03 IMGrind - Media Buying Icon.pdf

Ralph “Ruck” Ruckman & Ryan GrayIMGrind.com

MicroMastery.comMediaBuyingIcon.com

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Foreword:In the world of information overload and misinformation, Ryan and I are confident that this Media Buying Icon Manual will give you a clear direction and understanding on how to fully grasp the concept of media buying, implement your own media buys, and scale from there. For years we've managed our own 6-7 Figure media buys and as well, I formerly managed the Convert2Media Affiliate Network as the Chief Executive Officer in which I handled multiple multi-millionaire marketers purchasing Media.

Media Buying is nothing new, it's been around for years. However, never has there been a comprehensive step-by-step manual publish which would allow people the “ABC's” of Media Buying in easy to understand format and start taking part in this type of advertising. Collectively, we've been in the Industry for over 15 years and we've seen the Industry go from just a few media buying networks to now, (currently) countless networks. The industry is still growing at an exponential rate.

Armed with this manual, you will become a Media Buying Icon.

To Your Success,Ruck & Ryan

Table Of Contents

Section 1: Getting Started• Your Media Buying Dictionary• Introduction To Media Buying• Planning Your Media Buy• Preparing Your Media Buy• Optimizing Your Media Buy• Scaling Your Media Buy

Section 2: Getting Your Media Buy Running

• Niche Networks VS. Direct Site Buys• Tips To Consider When Approaching Large Advertising Networks• When You Should Use An Adserver• A Powerful Free Adserver You Can Use Right Now• Understanding Credit Terms With Media Buys• Figuring Out If Your Offer Will Work• How Many Landing Pages / Creatives You Should Try• How To Find Banner Inventory That Converts• Important Things To Remember When Setting Up Your Media Buy

Section 3: Running Your Media Buy

• Tips To Make Your Click Through Rate (CTR) Soar• Utilizing Frequency Capping To Optimize Your Media Buys• Day Parting Your Media Buys• Scaling Up The Hours Your Media Buy Converts• International Media Buying• Increasing Media Buy Effectiveness & Reach With ReTargeting• Advertising With Teracent (Google Owned Remarketing Solution)

Section 4: Media Buy Traffic Sources And Setup

• How To Setup A Media Buy On ContextWeb (Self-Serve)• Advertising On EveryDayHealth.com (Motherload Of Media)• WebMD – Serious Media Buying For Serious Advertisers• Advertising On FreeRideGames.com• 5 Media Buying Traffic Sources You Can Use Right Now

Section 5: Bonus – Read It At The End

Section 1: Getting Started

Media Buying Dictionary

Let's get started with the “lingo” used in the Media Buying Space:

Ad Server - hosted or remotely hosted software that allows you to track, optimize, and monitor media buys

Ad Tags - HTML code produced by your ad server that displays thecorresponding creatives

ATF - above the fold of a web page

BTF - below the fold of a web page

CPA - cost per acquisition

CPM - cost per one thousand impressions

CPC - cost per click

Insertion Order - formal contract binding both the buyer and seller of inventory.

CTR - click through rate

Day Parting - The hours of the day the campaign is ran.

eCPM - effective CPM

EPC - earnings per click

Frequency Cap - how many times a user will see a particular ad within a given time frame

GEO Target - targeting based of geographic location

Flight - the beginning date and ending date of a campaign

Ad Tag - HTML or javascript generated by an ad server that is to be placed

Inventory - amount of impressions

Pacing - how fast purchased impressions are delivered

Remnant Inventory - unsold impressions

ROI - return on investment

Trafficking - the process a website or network does to forecast the amount ofimpressions available for sell.

Vertical - a specific niche (ie: Health & Wellness, Beauty, Financial, etc).

Out-clause - the amount of time you have to cancel an insertion order.

Introduction To Media Buying

Media buying, also referred to as display advertising, is when a creative is placed on a website, network of websites, or an advertising network for the purpose of driving traffic or increasing brand awareness. Large companies such as McDonalds, Coca Cola, Procter & Gamble, etc. often purchase advertising inventory and pay a high CPM to have their ad appear often. They're not focused on generating traffic, rather promoting their brand or a certain product. Affiliate marketers can utilize media buying to drive large volume of traffic to offers. The most common creative sizes are (in pixels):300x250 box, 468x60 banner, 720x90 leaderboard, and 160x600 skyscraper.

A typical media buy is purchased by buying available inventory by the CPM (cost per one thousand impressions). Brand advertisers (as mentioned above) will typically pay high CPMs to garner the most volume. On most websites and advertising networks they have what's called an ad chain (very rarely will an advertisement remain static). Depending on the CPM, frequency cap, flight dates, determines the order advertisements are shown in the chain. The higher CPM ads are shown first, followed by the lower paying ones. The earlier in the ad chain a creative is shown, the higher quality of traffic that will be delivered. An example ad chain may look something like this:

McDonalds $5 CPM 2x24 frequency cap > Geico Insurance $3.50CPM 3x24 frequency cap > Affiliate Marketer $2.00 CPM 2x24

frequency cap > remnant inventory

Notice the brand advertisers will appear first: McDonalds and Geico. In my example I noted that McDonalds has a 2x24 frequency cap and Geico has a 3x24 frequency cap. In Layman's terms, this means that McDonald's creatives will be shown twice per unique visitor per day; Geico will show three. Ads further back in the ad chain typically will receive lower quality traffic and lower click through rates (this is important to remember when analyzing competition).

In my example I have an affiliate marketer third in the ad chain. Lots of times affiliates have to be placed behind brand advertisers (or even resort to purchasing remnant inventory) in order to sustain a ROI.

After understanding the technicalities to how a media buy works, it's important to remember optimization. Affiliate marketers looking to produce a direct response must remain patient and remember optimization is key. It's rare for a campaign to be profitable out of the gate. Most media buys take time and optimization to become successful.

Example media buys:

• Direct Site Buy: Weather.com (a single site buy)• Network Buy: Tribal Fusion, Value Click (networks that reach

multiple sites)• Self-Serve Network Buy: Context Web, Adbrite, Adblade, Pulse

360 (networks that allow you to come and go as you please)

Planning Your Media Buy

Before you can begin a media buy as an affiliate, you have to first decide what offer you are going to promote. I recommend promoting something that appeals to the masses: some examples include diet, financial offers, biz opp, dating, etc. Media buying traffic is not near as targeted as search engine marketing or other methods of traffic generation. You must keep in mind that you have to first get the users attention, pre-sell them, then collect payment (or a lead).

Once you decide on a vertical you need to select an offer from a trustedaffiliate network. I also highly suggest choosing more than one offer and split testing. Since every offer has a unique landing page, backend/processing system, it's very likely you'll notice differences in conversion rates. By split testing more than one offer you can decide which one works the best with the traffic you purchased. It's also important to have a backup offer. Lots of time a media buy cannot be as paused (without 24-48 hours notice). Therefore to keep from losing a lot of money, it's essential to have another offer to rate in (in-case there are problems with the original advertiser).

Next, you must decide if you're going to do a direct site buy or a network buy. I highly recommend starting with a couple of direct site buys first then scaling accordingly. When I first started media buying, my goal was $200 a day profit per site. Eventually I made enough capital to invest into much larger buys and scale my profits accordingly.

