or try to call them on the phone. Keep trying tons of sites, I’m sure you’ll eventually get some to respond. Remember, making your email to them as personable as possible increases your chances!
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Hey there
I’ve actually done a few media buys, and they are indeed a fantastic traffic source. The one disapointed thing however that I keep encountering over and over (1000 times over) is that 99.99% of the sites fall into one of two categories
1) no traffic, doable CPM’s (complete shit for volume)
2) great traffic, great demo, but 100% branding with absolutely absurd $5 CPMS, sometimes as high as $20. Yeah f’ing right
This may seem like a stupid statement but, it seems that I can’t find many sites within the top alexa sites that actually FIT into this category of 3) the perfect site with reasonable CPM’s and good traffic.
have you encountered this too my good man?
T-wheezy
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Ryan says:
Travis,
Both of these can be problems, however, there is always a solution to them. Trust me, we’re living proof! Anyways let me try to assist you.
1) If you have a doable CPM but low volume, the solution is to get more low volume sites (obviously). You have to really look hard. I like to search Alexa, Quantcast, and Google Ad Planner (I’ll explain in my next guide) to find a list of about 1,000 sites that match my demographics. I then try to get that list down to 50 or 100 domains I think would work. Then it’s time to start emailing! Out of those 1,000 sites you’re bound to find a winner. No it’s not easy, but remember this is a business that takes a lot of hard work!
2) You need to do whatever you can do get them to drive the CPM down. Tell them you’ll pre-pay them $5,000 if you can do a test at $2 CPM. If you’re not prepared to spend $5K yet, then you’re going to have to continue with lots of smaller sites with $100 or so on each. Also ask what they sell their ‘remnant’ (un sold/remaining) inventory at. We’ve went as far as committed to a six-month insertion order, but of course you don’t want to do that until you know the site is going to convert.
I know it may seem right now that you can’t find any sites, but don’t look at the ‘top’ alexa sites. Don’t forget about all of the top 100,000 websites. My next guide should give you some more information on how to go about finding ‘perfect’ site to buy inventory on.
Good luck man, thanks for visiting!
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Hey Ryan,
Great post. I think you’re bang on. Media buying is all about tracking & optimizing. As an ad network owner myself, we see affiliate ads flying across our inventory more and more each month. I can tell you first hand, it works but it takes more time and attention then normal.
Here are some tips from an ad network perspective aside from individually approaching sites. (techniques can be used for both approaches)
1) Have creatives prepared for 728×90, 160×600, 120×600, 468×60 & 300×250.
2) Prepare 1-2 different creatives to split test for each size.
3) Track URLs by impression as well as clicks. (Ask your network what variables to pass through)
4) Create block lists of non-converting URLs and give them to your network AM.
5) Allow your campaign to run for at least 48 hours before making assumptions. Some ad networks could take up to 24-hours before the campaign is successfully distributed to all publishers and exchange members across their network as creatives take time to roll into full rotation.
Some ad networks will work on credit, some pre-pay – it all depends on the relationship you hold with your ad network. Ask for options.
So the big question is: How do you pick the right ad network to work with? Test them all on low budgets as Ryan mentioned. Most networks have owned and operated properties, exclusive site representation and/or exchange traffic so each have their high’s and low’s. You need to test.
Should you pay the premium site targeted CPM? or should you pay RON CPMs? To start I would advise, RON traffic targeted by category (dating, health, sports etc..). For the most part, your ads will back fill into premium sites anyways, just not in high priority but surely enough to get you the data you need to make a qualified decision on what URLs and demographics to keep targeting so that you can take priority on higher CPMs that back out in greater volume (this is your scaling plan).
RON will get you the most spread for your buck. You will also get some conversions out of it to balance your test budget. Once you have enough data, put together a real media buying plan and execute it wisely.
Hope this helps!
Ryan
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One thing about buying direct has been scalability. We primarily buy through networks and have had a lot of luck that way. But have recently shifted to direct buys. What we’re finding is that it’s really a whole business in and of itself to manage.
Doing large scale direct buys on a lot of sites almost is complex as running ads4dough.com you have so many publishers that need to be paid. Rates that need to be negotiated with each, etc. There’s really a whole business just to managing those relationships properly once you get your foot in the front door with a site.
If you keep it limited to a handful of sites you can probably do it alone. But I think to do direct buying with any scale you’d need a dedicated staff.
Just my 3 cents.
Success,
Smaxor
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Ryan says:
Smaxor,
Direct media buying does have its downfalls. John and I can both tell you some good stories about dealing with publishers direct (including some major headaches). However, it is beneficial in that we’re able to have much more control of the quality of traffic and the placement of creatives. I cannot tell you how many times networks have taken advantage of us (mostly because we are affiliates) by giving us the ‘bottom of the barrel’ traffic and locking us in an Insertion Order.
