pr pros guide to paid media

THE PR PRO’S QUICK GUIDE TO PAID MEDIATHE PR PRO’S QUICK GUIDE TO PAID MEDIA

© 2014 ACCESS COMMUNICATIONS

THE PR PRO’S QUICK GUIDE TO PAID MEDIA

INTRODUCTIONDespite the massive explosion of media over the past decade consumers

continue to trust authentic opinions and recommendations. According

to Nielsen, 84 percent of consumers worldwide say they trust earned

media, including word-of-mouth and recommendations from friends

and family, over all other forms of advertising. What’s more — when

it comes to consumer action, 70 percent trust consumer opinions

posted online.


THE NOT SO GOOD NEWS? Business Insider’s Jillian D’Onfro summed it up perfectly when she wrote,

“Headlines don’t last long.” There is so much content being generated

on a daily basis that a single earned media placement no longer has the

same impact it once did. Savvy public relations professionals recognize

they need to leverage paid media — once strictly the domain of those

in the advertising world — in order to guarantee their earned media is

seen by the target audience beyond organic reach.

Paid media terminology may sound like a foreign language to those

without an advertising background, so we’ll review a framework for

integrated media engagement, break down several key paid media

phrases and explain why they matter to communications professionals

across disciplines.


+ PAID Content that brands pay to have placed on various channels in order to get in front of target audiences. Examples: television spots, banner ads, social ads, sponsorships, etc.

+ EARNED Online or print coverage garnered when brands work with traditional and digital media to secure placements about their company or products without compensation.

+ SHARED Content produced by or about a brand that is then shared by consumers with their personal audiences. Examples: Re-Tweets, Facebook shares, Re-Pins, etc.

+ OWNED Channels owned, controlled and maintained entirely by brands themselves that are used to distribute content. Examples: company website, corporate blog, newsletter, YouTube channel, etc.

Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned (PESO)Media disciplines that have traditionally operated in silos must be tightly integrated in order

to reach today’s consumer in a meaningful way. The paid, earned, shared and owned

(PESO) framework is a powerful tool that can help guide the planning process for integrated

campaigns. With each media type working to compliment one another, brands are able to

holistically engage a target audience throughout the path to purchase.


PAIDNew Audiences

SHAREDNew Audiences,

Customers, Employees, Fans, Followers

CONTENTOWNEDCustomers, Employees, Fans, Followers

EARNEDNew +

FamiliarAudiences

Advocates Brand JournalismPromoted ContentNative Ads

Display AdsPaid Search

WebsiteBlogMobile AppEmailMicrosite

Promoted ContentCompany Spokesperson

CommentsSharesLikesRe-Tweets

InfluencersCommentsSharesLikesRe-Tweets

Media CoverageBlog Coverage


BIDMost online ad display networks are auction style markets, where groups of advertisers bid

on an ad slot being served to a user (impression). Advertisers will set their bid price to what

they’re willing to pay for either a click or impression. The frequency an ad is served and the

cost at which it is served is determined based on market conditions and how competitive an

advertiser’s bid is compared to others bidding on the same audience.

OFFER / BID

FUN FACT Auctions have been present in various forms throughout history, with the first recorded auctions taking place as early as 500 B.C.


CPC/PPCGenerally, the cost-per-click (CPC) or pay-per-click (PPC) model refers to a cost metric an

advertiser pays for each click on an ad. CPC can also refer to a bid type, where an advertiser

only pays if an ad is clicked on.

Internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $42.8 billion for the full year of 2013, an increase of 17% over 2012 according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).


CPMCPM is the most common method for pricing digital advertising, referring to the cost per

thousand impressions. CPM generally refers to the competiveness of an audience; if an

audience is small or being targeted by a large number of advertisers, the CPM will be high.

Like the CPC metric, CPM can also refer to a bid type that an advertiser defines in their

advertising campaign. That said, most campaigns are run utilizing CPC bidding because it

measures the interactions performance advertisers care most about.


WHAT’S AN IMPRESSION?A cross-industry initiative known as Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) has

championed a movement to embrace the Viewable Impression metric for display

advertising. According to the group’s latest guidelines, 50 percent of pixels must

be in the viewable portion of an internet browser for a minimum of one continuous

second in order to qualify as a viewable display impression.


CTRThe click through rate (CTR) refers to the percentage of people that, when served an ad, click

on it. Click through rates vary from network to network, but generally CTRs sit below 1%. In

CPC campaigns, the high CTRs back out to lower CPCs because ad networks favor individual

ads and advertisers with proven high CTRs.


CTAThe call to action (CTA) is an explicit encouragement for the user that is served the ad to

engage in a particular way. It is a best practice to have a call to action in all advertising

and you generally want to have a CTA that combines an eye-catching visual, a clear value

proposition and copy that inspires people to act.

Subscribe!


TARGETINGWhen running a digital campaign, advertisers can select targeting criteria to define the

audience they will bid on. Targeting criteria corresponds to demographic qualifiers (age,

gender, geo location) and additional information about who they are as a group and how they

behave online. This information can be pulled and compiled based on the online properties

they visit, the pages they like on Facebook, or information they provide about themselves on

social networking profiles.