You will also need an ad server to handle tracking of the media buy. Whilesome affiliates say this is optional, I think it's a requirement. Google actually offers a free ad server for people serving less than 10 million impressions monthly. I also recommend using Prosper 202 and Google Analytics to make sure every part of the conversion process is tracked (remember, optimization is key).

A web host with the proper amount of resources is necessary. Even if you plan on starting small (as I recommend) you want to be able to scale accordingly. Typically a VPS (virtual private server) will have enough resources to run with out a lag, but I've always used a dedicated server (you can read more about this in the web hosting section). The last thing you want to worry about is your server crashing during high volumes of traffic.

Once the technical details are planned out you want to get an idea of the demographics you're trying to reach so you can being thinking about sites to purchase inventory on. There are a couple of sites I recommend to collect this data:

Double Click Ad Plannerhttp://www.google.com/adplanner

* Quantcasthttp://www.quantcast.com

* Alexahttp://www.alexa.com

* Compete.comhttp://www.compete.com

There is no wrong or right way to go about finding sites to advertise on. If your target demographic is visiting the site it's up to you as a media buyer to be able to promote the product/service accordingly. While the above tools are not 100% perfect they provide enough demographic data to get a solid idea about the sites you need to be on. Another popular 'trick' I've used successfully over the last five years is Google. Simply type in a search term of the product/service you're promoting and analyze the results. Since Google is known for relevancy, the top 10-20 sites for any given term are bound to have the demographic you're attempting to reach (ie: search for 'weight loss' and look at the top 10-20 results).

When you find a handful or two of sites you’re interested in advertising on, it’s time to contact the webmaster/director of ad sales. Being that I also sell advertising inventory here’s an example of an email template that gets my attention:

Subject:

Interested In CPM Advertising Immediately

Message Body:

To Whom It May Concern:

I’m interested in purchasing CPM banner inventory on your website,domain.com. I currently have a $100,000 monthly advertising budget and am ready to begin allocating as much of this spend to you as I can.

My company is based in the United States and focuses on direct responsemarketing to provide quality results for my clients.

If you could please contact me at your earliest convenience and let me knowyour current rates for your 300x250 creative size. Feel free to contact me at

(xxx) xxx-xxxx.

Thank you for your time, I look forward to a prosperous relationship withyou.

Sincerely,

Your NameYour Company Name

If the website/webmaster doesn’t return your email in a timely manner it’simportant to remain persistence. Without being annoying, continue to try to reach them, you may even want to ask if you can pre-pay for the first week of inventory. Anything to motivate them to sell you inventory.

Another important part of the planning stage is to decide how you’re going to handle the design/programming end of things. It’s going to be essential to have multiple creatives/landing pages to test.

If you’re not good with HTML/PHP/Photoshop it may be necessary to find someone to outsource this work. It’s surprising to see a lot of affiliates just ‘rip’ others creatives/pages. While it’s possible you may ‘luck out’ and find a page that’s already been tested, it’s also possible you could find a page that’s not yet proven. Also if you just rip your page you aren’t giving yourself a ‘competitive advantage’ over the next affiliate. If it was that easy don’t you think everyone would do it? Don’t be lazy, be innovative and watch the price of hard work and time pay off.

Before the first impression is served you need to set some goals and a budget. It’s important to set aside an amount of money that you are willing to invest and to not go over it (you don’t want to spend money you don’t have). No one can tell you this number except yourself. The lower your budget is, the smaller you have to start. If you’re doing direct site buys, you could set a budget of $1,000 and focus on spending $200 a day to become profitable. As I’ve already mentioned, it’s very rare to be profitable from the very beginning. A successful media buy is all about optimization. You have to be willing to allow your traffic to run for a few 24-hour periods to get a accurate measure on the traffic quality.

Goals should be written down and you should reward yourself once they arereached (no matter how small they are). One of your goals could to be profitable within the first week. One may be just your first conversion. Goals allow you to stay on track and remain motivated.

The last item you should plan on is how to pay for your media buy. Nothing is worse than getting a campaign ‘rocking’ and having to stop it due to lack of funds. Most affiliate networks pay weekly as long as your generating $1,000 or more in revenue. This can be a big help, but some traffic sources require a pre-payment. Some will give you terms once a credit check is completed.

Preparing Your Media Buy

Once you are finished planning and have a clear-cut plan of action, it’s time to prepare everything for traffic. The first step is to setup all your landing pages. Some buys you can also direct link to the offer, but you will definitely want to test both. I like to start with about four landing pages. Each of my first four landing pages have major differences. I want to first find the format that converts the best and then optimize based off that after I conclude what is going to work best.

Utilizing some simple rotation software you’ll have:

• Lander A• Lander B• Lander C• Lander D

Each page will receive 25% of the traffic and no changes will be made until a full 24-hour period has passed.

Once your landing pages are finished, it’s time to install necessary tracking software. The first thing I ensure that’s on all my pages is the Google Analytics javascript. This is as simple as signing up for a free account at http://www.google.com/analytics and pasting a few lines of code before the </body> tag in your HTML. This tool will monitor important aspects of your campaign including unique visitors, page views, bounce rate, time spent on site, exit pages, referring URLs, geographic information, and much more. Very powerful stuff to utilize when making optimizations.

Next, setup Prosper 202. This is another free tracking solution that will allow you to monitor a visitor’s activity once they reach your landing page. You can monitor the click through rate from the landing page to the offer as well as the overall conversion rate. This is the software that will allow you to make decisions on what landing page is working. I also enjoy the ‘spy’ feature of this software as it lets you know exactly when your media buy is live (most ad servers have a delay on reporting).

After your landing pages are ready with the necessary tracking items, it’s time to load the creatives into your ad server. Google Ad Manager is a free ad server as long as your serving under 100 million monthly impressions. This is a great way for beginners to get started (some ad servers can be very expensive). Each ad server is going to vary on how creatives are loaded, so it’s important to review of their help documents.

Historically the 300x250 box creative size garners the highest CTR out of any other size. Given this, it is also typically the most expensive inventory. Based on my experience, I normally begin each buy with just the 300x250 size. Once I get this size profitable, I’ll scale out to other sizes (I’ve also found some ‘hidden gems’ this way). With that said, when setting up your buy, I suggest starting with multiple variations of the 300x250 size. You’re going to want to test static banners, animated banners, different colors, borders, backgrounds, etc. Since your paying by the impression the CTR is your lifeline.

There is no set number of creatives you want to test because it’s going to depend on the amount of inventory you purchase. Historically I like to give each creative 250,000 impressions before making a decision. The more inventory you purchase the more creatives you can test at once. I cannot stress enough how important it is to test multiple creatives and never settle for a CTR. There is always room for improvement. None-theless at least four creatives is a good start regardless of how many impressions you purchase. This will at least give you some type of idea to what works.

When loading your creatives into an ad server it is very important to make sure you use the unique tracking link generated by Prosper 202. This will allow you to see which creative is delivering the highest conversion rate as well as CTR in real-time.