We have developed a formula that works really well for us. Once the buy is negotiated, the pay terms are agreed on, we’re able to optimize the campaign using our ad server and make a nice profit. I cannot argue the fact though, that it does take A LOT of work, time, and patience.
Thanks for commenting!
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Great post. The letter by itself would have made this a worthwhile read. Keep ‘em coming! I even learned alot from the comments.
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Great post on the basics of media buying. Smaxor is right it is a whole job in itself to do individual buys but it can be well worth it and it’s a great lower level way to start for newbies to media buying. Then once they have the basics down and feel comfortable they can move to larger buys and dealing with networks.
One useful tip that we use all the time is once you find one type of site that converts for your campaign then look at all of their competition (very similar sites) and try to get your ads on those sites as well since most times it will also convert well as the demographics are nearly identical (most of the time).
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Great post! I haven’t yet done any media buys and definitely am interested in getting started with a few test ones. Would it be possible to post a sample insertion order? Basically I’ve never seen one and don’t have insight into what clauses / stipulations are important other than what you have listed here and what I’ve read a few other places.
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Excellent post, picked up a lot on media buys from this, cheers! One thing I noticed immediately was that I read that exact email layout in Jonathan Volks AM Guide, which at the time I thought was great only to feel tricked that you are the originator of it. Some people seem to not want to give credit where credit is due I suppose!
Anyway I am enjoying your posts and will continue reading!
Look forward to the new series… I just started media buying through some ad networks (adbrite, buysellads.com etc.)… Not a huge result as of yet, but there’s a ton of potential
Ryan says: Thanks for the comments guys.
My future posts are going to talk in-depth about how to track and optimize your campaigns as well as how to use an ad server effectively.
Ryan, I’ve recently stumbled upon to your blog. I can honestly say you guys run one of the most informative affiliate blogs in the industry.
I personally try to help the newbies in affiliate marketing as much as I can, and I know how time consuming it can be to write informative posts like this one.
Keep up the great work.
Ryan says: Thanks Kirtok for the compliment, that is much appreciated!
Yes, it does take time to write posts such as this, but I have to say it’s one of my hobbies. My very first website I EVER created in 1998 was a resource site dedicated to helping webmasters developing their sites. Since then, I’ve always wanted to start another ‘webmaster resource’ but until now, I haven’t had the opportunity (one of my companies were in deep negotiations a few years ago to buy one of the larger webmaster sites, but the deal fell through). Thanks again for your support, I hope to see you continue to visit!
Ryan, superaffiliatetwins.com is already added to my daily RSS.
What a coincidence. My first site was a geocities site I’ve started back in 1996, and it was about helping people to build sites and make money online (at that time, I had no clue about how to make money online)
Hope to meet you guys at one of the next industry events. And when you guys are in NYC next time, I’d like to invite you to lunch/dinner to meet my team.
I have one “not a big deal” recommendation about the blog. Enabling threaded (nested) comments really helps with creating a nice discussion below your posts.
Again, keep up the great work.
Ryan says: Yeah, I’ll def let you know when we’re in NYC next.
BTW: Great Suggestion. I’ll have our designer make the necessary changes to the template!
I have been trying to get in to media buying. When I find a site and send them an email I never hear back, I reckon less then 5% respond. Hard to stay motivated.
Ryan says: ubot… It seems like we’ve ran into this a lot recently (especially internationally). I would recommend using some direct negotiation techniques. Offer to pay them upfront or try to call them on the phone. Keep trying tons of sites, I’m sure you’ll eventually get some to respond. Remember, making your email to them as personable as possible increases your chances!
Hey there
I’ve actually done a few media buys, and they are indeed a fantastic traffic source. The one disapointed thing however that I keep encountering over and over (1000 times over) is that 99.99% of the sites fall into one of two categories
1) no traffic, doable CPM’s (complete shit for volume)
2) great traffic, great demo, but 100% branding with absolutely absurd $5 CPMS, sometimes as high as $20. Yeah f’ing right
This may seem like a stupid statement but, it seems that I can’t find many sites within the top alexa sites that actually FIT into this category of 3) the perfect site with reasonable CPM’s and good traffic.
have you encountered this too my good man?
T-wheezy
Ryan says: Travis,
Both of these can be problems, however, there is always a solution to them. Trust me, we’re living proof! Anyways let me try to assist you.
1) If you have a doable CPM but low volume, the solution is to get more low volume sites (obviously). You have to really look hard. I like to search Alexa, Quantcast, and Google Ad Planner (I’ll explain in my next guide) to find a list of about 1,000 sites that match my demographics. I then try to get that list down to 50 or 100 domains I think would work. Then it’s time to start emailing! Out of those 1,000 sites you’re bound to find a winner. No it’s not easy, but remember this is a business that takes a lot of hard work!
