Media planning: three hot tips for brands

These three quick media planning tips are a sure-fire way to success

When it comes to advertising budgets, you need to know which levers to pull to get the most out of your ad spending. A well-thought-out media plan serves as an ideal basis for making the right decisions as an advertiser. In this respect, there are a range of new and old strategies that you can adopt to refresh your advertising agenda. Spoiler alert: data-driven media planning is definitely the key this year.

#1 Know your target groups inside out

The first tip is an oldie, but a goodie: an especially important success factor for marketers is understanding the needs of their target groups. This is becoming an even greater advertising focus this year, which is hardly surprising: keeping the expectations and preferences of the audience you’re addressing at the forefront of your mind and implementing data-driven campaigns on that basis can determine the success of your advertising and build a strong connection between customers and your brand. In this context, it’s worth emphasizing the importance of creating experiences that are tailored to the respective target group. To do that, you need data – and lots of it. When planning their media, marketers should therefore continue to focus on gaining and utilizing relevant information about their target groups’ demographics, interests, and other aspects. This particularly includes first-party data in a cookieless advertising world, which hasn’t completely materialized yet, but is set to in the future.

#2 Perfect your timing

Good timing is everything – not only when making life-changing decisions, but also when placing ads. Marketers should therefore implement the following “trio of success” when planning their media in 2023:

1. Send the right messages
2. to the right people
3. at the right time.

The third aspect can have a significant impact on the performance of a marketing campaign, so it’s crucial to identify when and where your target groups should be exposed to your messages – obviously the touchpoints that suit your advertising content along the customer decision journey will be ideal. Data is the key again here. Information on search behavior, buying cycles, and other aspects will give you an excellent foundation for targeted and perfectly timed media planning.

#3 Commit to quality

Many media spaces have become more expensive in recent months, while many companies have been reducing their advertising budgets. As a result, finesse will be required from marketing departments in 2023. To turn lower media budgets into worthwhile campaigns, you need to take a really close look at the advertising spaces you want to book. Not every space will turbocharge your leads – and generalized, cheap all-in-one packages definitely won’t. These are more likely to lead to wasted coverage instead of facilitating effective targeting.

High-quality and trustworthy advertising platforms may come at a price, but they pay off. This year, advertisers should therefore place more value on high-quality advertising spaces and thoroughly assess them on a strategic basis. Which brings us back to data, data, and more data – the foundation of modern media planning decisions. To make the most of this data you should also use the right tools.

Media planning in 2023 – not reinvented, but refocused

Whether precisely identifying a target group’s needs, ensuring the right timing, or selecting high-quality advertising spaces – brands can gain a competitive advantage this year by taking a quality-over-quantity approach in their media planning. Advertisers should strategize accordingly and distribute the right messages in a targeted way, both via digital and traditional analog channels. All that’s left to say is: let’s advertise!