Once your landing pages are online with your tracking software installed, your creatives are loaded into your ad server (with the unique tracking links),you are ready to sign an Insertion Order with the website your buying inventory on. This is a contract-type document that states the following:

Amount of impressions purchased:

• CPM• Frequency cap• Flight date• Out clause• Payment terms

The document requires signatures of both parties. This is normally accomplished by faxing or scanning. If the website does not provide you with an Insertion Order I recommend making one with the above information. This protects your investment. It’s also important to come to an agreement on which numbers you are going to be billed on.

Most advertising networks/websites bill of their numbers but I like to make sure it’s stated in the Insertion Order that if there is more than a 10% discrepancy between the numbers an arrangement can be worked out.

The out clause of the Insertion Order is also important. Since the website or advertising network must ‘block off’ inventory to sell, they require notice if you decide to pause the campaign (if your not getting a ROI despite optimizing, your web server goes down, etc). The typical out clause time frame is 24 - 48 hours.

This means if you decide to pause the media buy, the advertiser has no obligation to discontinue billing/delivering traffic until 24 - 48 hours of you making the request (I personally watched $8,000 go up in smoke waiting on a 48 hour out clause once). Some websites are easier to work with than others.

After you have the counter signed IO, it’s time to send the website or advertising network your ad tags. These are produced by your ad server. Most ad servers give you options as to what type of code you wish to generate. I personally like javascript tags because they allow the referring URL to be shown in your analytics. IFRAME tags don’t contain this information. You have to check with the website/ad network to see what code they accept. Some ad servers also have an option to allow you to email the ad tags directly from the web interface.

Once the tags are sent, log into your Prosper 202 installation and wait for traffic to start flowing!

Optimizing Your Media Buy

Optimization is key. I’ve already said it once and I’ll continue to say it. Very rarely is a media buy profitable from the very beginning. With any type of direct-response marketing, it takes time to optimize and become profitable. If every media buy was profitable from the beginning don’t you think everyone would do it? If you remain patient and interpret the data, the reward can be very fulfilling. With that said, after 24 hours of delivered traffic, you can begin optimizing.

Many times I’ve talked to affiliates that count the buy out before they even give it a fair chance. Depending on the vertical, some hours convert better than others. I’ve woken up to media buys that were $2,000 down in the morning only to end the day with a nice profit. That is why it’s important to set a budget, not get over your head, and remember you have to trade money for data to attempt to optimize the buy.

Since you’re paying CPM with a media buy the first thing that needs to be examined is the CTR of your creatives. If you have one creative that has a substantial amount of clicks than the others, you should keep that one and pause the rest. We’ll call this the ‘winner.’ Depending on the amount of inventory you purchased, you’ll want to make 4- 8 other similar creatives to your ‘winner.’ Try different color borders, different calls to action, animation, etc. Since you already know the format works, play around until you garner an even higher CTR. Remember, that’s your lifeline when media buying.

If all of your creatives are too close to tell, you may need to give them some more time to run. If they all have a very weak CTR (ie: you’re paying more than $1 a click), you’re going to have to start over. Completely scrap the format you’re using and try something ‘outside the box.’ Also remember that ‘ugly sells.’ I’ve split tested professionally designed creatives and it always seems that the ‘ugly’ ones that take the less time work the best.

Once you make initial optimizations to your creatives you can take a look at your landing pages. There are two important things to look at: a) the CTR from your landing page to your offer and b) the conversion rate of your landing page. If you have a lot of people clicking through to the offer from your landing pages, you can feel confident that you have a solid sales copy.

If that’s the case, examine the offer’s EPC to determine if you have a ‘winning offer.’ You can ask your affiliate manager at your affiliate network of choice what’s an average EPC for other media buyers. This can help you decide if it’s the offer or your traffic.

Since you’re rotating through landing pages, sometimes after 24 hours, you can decide on the ‘winning format.’ If one landing page has a substantially higher CTR than the others, repeat the same process you did with your creatives... Create a couple different variations of the landing page to find the exact one that works the best. As with the creatives, you may need to let things run longer than 24 hours if things are ‘too close to tell.’ Remember, sometimes the smallest changes can mean the biggest change in conversions. Something as small as a headline change can completely turn the campaign profitable.

If you’re seeing a lot of clicks from your landing page to the offer but are experiencing a low EPC its possible the offer isn’t a good fit for your traffic. Several factors can be considered as to the exact reason why, but I suggest split testing two (or more) offers to begin. As with the other items, after a full 24 hours, you should be able to make a decision as to which offer is going to garner the highest EPC.

After the first seven days of running traffic, your buy should be optimized and making a profit. If you’ve followed all the optimizations mentioned and are still not coming close to being profitable it’s likely the offer isn’t going to work on that traffic. If you’re close to becoming profitable, it may take a few more days to producing a consistent ROI. Optimization takes time and patience. It’s important to remember your budget and initial goals.

Scaling Your Media Buy

When you’ve finished your optimizations and are seeing a solid profit for several days straight you’re going to want more (it’s not selfish, it’s human nature). Scaling a media buy can be make your hard work optimizing even more rewarding...

First, you want to see what other placements you can get on your current traffic source. I recommend starting with the 160x600 mega skyscraper, then to the 720x90 leaderboard, and finally the 468x80 banner (if available). You’ll have to rinse and repeat the above process regarding to optimizing the creatives to garner the best CTR. Since you already have the 300x250 working you can try your best to ‘port’ that same format over to the new size. Since the traffic is coming from the same source, it’s fine to use the landing page you’ve already optimized (not meaning you can’t test other variables once you have the new creative profitable).

Your next option to scale is buying traffic similar to the traffic you’re already profitable on. If you type the URL into Quantcast or DoubleClick Ad Planner, it lists sites that have a similar audience (I’ll demonstrate this in another post). You can also use sites like Compete.com to analyze referring data (other sites that are sending traffic).

Additionally, you can manually type in the demographics to DoubleClick Ad Planner or Quantcast and pull up a list of similar sites. Quancast will even show ad networks with similar demographics.

Once you find the next site you wish to purchase advertising on, it’s time to repeat the above process again about contacting the webmaster/director of ad sales. Since you already have an idea of what works, it’s much easier. Now, each source of traffic is going to be unique on what creative/landing pages works best, but as long as the demographics are similar, your ‘winning combination’ should produce (or come close) to producing a ROI. If you move things over and you don’t see positive results, it’s possible you’ll have to start from the beginning. Don’t get in a hurry though... Examine what exactly isn’t working and take it step-by-step before starting over.

There you go. You now have the Media Buying lingo down. You have been introduced to the world of Media Buying Marketing and now you are equipped to start planning, preparing, optimizing and scaling your media buy campaigns.

End Of Section 1

In this next section we want to really focus on getting your media buy up and running along with some other very important elements you need to consider and put into place. We’ve made this incredibly simple here in Section 2 and we have divided this up into easy to read and follow segments. There are 9 parts in total here, all within section 2.

We cannot force you to take action but we can tell you that “most” of the people who go through this course will likely just sit around and “dream” about “what could be”. You MUST take action!

