How We Do It.

Media Buying In California & Across The Nation.

Research

To develop the level of understanding that goes into every one of our plans, we rely on an extensive amount of research. We gather this information from a range of sources to help determine who to target, the most effective media, and to establish a solution to meet all these requirements.

Quantitative data remains essential for negotiating, monitoring, and assessing media campaigns but we go way beyond numbers. Our planning process reveals the true picture of people’s lifestyles, shopping patterns, media behavior, and media choices.

Planning

If the first thing you hear from your agency is “how” they will execute and not the “what” or “why,” then your agency is skipping the most important step: strategy. For us, it’s about understanding why a client is communicating in the first place, what the real opportunities are, and how to get the best possible impact for your investment.

 

This is when we get into the details of “how” we will invest your budget. The buyer develops a plan including a description of the target audience, budget allocation, timing, markets, media to be used, and effective reach and frequency levels. It is based on estimated market costs and is approved first internally and then by the client.

Media Buying

Once we’ve determined whom to target, the most effective media, and established a solution to meet all these requirements, we move into our buying phase. Our buys are a detailed implementation of our media plans, where we determine exactly where and when things will run. Putting together a media buy is like putting together a puzzle: our plan is the picture on the box we aspire toward; when we do a media buy, we work with every little piece to ensure everything fits together as a seamless whole.

We always go into negotiations well-researched and with an understanding of what will ultimately benefit the campaign objectives and increase exposure – that’s the collaboration part. Creativity comes from being able to transform a cookie-cutter offer into a tailored idea suiting client needs. Our staff is always solution-focused and open to new ideas our vendors bring to us.

We understand the importance of delivering maximum return on investment and we excel in this. We negotiate on a client-by-client basis, providing complete flexibility, and guaranteed cost savings.

Research

To develop the level of understanding that goes into every one of our plans, we rely on an extensive amount of research. We gather this information from a range of sources to help determine who to target, the most effective media, and to establish a solution to meet all these requirements.

Quantitative data remains essential for negotiating, monitoring, and assessing media campaigns but we go way beyond numbers. Our planning process reveals the true picture of people’s lifestyles, shopping patterns, media behavior, and media choices.

Planning

If the first thing you hear from your agency is “how” they will execute and not the “what” or “why,” then your agency is skipping the most important step: strategy. For us, it’s about understanding why a client is communicating in the first place, what the real opportunities are, and how to get the best possible impact for your investment.

 

This is when we get into the details of “how” we will invest your budget. The buyer develops a plan including a description of the target audience, budget allocation, timing, markets, media to be used, and effective reach and frequency levels. It is based on estimated market costs and is approved first internally and then by the client.

Media Buying

Once we’ve determined whom to target, the most effective media, and established a solution to meet all these requirements, we move into our buying phase. Our buys are a detailed implementation of our media plans, where we determine exactly where and when things will run. Putting together a media buy is like putting together a puzzle: our plan is the picture on the box we aspire toward; when we do a media buy, we work with every little piece to ensure everything fits together as a seamless whole.

We always go into negotiations well-researched and with an understanding of what will ultimately benefit the campaign objectives and increase exposure – that’s the collaboration part. Creativity comes from being able to transform a cookie-cutter offer into a tailored idea suiting client needs. Our staff is always solution-focused and open to new ideas our vendors bring to us.

We understand the importance of delivering maximum return on investment and we excel in this. We negotiate on a client-by-client basis, providing complete flexibility, and guaranteed cost savings.

Ethnic Media Buying.

When you’re looking to target your audience by ethnicity, Media Solutions provides the strategy and execution to deliver your message to diverse groups.

Finding niche groups begins with a data-centric approach. Our comprehensive research facilitates this model. This, in turn, builds relevance through high returns tracked from action-taking results from people of color.

Recognizing that non-English speakers and English learners may prefer receiving information in their native tongue, we work to reach them directly with core client messages in alignment with their identity and cultural beliefs.

Our Research Tools.

Your message is meaningless if it falls on deaf ears. We work with our clients and use our extensive research capabilities to determine who will be most receptive toward your message.

NIELSEN

NIELSEN allows us to make educated decisions about reaching the right audience. We use the most recent books for any market we are buying to give us insight into a specific daypart, program, or station’s recent performance among our target demographic. Once a campaign has run, we use the new books to ensure the stations have all met their goals and ensure accountability.

NIELSEN SCARBOROUGH 

Scarborough surveys more than 210,000 people across the country to capture consumer trends within specific markets. We use the seemingly endless details about local consumer shopping habits and media preferences; technology adoption and social media usage; demographics, voting patterns and more; Nielsen Scarborough local insight measurements go well below the surface of a specific consumer audience to reveal what matters most to them.

STRATA

STRATA is a powerful suite of planning and buying tools that allows us to closely monitor every aspect of a buy, from our planning metrics (reach, frequency, gross rating points, cost per point) to our fulfillment and monitoring (booking, posting, tracking).

SQAD

SQAD provides real, reliable advertising and media cost data based on market and quarter. SQAD is recognized as the industry standard media cost forecasting source for national TV, Spot TV, Hispanic Spot TV, Spot Radio, and even Digital! We use SQAD to see what others in the market are paying and use it as a starting point for any negotiations.

Web Analytics & Tracking

We regularly monitor various campaign metrics in order to enhance, improve, and evaluate the success of a campaign. We track impressions, click-throughs, or actions (like purchases or form submission) and monitor the success of various creative and media through standard reporting metrics.

However, these often do not tell the whole story. Media Solutions can also track secondary metrics such as organic search traffic and spikes in direct site traffic to evaluate the awareness and recall of ads as well as site performance and engagement. We do this by generating small pieces of code for tools like Google Analytics or tracking pixels and instructing clients on how to place that code within their website pages to give us access to these secondary metrics.