Establishing an identity and presence online is one of the most important things that any business can do today. While there are many different forms of marketing available, one of the more popular options comes in the form of media buying. 

A sub-section of advertising management, media buying takes place when a company or individual responsible for a company's advertisement strategies purchases real estate on a site. To become a truly amazing media buyer, you need to master the art of negotiating placement and price to ensure that you're getting the best possible value for your money. This will enhance your chances for ultimate ad viewability and user interaction.

1. Identify Your Target Market

No professional media buyer would ever dream of getting started with a bid before they've gotten a clear understanding of the type of customer they want to target. Whether you have a specific product or service that you want to promote, or you're simply trying to get an idea into the right social circles, you need to make sure that you're reaching the audience that is most susceptible to whatever you have to say.

Identifying your target market is essential if you want to ensure that your marketing efforts don't simply get wasted on low-quality traffic and wasted time. Start by looking at the demographics of the types of sites where you may benefit from advertising - considering sex, age, status, and the location of your visitors. Careful planning should help you to adjust your advertisements to meet the interests of potential customers and leads.

2. Plan the Aesthetics

As with most things in business, the success of your media buying campaign comes down to a great deal of planning. Within the world of ads, it's often about making sure that you have the right look to grab your audience's attention. This means not only thinking about how your advertisement is going to look when it shows up on a desktop screen, but also how it will look when presented on tablets, mobile devices, and so on. Responsive design is crucial in today's world and if you fail to optimize your ad, you could be missing out on some serious traffic.

3. Create a Reasonable Budget

Whether you're purchasing media for an agency client or your own company, you should always treat the budget as though it was your own money. Having an ad budget that has been clearly set out ahead of time is an important step in managing your media buying expertise. This will allow you to determine which methods are most appropriate to the goals you're trying to achieve, according to the cash you have to spend. It's possible to buy ads that run monthly, hourly, or by the click, and having a budget will help you to decide which option is right for you.

4. Compare and Contrast

When you're choosing the ideal location for your advertisement to be shown, don't be afraid to do a little comparison shopping. By making a shortlist of similar media outlets, you'll be able to find out which ones offer the most competitive rates for the best advertisement positions. But remember that it isn't all about finding the website that charges the least. At the end of the day, you will hope to achieve lead generation and higher sales numbers. Eventually website quality will impact these things. Sometimes paying more is worth it, if the website in question will get you the exposure that you need.

5. Expand Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Although placing your advertisements on high-profile websites is a great way to generate new traffic, it's worth pushing the envelope from time to time, and seeing what you can get out of it. You'll often find that you can get fantastic deals in media buying because the network, site, or newsletter in question is new and just getting started. If you're lucky enough to find an opportunity like this, you could find that you end up paying very little money for huge returns.

6. Track Everything

Just like anything else in online marketing, great online media buying is all about making sure that you track everything and analyze your results. Calculating ROI may seem boring and trivial, but a lot of beginners begin their advertising efforts without paying attention to their current stats. How are you supposed to know whether your campaign is actually converting people, unless you have solid proof to look at? It may be faster to forget about tracking, but it's also a quick way to lose money on advertising.

7. Remember Creativity

Finally, make sure that your creative efforts don't become an afterthought in your advertising campaigns. Too many companies overspend on their online media buying, only to neglect the ad creative as a result. The truth is that you need to know what your campaign message is before you spend any cash on media. Ensuring that your advertisement gets seen is important, but not as important as delivering the right message.