Section 2: Getting Your Media Buy Running

Niche Networks VS. Direct Site Buys

Niche Networks: are where you’re likely to scale your campaigns after finding success on various direct site buys. A niche ad network is a network of sites that are in the same vertical and have inventory distributed throughout. Since the network is already concentrated on a particular niche, the traffic viewing your advertisements will be more targeted.Direct site buys: are the ‘lowest barrier to entry’ when doing media buys. If you start with just one or two sites, you can sometimes sustain a profitable media buy without a huge investment. If you’ve never had success media buying before, I highly recommend doing a few direct site buys first and expanding from there.

Tips To Consider When Approaching Large Advertising Networks

Some affiliates expect to go to a large advertising network such as Value Click, select a category of websites that correspond to the vertical they’re promoting, and expect to be profitable. High volume networks like this are going to take a lot more than a $5,000 – $10,000 test to see if things are going to work. Also due to the size of some of these companies, you have to go through a very corporate process to even get your buy live (not to even mention optimized). The best success with these networks is going to come when a product is new and very popular.

Personally, we don’t think you’re going to find your best ROI media buy here. We would save the ad networks after you’ve had success elsewhere. However once you are ready to do one of these large scale buys…

It’s time to proceed with the information below…

We’ve seen a lot of affiliates sink rather than swim on large network media buys. Many of them feel that this is the ‘holy grail’ to media buying, but this is far from the case. Before you can even consider approaching a large advertising network for your media buy (such as Tribal Fusion, Value Click, Yahoo, Burst Media, etc.) you need to make sure you’re having success on smaller networks (self serve) or similar websites. Just because you receive a huge influx of volume doesn’t mean you’re going to magically become profitable. Even when you port your ‘profitable’ campaign over to a large advertising network you need to be ready to have patience and optimize out the non-converting sites.

Here are some important items to remember before you even approach a large advertising network:

• Your campaign is already successful on a small-scale buy • You’ve been making at least 100% ROI for two weeks on smaller

advertising network/direct site buy. Don’t even consider a larger advertising network unless this has been met.

Determine if the advertising network allows the use of a third party ad server: With a large scale media buy, optimization is very important. Before you begin your buy you need to determine if the advertising network allows the use of a third-party ad server (such as Site Scout or Zedo). Most of them do, but require you to sign additional contracts. By using a third-party ad server you can quickly eliminate non-converting creatives and scale accordingly. If the advertising network doesn’t allow third-party ad servers you need to make SURE you find out how soon they can make optimizations for you. Time is money with large-scale media buys.

Determine a feasible out clause:Most advertising networks carry a 24 – 48 hour out clause which means they have that amount of time to stop your campaign once you notify them. We personally like the 24 hour out clauses, as some of these greedy ad networks will hold you out all the way through the 48 hours (and you could be dumping big money).

Analyze your credit before applying for credit terms:A lot of larger advertising networks are going to make you pre-pay your first $5,000 – $10,000 spend, however after that, they’ll normally put you on NET15 – NET30 invoicing terms. Before they grant you this, they’re going to require you to fill out a credit application. You want to make sure you list previous sources you’ve worked with and had a successful relationship with. It’s likely they will call all your references, so make sure the references are also aware of what you’re trying to accomplish.

Test with one size creative and then branch out:OK the 300×250 banner unit is most-likely going to yield the best click through rate for you. It always has for us and therefore it is going to be your most expensive unit regardless of the ad network. We like to start with this size and once it’s profitable, move into other sizes. Ad networks like to have you “bite off more than you can chew” just because it means more money to them. Get one size profitable then scale accordingly.

Have plenty of backup offers:If you’re doing a media buy for an affiliate network (ie: an offer at Neverblue) you want to make sure you check with your affiliate manager on the cap room as well as alternative offers. Nothing is more deflating than getting an offer profitable and the advertiser pulling out the next day. Make sure you have at least 2 – 4 offers to test with and 2 – 4 backup offers. This will spread your risk and help you find a certain level of consistency.

Pay special attention to the Insertion Order:You’re going to have to sign an insertion order to begin delivery. We’ve already talked about the out clause but you also need to remember important items such as geotargeting, frequency capping, and day parting. Make sure you have the optin to disabled your campaign at certain hours of the day so you’re not running during non-profitable hours. This can normally be accomplished after a day or two running.

Test a TON of creatives and landing pages:For every 200,000 impressions delivered in a 24 hour time period we like to have two creatives. If our buy has 1,000,000 daily impressions we want to make sure we’re testing at least 5 creatives (if not more). You’re going to also want to test at least four different landing page variations. Make sure you closely examine the click through and conversion rates to the offer to determine the winning combination.

Buying media on a large advertising network can be VERY rewarding but at the same time can be VERY risky. You have to MAKE SURE you have your stuff perfected before taking things to this level.

When You Should Use An Adserver

This is a question I’m asked A LOT… “when should I purchase and begin using an ad server for my media buys??” Our answer, “from the VERY beginning.” Tracking and optimizing a media buy should begin from the “get go”. Especially if you’re paying based on CPM you don’t want to serve one impression unless you’re using an ad server. Almost every ad network out there allows you to use a third-party ad server or will allow you access to their server so you can effectively track and manage your buy. If you’re not using an ad server and are paying CPM you are constantly “in the dark” on how much you have spent as well as what creative is yielding the best click through rate.

So with that said you have a few options that we recommend. First, we would go with DoubleClick’s free ad server (which we will talk about in a bit). As long as you serve under 90 million impressions a month (which is a ton) and have an active Google Adsense account, you can use this to buy media. While it does lack some conversion/optimization features that paid solutions have, you can’t argue “free.”

The other two I have used successfully are Ad Shuffle and Zedo. Ad Shuffle is by far my favorite as they don’t require any long-term contracts, are accepted by most large advertising networks, and allow multiple creative implementation and tracking options. Their user interface is a bit tricky to understand (as are both ad servers) but once you get used to it you will be able to setup a media buy in no time (you should see my fly through it). They even allow click tracking on HTML creatives which really allows me to expand my creativity.

Zedo is another good solution but they do require a stupid six-month contract with a pre-pay. At the time I moved over to Zedo I was serving so many monthly impressions, I needed something to scale past DoubleClick’s free one and had to just “buy” without really evaluating all my options. They have some nice conversion/auto optimizing features but all of their support department is in India and they are VERY hard to understand. I also ran into a few instances of “poor load time” which caused a few of my buys to get paused by the distributing network.

Another ad server that I have not used, but I’ve heard VERY good things about is Site Scout. Ruck has covered some of its features in the media buying forum. If you don’t use an ad server you’re going to learn the hard way and lose money. Trust us, we know it seems like a lot of work at first, but it is well worth the reward in the end. You NEVER want to enter into a media buy without one regardless of the circumstance.

A Powerful Free Adserver You Can Use Right NowAn ad server is an essential tool for those that wish to make money online with display advertising.

There are two basic ways an ad server is used: as an ad seller (a/k/a publisher) and as an ad buyer (a/k/a advertiser):

*Publishers selling advertisements will utilize an ad server to embed code on their pages so every aspect of the selling process can be tracked and optimized. This includes but is not limited to frequency capping, geo-targeting, fill rates, delivery forecasting, advertiser management, creative uploading, etc. Without an ad server it’s impossible to efficiently monetize your website’s traffic.*Advertisers purchasing banner inventory will utilize an ad server to provide publishers with a unique code to insert into their ad server. This way the advertiser can optimize/monitor every part of their campaign. This includes but not limited too: visitor geography, click through rate optimization, creative distribution, delivery forecasting, etc.