RE-TARGETING & RE-MARKETINGAdvertisers leverage retargeting (or remarketing) campaigns to reengage individuals who have

already interacted with the brand in some way. Generally, remarketing campaigns are pixel-

based (see “tracking pixel” on page 13), but they can also leverage custom audience targeting

(see “custom audiences” on page 15) or email remarketing. Advertisers utilize retargeting

campaigns because conversion rates tend to be higher; the users have already interacted with

the brand on some level, whether it be viewing a product (and then abandoning the item),

entering their email address, or having previously made a purchase.


TRACKING PIXELA tracking pixel (sometimes known as a ‘cookie’) is a piece of code embedded in a webpage

that, when triggered, gives the website information about how that specific user has behaved on

the site. For instance, if you view an item on an ecommerce website, then add it to your cart, but

ultimately don’t end up purchasing the item, the website will see that you fired pixels associated

with the first three steps in the conversion process (landing page, product view, add to cart). It

can take that information and remarket the item you viewed or added to your shopping cart in

the form of an ad on Facebook, Promoted Tweet on Twitter or an ad on display channels.

Tracking pixels live in your browser for up to 45 days (depending on your browser settings and

privacy rules dictated by the ad network), so it can track your interactions with a brand up to a

month and a half after you initially visit a website. For instance, if you click on an ad and visit

a website on day-0 and return to that website on day-7 and make a purchase, tracking pixels

enable us to attribute that purchase back to the initial click on the ad.


INTEREST TARGETINGAdvertisers will leverage interest targeting to create an audience of new users that have

interacted with specific brands or properties or have shared content related to a specific topic.

For instance, if an advertiser is running a user acquisition campaign for a trendy women’s

clothing brand, they could leverage interest targeting to reach women who like J. Crew,

Nordstrom, and Michael Kors on Facebook or who follow fashion and style on Twitter.


CUSTOM OR TAILORED AUDIENCES“Custom audiences” refer to a retargeting mechanism on Facebook that enables an advertiser

to target people based on their email addresses. The advertiser can simply upload a .csv file

of customer email addresses to specify the audience to be targeted. The email addresses must

match the one the user associated with their Facebook profile to validate for targeting. Often

times advertisers will leverage this type of campaign to try to get individuals who have registered

for a website, but have never purchased or who have purchased once but never returned to try

to facilitate a conversion. “Tailored Audiences” refers to Twitter’s version of custom audiences.


LEADS CAMPAIGNA leads campaign is an advertising campaign that focuses on collecting email addresses or

other first steps in the conversion funnel that the advertisers can later use to remarket to those

potential customers. Generally leads campaigns are the first step in an advertising strategy that

includes longer-term goals of multiple purchases or highly considered, high valued purchases.


CAMPAIGN OPTIMIZATIONOnce the ads have gathered data, the advertiser can execute optimizations based on the

information they’ve learned throughout the course of the campaign. For instance, if an audience

segment within a campaign has performed poorly, an advertiser can turn the ads running to that

segment off or lower the bids on that audience. Conversely, if there’s an image that performs

well (has a high CTR and conversion rate), the advertiser can raise bids to try to win more

impressions on all ads with that image.


WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?One of the hottest topics of the past couple years has been native advertising.

While a clear and specific definition is somewhat difficult to pin down, the growth

of the industry is not. According to eMarketer, US native ad spending on social

media alone will grow from $3.1 billion in 2014 to $5.0 billion in 2017.

Experimentation with new advertising formats isn’t limited to big brands or

specific industries. In September 2014, The New York Times launched a series

of five native ad placements on Mashable. A Times’ spokesperson told Poynter

“Our hope is to increase engagement with this audience and also gain new

loyal readers and subscribers.”


STAY INFORMEDJob one as a communications professional is to be diligent about keeping up

with the ever-changing media landscape. Communicators must be willing to

experiment and take risks with new formats and new ways of reaching the

target audience. The mindset that paid media is the responsibility of “someone

else” is short-sighted and indicative of the siloed approach of yesterday.

Get informed and stay informed on how things like native advertising and paid

media are impacting the way information is shared and consumed. Malcom X

summed it up best when he said “The future belongs to those who prepare for

it today.”


ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

+ This Week in Social Media

+ Our Digital Playbook

+ One Fundamental Change Brands Must Make to Their Digital Strategy

+ The Secrets Behind Addictive Storytelling

+ Four Key Takeaways from the Instagram vs. Vine Smackdown

http://blog.accesspr.com/social-media/

http://www.accesspublicrelations.com/access/dpb/

http://blog.accesspr.com/2013/12/digital-strategy-2014/

http://blog.accesspr.com/2014/03/addictive-storytelling-sxsw/

http://blog.accesspr.com/2014/03/sxsw-instagram-vs-vine/


ABOUT ACCESSWe are a communications agency obsessed with our clients’ success. Good enough simply isn’t

good enough for us. We create connections that count, turning brands’ audiences into activists

and stakeholders into strategic partners. We are clever storytellers who help companies find

their voice and make it heard. We knock the norm with every aspect of communications, creating

custom-designed campaigns that impact and inspire. For more than 20 years we’ve built trusted

partnerships with companies who seek to stand apart — from global brand names to emerging

growth companies and start-ups.

Want to learn more about paid media or how we can help with your communications

challenges?

www.accesspr.com


GET IN TOUCH!

https://twitter.com/accesspr

https://www.facebook.com/AccessCommunications

http://www.linkedin.com/company/access-communications

http://instagram.com/accesspr

https://plus.google.com/+Accesspr/

pr pros guide to paid media

Marketing