2) You need to do whatever you can do get them to drive the CPM down. Tell them you’ll pre-pay them $5,000 if you can do a test at $2 CPM. If you’re not prepared to spend $5K yet, then you’re going to have to continue with lots of smaller sites with $100 or so on each. Also ask what they sell their ‘remnant’ (un sold/remaining) inventory at. We’ve went as far as committed to a six-month insertion order, but of course you don’t want to do that until you know the site is going to convert.
I know it may seem right now that you can’t find any sites, but don’t look at the ‘top’ alexa sites. Don’t forget about all of the top 100,000 websites. My next guide should give you some more information on how to go about finding ‘perfect’ site to buy inventory on.
Good luck man, thanks for visiting!
Hey Ryan,
Great post. I think you’re bang on. Media buying is all about tracking & optimizing. As an ad network owner myself, we see affiliate ads flying across our inventory more and more each month. I can tell you first hand, it works but it takes more time and attention then normal.
Here are some tips from an ad network perspective aside from individually approaching sites. (techniques can be used for both approaches)
1) Have creatives prepared for 728×90, 160×600, 120×600, 468×60 & 300×250.
2) Prepare 1-2 different creatives to split test for each size.
3) Track URLs by impression as well as clicks. (Ask your network what variables to pass through)
4) Create block lists of non-converting URLs and give them to your network AM.
5) Allow your campaign to run for at least 48 hours before making assumptions. Some ad networks could take up to 24-hours before the campaign is successfully distributed to all publishers and exchange members across their network as creatives take time to roll into full rotation.
Some ad networks will work on credit, some pre-pay – it all depends on the relationship you hold with your ad network. Ask for options.
So the big question is: How do you pick the right ad network to work with? Test them all on low budgets as Ryan mentioned. Most networks have owned and operated properties, exclusive site representation and/or exchange traffic so each have their high’s and low’s. You need to test.
Should you pay the premium site targeted CPM? or should you pay RON CPMs? To start I would advise, RON traffic targeted by category (dating, health, sports etc..). For the most part, your ads will back fill into premium sites anyways, just not in high priority but surely enough to get you the data you need to make a qualified decision on what URLs and demographics to keep targeting so that you can take priority on higher CPMs that back out in greater volume (this is your scaling plan).
RON will get you the most spread for your buck. You will also get some conversions out of it to balance your test budget. Once you have enough data, put together a real media buying plan and execute it wisely.
Hope this helps!
Ryan
One thing about buying direct has been scalability. We primarily buy through networks and have had a lot of luck that way. But have recently shifted to direct buys. What we’re finding is that it’s really a whole business in and of itself to manage.
Doing large scale direct buys on a lot of sites almost is complex as running ads4dough.com you have so many publishers that need to be paid. Rates that need to be negotiated with each, etc. There’s really a whole business just to managing those relationships properly once you get your foot in the front door with a site.
If you keep it limited to a handful of sites you can probably do it alone. But I think to do direct buying with any scale you’d need a dedicated staff.
Just my 3 cents.
Success,
Smaxor
Ryan says: Smaxor,
Direct media buying does have its downfalls. John and I can both tell you some good stories about dealing with publishers direct (including some major headaches). However, it is beneficial in that we’re able to have much more control of the quality of traffic and the placement of creatives. I cannot tell you how many times networks have taken advantage of us (mostly because we are affiliates) by giving us the ‘bottom of the barrel’ traffic and locking us in an Insertion Order.
We have developed a formula that works really well for us. Once the buy is negotiated, the pay terms are agreed on, we’re able to optimize the campaign using our ad server and make a nice profit. I cannot argue the fact though, that it does take A LOT of work, time, and patience.
Thanks for commenting!
Great post. The letter by itself would have made this a worthwhile read. Keep ‘em coming! I even learned alot from the comments.
Great post on the basics of media buying. Smaxor is right it is a whole job in itself to do individual buys but it can be well worth it and it’s a great lower level way to start for newbies to media buying. Then once they have the basics down and feel comfortable they can move to larger buys and dealing with networks.
One useful tip that we use all the time is once you find one type of site that converts for your campaign then look at all of their competition (very similar sites) and try to get your ads on those sites as well since most times it will also convert well as the demographics are nearly identical (most of the time).
Great post! I haven’t yet done any media buys and definitely am interested in getting started with a few test ones. Would it be possible to post a sample insertion order? Basically I’ve never seen one and don’t have insight into what clauses / stipulations are important other than what you have listed here and what I’ve read a few other places.
Excellent post, picked up a lot on media buys from this, cheers! One thing I noticed immediately was that I read that exact email layout in Jonathan Volks AM Guide, which at the time I thought was great only to feel tricked that you are the originator of it. Some people seem to not want to give credit where credit is due I suppose!
Anyway I am enjoying your posts and will continue reading!
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