When I hear or see people engaging in ad buying or selling without an ad server I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the amount of money they’re leaving on the table. I’ve been doing this for over a decade and I will tell you, if you wish to make money BUYING or SELLING ads on the Internet, you will never do it successfully without an ad server. It’s that simple…

In this thread I want to highlight an ad server that is 100% free as long as you are serving under 90 million impressions a month! Obviously if you reach more than that, you’re going to need a very large solution (less than 2% of people will fall into this category). Mostly individuals reaching more than 90 million monthly impressions are very large corporations (or very serious advertisers).

With that said, the solution I want to highlight is DoubleClick for Publishers by Google (Google acquired DoubleClick for a few billion dollars years ago).

I first began using this as a publisher, then as an advertiser. The amount of revenue I’ve been able to generate using this is almost silly. To get started you first need an approved Google AdSense account. This is how they provide the solution for free. By default advertisers can target your site(s) specifically with Google AdWords. While this CAN be turned off, it’s an instant way to further monetize your website traffic. However, if you’re using this as an advertiser, you DEFINITELY want to turn this option off (this would probably violate the terms of your insertion order).

Once you have an approved AdSense account (you’ll need to provide them with a compliant website to get approved), you can head over to the DoubleClick for Publishers signup page. Simply login using your AdSense credentials, agree to some terms, and you’re ready to go!

Understanding Credit Terms With Media Buys

Many media buying outlets will extend credit terms AFTER you establish a payment history. Some may extend a small amount of credit initially, but based on my experience, all of them like to work on a pre-pay solution until the relationship is established. When the time does come that they give you the option to extend credit terms there are a couple of things you need to understand…

They’re going to require that you fill out a credit application. This is something you want to take seriously as if a problem is ever to come, they’re going to fall back on the application. You need to list the exact company name you’ll be doing business as with an active mailing address, phone number, and person of contact. They also may require a social security or tax identification number so they can run your credit score with one of the major reporting bureaus. Nothing too complicated here, but also something that should be taken seriously.

Another metric that every credit application is going to require is “trade references”. Basically they want to know WHO you’ve had credit with before and your payment history. They’ll ask you to provide a company name, contact person, phone/fax number, and will contact them with a brief questionnaire about your account history. Obviously you want to list the top 3 – 4 companies that have extended credit to you and you’ve had excellent pay history with. Obviously if you’ve missed a payment somewhere along the line you don’t want to provide that company as a reference. If you’ve never worked with a company on credit terms, you’re going to have a problem obtaining initial credit. A trick around this is to list your banker and/or favorite affiliate network. If you have a lot of money in the bank or a good relationship with your affiliate network you maybe able to squeeze by with this.

Most advertising networks will also ask how much credit you want extended. Obviously, the more trade references you have, the more you can request. If you don’t have any I wouldn’t even attempt to garner anymore than $10,000 (as this maybe pushing it). If you have a strong trade history you can sometimes get by with $100K or more. Many of the ad networks I work with will give me at least $500,000 a month before they ask questions.

Once the credit terms are established, you’ll have to understand the pay terms. Most advertising networks work on NET 30 which means the amount spent in June will be due on August 1st (30 days from when the invoice is generated). Some are also NET 15. It’s VERY important you pay your invoices on time and always expect your check/wire to be delayed.

Don’t wait until the last second as this could bite you in the rear pretty hard. Establishing credit with advertising networks is what led me to grow my business at break-neck pace. When I first began conducting large media buys I floated a TON of personal cash and credit, but once I built up relationships, I became unstoppable. In 2011, make sure you exercise caution and don’t get over your head.

Figuring Out If Your Offer Will Work

When selecting the offer you want to promote ask yourself, “Is it aggressive enough to garner a consistent acquisition cost?” In other words, is your product part of a large enough niche that people are actually going to be interested in? Some examples may be diet/weight loss, dating, financial products, and computer software. Also, is your product reasonably priced? If you are promoting a piece of exercise equipment that costs $300, you are going to have to spend a ton of money testing to see if there are any consistencies in conversions. I wouldn’t try to promote a product that costs anymore than $100 (I like to keep an average of around $35).

Being that media buys have so much volume it is absolutely essential that you test many different landing pages and sales pitches for your offer. Make several different variations of landing pages. Change up colors, pictures, offers, offer positions, etc. You would be surprised how big of difference the smallest changes can make. I also find a lot that the landing pages I thought would perform the best, do the worst.

How Many Landing Pages / Creatives You Should TryLast of all you want to make sure your landing pages adhere to the updated FTC guidelines. In December 2009 new regulations require significant changes to how testimonial advertisements, bloggers, and celebrity endorsements are treated. Be sure you check out the updated guidelines at this link.The most common creative sizes for media buys are:

• 728x90 Leaderboard• 468x60 Banner• 300x250 Box• 160x600 Wide Skyscraper• 120x600 Skyscraper

Your main objective with any creative is to find the one that garners the best CTR (click through rate)and the one that garners the best conversion rate. Most-of-the-time you’re going to find that the 300×250 creative gets the most clicks; however when entering any buy it is always worth testing every creative size. Sometimes you will be surprised. Creative several different various in each size (I recommend as many as 10). If the network or website allows it, add animation, borders, or anything else creative to get your CTR higher. This will ultimately make or break your media buy.

How To Find Banner Inventory That Converts

While there are many different techniques to finding sites to purchase inventory, I’m going to discuss some of the easier ones.

Use Google To Your Advantage:The first technique I began using to find websites to buy media on was searching Google (or Bing).

A few years ago, promoting ringtones was VERY popular and provided many affiliate marketers will tons of revenue. I utilized media buying to gain a competitive advantage on my competitors promoting ringtones:

First, I would figure out a popular search term such as ‘free ringtones’. Most all ringtone offers didn’t allow the word ‘free’ so I couldn’t bid on this keyword or use this in my creative. I could, however, search Google for ‘free ringtones’ and purchase banner inventory on the top 20 – 50 sites. Using the same method I mentioned last week, I contacted many webmasters who were happy to sell me direct inventory to their sites. I would place ads all over their sites that said ‘Send Ringtones To Your Phone In 3 Easy Steps’.

I never mentioned the word ‘free’ but was able to get several hundred leads a day at a fraction of the price if I would have been bidding on keywords (not to mention I couldn’t even bid on ‘free ringtones’). From ’50 Cent Ringtones’ to ‘NBA Ringtones’ there wasn’t a term I didn’t try to buy inventory on. I also did a lot of SEO (which I will talk about later on this blog) to my advantage.

Quantcast.com – Quantcast.com is a website that collects demographic information on United States websites around the Internet. While their information is not 100% accurate, it provides a great starting point when deciding to media buy. The excellent thing about Quantcast.com is it even includes ad exchanges and networks. The other advantage is that this information is 100% free. Simply sign up for a free account, click ‘planner’ at the top, enter your target demographics, and begin buying inventory on the results. As I said, the data will even return ad networks/exchanges that match your demographics.

DoubleClick Ad Planner – I like to use DoubleClick Ad Planner along with Quantcast.com. I feel by using both of these tools together, I can quickly determine which sites match my demographics and are more likely to convert for my offers. The great thing about Google Ad Planner is you can even do a search by keywords or other sites visited. These can both be two powerful features especially when used with Quantcast.com. DoubleClick Ad Planner is also free!

Compete.com – Compete.com includes a lot of data on many websites such as unique visitors, page views, average stay, visits per person, search analytics, and more. The downfall is you must have a paid subscription to view most of this information. If you’re going to become a serious media buyer, I suggest making the $200+ a month investment to view this data. My personal favorite part about Compete.com is using the ‘compete referral analytics.’ Utilizing this tool, I’m able to type in a competitors URL and quickly discover where they’re buying their traffic from. This can get VERY interesting!

As I mentioned above, these are just some of the most popular tools online to use. Everyone has their own method, but these will give you a competitive advantage against your competitors to find cheap, converting traffic.

Important Things To Remember When Setting Up Your Media Buy

It is important to remember and understand certain aspects when setting up a media buy. Some of the things you need to learn to begin to come an “expert buyer” are:

CPM – The cost per one thousand impressions. You need to run several formulas. You have to estimate what kinda of click through and conversion rate you must have to break even or make money. If the advertising network or website says they want $20 CPM, chances are, even with a lot of optimizing, you’ll never make a media buy with a $5 payout work.

You also need to see where you’ll be in that network or sites ‘ad chain’ with any given CPM. Sometimes people will pay a higher CPM to have ‘first priority’ over another advertiser. That is why the lowest CPM is not always the best. You just have to test and see.

Frequency Cap – You’ll have to set a cap on how many times a user views your advertisement per 24 hours. I recommending starting out with 4×24 per creative to get started. You can adjust up or down from there.

Trafficking – This is the process the website or ad network will do to ‘forecast’ the amount of impressions they can sell you at a given CPM. This number comes from their ad server and shows details on when the impressions are available.

Day Parting – Before you begin your buy you want to check and see if the network or website offer day parting (only showing your ads during certain hours or days). While you need to start your buy running a full 24 hours, you may find it’s best to turn it off during the morning hours. This is another important option that could make the different in being profitable.

Out Clause – Do NOT enter into a media buy without an out clause. If you purchase a bunch of impressions without an out clause you’re going to have to pay for them no matter what. Most out clauses are 24-48 hours. I would try to negotiate the longest one possible.

Also be sure to inquire how long it takes to exercise the out clause (i.e.: how long for traffic to quit once you exercise this).

Insertion Order – Once you get all of the above items in order you’re going to be asked to sign an Insertion Order. This is pretty much the same thing as a purchase order in a retail store. You are agreeing to purchase a certain amount of impressions at a set CPM. If you continue running outside of your out clause, you’ll owe for that full amount.

End Of Section 2

Hey welcome to Part 3! Ryan and Ruck here congratulating you on taking action and continuing your media buying education. Ok so, how do you feel after part 2? We know is quite a bit of information to digest but don’t worry because after going through Part 3 below, it will all start making more sense and you will be just that much closer into becoming a Media Buying Icon!

In Part 3 here Ryan and I want to help you focus on running your media buy with optimal efficiency. In this part of the course, we are going to open up and start pointing out some optimization tips that will help separate you from the competition and hopefully help you return a higher return on investment.

Section 3: Running Your Media Buy

Tips To Make Your Click Through Rate (CTR) Soar

Here are some pretty cool tips you can use to raise your click through rate (CTR) on your media buys. Add A Scroll Bar To Your Creative:

I’ve used this with so much success it’s almost laughable. You wouldn’t believe the increase in clicks from doing this simple trick. It’s so high some sources/sites actually no longer allow it, but those that do, get ready to cash in!

Add A Flashing Border To Your Creative:

Another simple, yet very effective CTR booster. Add a flashing border and suck your visitors in.Add A Blinking Arrow To Your Creative:

I love using arrows because they show the visitor EXACTLY what they need to do (ie: Click Here). Use these to help guide your traffic towards conversions.Add A Video Play Overlay To Your Creative:

Since YouTube and other video streaming sites have became so popular this one can really make a big difference. As with the scroll bar some sources won’t allow this, but the ones that do, cash is just waiting to be sucked into your bank account.Add A Drop Shadow To Your Creative:

The good old fashion drop shadow effect allows your creative to ‘come to life’ and really ‘stand out’ on a page. Most sources allow this and it can really boost your click throughs.

Add A Multi-Cell Drop Shadow To Your Creative:

If memory serves me correctly I did close to $2 million in revenue once with one creative using this same strategy. Hands down it made me bank and can work for you. Get creative with this and kill it.

There are a ton of ways to get really creative with your media buys. Take a look at the placements already running with you (your competition) and try to expand on them, be more creative than they are and you should be able to achieve higher click-throughs.

Utilizing Frequency Capping To Optimize Your Media Buys

When purchasing banner inventory by CPM (cost per one-thousand impressions) a frequency cap saves you from spending your budget on a handful of users. A frequency cap determines how many times a unique visitor sees your advertisement. Most advertising networks will allow you to specify the frequency cap of your choice as long as it is stated in the initial insertion order (you may want to check if it can be changed once you’re into your flight).

When paying a CPM > $1.00 I like to set the frequency cap to 2 views every 24 hours per unique visitor. This means that a unique visitor (determined by IP address) will see my advertisement 2 times every 24 hours. This is a very important part to the optimization process, as I’ve also had some very successful media buys with a 4/24 frequency cap (some campaigns the visitor finally clicks after seeing the creative multiple times).

So before you give up on your media buy (thinking it won’t work or you can’t optimize anymore) I highly suggest you play around with the frequency cap. I am amazed by the number of affiliates that don’t even know what this is.Typically I have the best luck with the 2×24 frequency cap when my advertisement is shown first in the ad chain. If I’m further back in the ad chain, I like to increase this number to attempt to monetize the ‘lower quality’ impressions.

Day Parting Your Media Buys

With display advertising you’re able to reach high volumes of traffic as advertisements are placed throughout websites they are actively reading. Now unlike search traffic, the visitor most-likely did not come to the site to buy the product you are marketing. They came to the site to get weather, news, or some other type of information. Your creative has to spark their interested and your landing page has to pre-sell them to convince them WHY they should click through to the offer you’re running, input their credit card number, and become a successful conversion.

Given everything that has to happen to make a media buy successful it is absolutely essential that you pay very close attention to what hours of the day are converting the best as well as what days of the weekare converting the best. Believe it or not there are certain hours/days where people are simply not in the ‘buy mode’ rather are looking for information. Sometimes you can utilize your landing page to convince the person in information mode to purchase, but you should definitely break your profitability down per hour and per day. After a full week or two you should have plenty of data to begin optimizing your media buy and begin day parting your campaign.

Depending on the website/ad network your purchasing media on, you’ll need to make sure this is negotiated up-front. Some will allow you to add day parting to your existing insertion order while others will want this information upfront. I personally have utilized day parting to take media buys that lose money to nearly 100% ROI! Here’s what I recommend doing:

Scaling Up The Hours Your Media Buy Converts

As long as you are making a profit/breaking even/or coming close to a profit – run as long as you can. The data you collect during this phase will be priceless. I recommend going one full week, but depending on your profit/loss margin, you may only be able to run a day or two.

• Break down EACH HOUR by revenue generated and amount spent. Make SURE you check with both your affiliate network and advertising network to clear up any timezone differences (this could bite you in the rear if you don’t).

• Once your data is compiled you’ll begin to notice a pattern. Look at the hours that are producing 50% – 100% ROI… Those are the ones you want to concentrate on. Tell the website/ad network you’re buying on you want to eliminate certain hours and you want to “ramp up” your traffic during the good hours.

• If you can’t test a full week straight then you’re not going to be able to optimize by day of the week until you can do so. Work first on optimizing per hour of the day then expand out to the days of the week. Personally for me, weekends produced some really good ROIs (especially in the health and beauty niche).

• Based on my personal campaigns I notice 9 a.m. – noon ET and 4 p.m. – 9 p.m. ET convert the best. Obviously this is going to depend on MULTIPLE factors, so take this information with a grain of salt.

Another important metric to consider with your media buy is frequency capping. This can also be used along with day parting to increase your ROIs and overall success of your buy. I have discussed frequency capping in more detail above.

Day parting can really make a big difference whether your media buy is profitable or not. Sure, in some instances you may not do the amount of volume you would if you were to run all day, however nine chances out of ten you’ll be sustaining a much higher ROI. It doesn’t make much sense to spend $10K+ only to make $12K – get what I’m saying? Nice for the ego but way too much risk involved.

International Media Buying

I’ve had a lot of success taking my campaigns out of the United States and into International territories. Traffic is most-always cheaper and converts very similar to the U.S. I’m really shocked when I hear of some publishers too scared to do this. Most all CPA affiliate networks carry International offers (especially in the English-speaking ones) in multiple verticals.

Using Google Trends you can easily identify trends in other countries and begin planning your media buy. Let’s take a look at an example using the term “acai”:

OK now obviously Acai isn’t what it was in 2009, but the point I’m trying to get across here is look at the other countries with search volume: Canada, Australia, United Kingdom. Three westernized, English-speaking countries. How many media buys do you have live in these countries? If you don’t have at least one (not necessarily for Acai) why not? As I’ve said at my speaking-engagements I find a bunch of success Internationally by direct-site buying. Finding countries with International volume is also an easy task using free services such as Alexa. Let’s take a look at the top sites in Canada:

Well what do ya know… A lot of the SAME sites are just as popular as the United States… The “big boys” here in the U.S. are also the “big boys” internationally. If you want the EASIEST solution to reaching an International audience these top 10 sites are your gravy. Now if you want to get crafty and swim in some ROI (like I do) go a bit deeper to find some sites to buy direct on. Going 7 pages deep here’s what I find:

Results number 152… The Toronto Sun… Now, I know from buying a TON of media in the U.S. that news websites are “that fire” when talking about conversions. The same goes for the International markets.

Simply put, going Internationally you’re going to find a lot of “emerging” marketers and reach a lot of consumers where “banner blindness” hasn’t yet set in. The United States is not only saturated with a lot of competition (that have decades of experience like myself) but is actually harder than other countries do to this “banner blindness.” Some International websites will even extend you NET30 pay terms (which is VERY rare in the US).

Increasing Media Buy Effectiveness & Reach With ReTargeting

Have you ever clicked on a banner advertisement (intentionally or unintentionally) and noticed an immediate increase in that same advertiser’s creatives across many of the websites your visiting? I know I do and after a quick discussion at the office this morning, everyone else does as well. This is because the advertisers are utilizing a feature in their media buy called retargeting. Retargeting, also referred to as re-marketing, is when a cookie is inserted into a user’s computer in an attempt to cross-market them across the Internet.The thinking behind this is if a visitor clicks the creative they show initial interest. If a successful conversion is fired many times the retargeting cookie won’t be set. However if they don’t convert, they’re show more creatives across other websites that carry distribution.

Since they’ve already expressed initial interest, it’s likely they weren’t in “buy mode” and will hopefully re-visit it after seeing the creative more. Most advertising networks charge a premium for buys with the retargeting option. I’ve seen it increase the overall CPM of the buy anywhere from $0.50 – $2.00. While this is more effective for brand advertisers or advertisers offering higher ticket items, it can still be effective in direct response. I’ve tested it on a few buys but not UNTIL I’m profitable without it.

Here are some facts to consider about retargeting: Successful retargeting campaigns cannot rely solely on retargeted ad buys; there’s simply not enough traffic generated by retargeting alone. 24/7 Real Media advises retargeting max out at 10 percent of a media strategy.

Similarly, successful retargeting relies not only on ad-generated traffic, but on all site traffic, from ads, search, email, affiliate marketing, viral, word-of-mouth or otherwise.

Critical mass of site traffic is crucial, though none of the networks I spoke with can yet exactly formalize the predictive particulars.

Retargeting requires ad network tracking pixels to be placed on the client site. If the retargeting objective involves non-conversions, a pixel must be placed on the order confirmation page as well.

• Retargeting costs more than average run-of-network buys, but not more than channel-based buys.

• Retargeting doesn’t work for all advertisers. It seems to work particularly well when a purchase involves higher levels of research and consideration.

• Though proven successful for big brands and e-commerce retailers, retargeting can work for smaller brands, too, though achieving critical mass can be more difficult.

• Retargeting can augment or supplement other online initiatives, like affiliate marketing or search, which may be tapping out.

• Limitations like the consumer’s buying cycle timeframe and the total reach of an ad network can still hinder the outcome of a retargeting campaign.

• Cross-marketing or up-selling can also be achieved through retargeting. A common example is the retargeting of a purchaser of airline tickets with hotel and car rental offers.

• Retargeting can work on-site as well, as 24/7 Real Media describes, “to drive visitors to locations where they previously lingered or came close to buying, or to alert them to special promotions or products that the context of their previous visit suggested might interest them.”

• Additional targeting, such as geo- or demographic targeting, connection speed, etc., can be layered on top of retargeting, but this further limits the size of the audience being served the ad.

• Frequency capping can be implemented, such as only serving an advertiser’s retargeted ad to the same user once within a 24-hour period.

Advertising With Teracent (Google Owned Remarketing Solution)

Teracent’s Intelligent Display Platform rises to the challenges of today’s display advertising. With the increase in online targeting options it is no longer acceptable to rotate the same 5 flash ads. Unlike existing and outdated platforms, Teracent maximizes the impact of every impression by seamlessly optimizing performance across user and page data from all available sources (online & offline).

Teracent deploys an unlimited number of ad creative combinations (using your catalogs, databases, images, and messages) through a single ad unit. Then, sophisticated machine learning algorithms instantly select the optimal creative elements for each ad impression – based upon a real-time analysis of which items will convert from impressions into sales.

With Intelligent Display Advertising, online advertisers can:• Dynamically optimize ad unit and content without limitations. • Deploy “Rich Media” functionality without high development costs or

exorbitant CPM’s • Test ad content in real-time and make changes immediately • Evaluate ad effectiveness through specific and customizable KPIs • Track performance and see the learning engine maximize ROI in real-

time

How Does it Work?Let’s pretend you’re an online shoe retailer and you want to recapture users who looked at shoes on your site but didn’t purchase.

Step 1: Detailed list creationInsert enhanced retail remarketing tags on your site to create user profiles based on the products users are interested in.

Step 2: Campaign configurationProvide your Google Merchant Center ID and personalize a retail creative template to begin constructing dynamic creatives based on your retail catalog.

Step 3: TraffickingTarget your dynamic creative to users that have visited your site to personalize the creative to display products based on each user’s interests and the similar interests of other visitors.

Core Benefits of Dynamic Enhanced Retail Remarketing Performance:Increase the performance of your enhanced retail remarketing campaigns with dynamic creatives; where products are selected based on, a) the products a user has visited on your site, b) the products other similar users have visited and purchased on your site, and c) the overall performance of those products across your campaign.

Customer relevance:Deliver a superior marketing experience to your customers by personalizing your dynamic creatives to the types of products most relevant to the users interests and helping them buy what they want faster by using deep linking product urls in the creative.

Ease of use:Start generation of your dynamic creatives by providing access to your merchant catalog and selecting a creative template. Campaign Managers will monitor and adjust the creative to deliver optimal ROI through the life of your campaign.

How to Start?Step 1: Tag your site

• Your Campagin Manager will email you a few lines of enhanced retail remarketing code to insert into your site’s product pages and conversion page

• Enhanced retail remarketing tags work in conjunction with your media tags, capturing detailed user interests to later personalize the dy- namic creative and learn about related products. Enhanced retail remarketing tags may be used to manage your media tags to create a new list of users that have detailed interest profiles

• Each tag contains a variable to insert the viewed or purchased product id which is stored in the user’s profile. The product id values inserted into the tag must match the id values in your Google Merchant Center product feed.

Step 2: Configure your campaign

• Work with your Campaign Manager to provide access to your Google Merchant Center product feed and select a creative template applicable to your catalog

• Products displayed in your dynamic creative will be those products included in the product feed, this include product names, descriptions, prices, images, and deep linking landing page urls

• Customize each size of the selected creative template to include your brands look and feel; ask your Campaign Manager to help with logo and color changes or download the template to make additional visual changes before sending the creative back to your Campaign Manager for publishing

Step 3: Build your detailed interest profile

Enhanced retail remarketing tags drop cookies on product and conversion page visitors, building an interest profile specific to each anony- mous user. When a remarketing impression is served, the profile is used to display the best products for that user.

Step 4: Test and launch your campaign• Your Campaign Manager will email you a test link to preview your

dynamic creative to make sure you’ve correctly implemented your en- hanced retail remarketing tags and have your campaign set up

• Ask your Campaign Manager to launch your Dynamic Enhanced Retail Remarketing campaign on a subset of your existing traditional remarketing campaign budget

• Updates of products and product details displayed in your dynamic creative may be made by updating your Google Merchant Center product feed

Step 5: Monitor and scaleMonitor the performance of your Dynamic Enhanced Retail Remarketing campaign compared to your traditional remarketing campaigns and scale!

End Of Section 3

Hey You! Ruck and Ryan again with Part 4 of the Media Buying Icon E-Course! Whew, we really got to hand it to you for sticking with us through the Getting Started Manual, into Part 2′s Getting Your Media Buy Up and then in to Part 3′s Running Your Media Buy. We can already tell that if you made it to Part 4 here you are determined to becoming a Media Buying Icon!

Section 4 – Media Buy Traffic Sources And Setup

How To Setup A Media Buy On ContextWeb (Self-Serve)

Going into your first media buy can be somewhat overwhelming. There is a lot of different aspects and given the high volume you have to spend some money before you can determine if the buy is going to work. That is why I recommend you getting a formula down on a self-serve platform before signing an insertion order and being committed to a large number of impressions. Finding the winning creative/landing page pair and your frequency cap on a self-serve platform can save you from burning through several thousand dollars and ultimately equal more money in your pocket.

I suggest using the Context Web Ad Exchange to get started. They have a ton of volume and hold their publishers to a strict standard so you get quality traffic. Also unlike Google’s Adwords they don’t have a quality score so you can focus more on your landing pages rather than building out a large website.

Follow these steps to get started:

Pick an offer to promote

You already need to have your offer ready. This should be an offer you’ve tested on other traffic sources (such as PPV or PPC) and have had success with. It should also be part of a large niche (such as weight loss or dating) so it appeals to a wide audience. The offer should also be easily replaced in-case the advertiser you’re promoting decides to pull, you can easily replace it with another offer. You want to make sure the offer doesn’t have a volume cap because with the high volume of a media buy, it’s likely you’ll hit it.

Have several different landing pages ready

Even if you already have a landing page that is working on other sources you need to go ahead and make several different variations for your media buy. Sometimes the slightest change can make a huge difference in your conversions. Test and find the one that garners the best click through and conversion rate.

Have at least ten or more creatives per size

You need to have at least ten creatives ready in the following sizes: 728×90, 300×250, 120×600, and 160×600. Historically the 300×250 gets the best CTR, however sometimes you’ll be surprised at the results you get with another size.

Install Google Analytics and Prosper 202 on your landing pages

While Prosper 202 is mainly used for CPV and PPC campaigns, I really like the data it brings with a media buy. From referring websites to conversions per creative there is a lot of different aspects you can track. Google Analytics also brings a lot of good data to the table. Not only can you monitor how many unique visitors your landing page receives, but you can view important items such as referring domains, time spent on site, and more.

Register for an advertiser account at Context WebNavigate to this link and setup your account. Go ahead and fund it with an amount you feel comfortable with for this particular campaign.

Create your campaignLogin into your account and click the Create New tab at the top. Enter a name for your campaign and select all graphical sizes:

• 120×600 pixels • 160×600 pixels • 300×250 pixels • 728×90 pixels

Set the campaign to start with no end date. Click ‘Next‘.

Upload your creatives

Select ‘Option 1: New Graphical Ad’. Follow the onscreen instructions to upload all of your creatives you made in step 3. You should set the keyword variable in your click-through URL to the ad name for conversion tracking. If your unsure about what I mean I give an example in the video above.

Select your Target Categories

As shown in my example video, you want to select the categories that target your offer. The more categories you select, the cheaper you’ll have to bid to garner volume. If you’re promoting an offer such as weight-loss or dating that appeals to a large audience (like I recommended in step 1) you can simply select ‘Run on All Categories’. While this is less targeted, your CPM is going to be much cheaper.

Set your frequency cap and geo targeting

DO NOT set this to ‘No frequency cap’! This will blow through your budget so fast and you’ll be super disappointed with the results. With the amount of creatives you’re testing I recommend starting with a frequency cap of 2 unique views per user per day and expanding from there. If the offer your promoting allows traffic from Canada, add them to the target. If not, remove them.

Set your budget

You can now set a daily or overall campaign budget. This option is really up to you, but I definitely recommend setting a budget. Personally if this is your first buy, I would start with $200 – $300 a day and let it distribute impressions evenly for a couple of days.

Make your bids

Since we’re using Context Web as a testing platform to ultimately proceed to a larger network you should be bidding on CPM (cost per one-thousand impressions). They offer a scale to show what is considered a high bid and what’s considered a low bid. If you’re running in all categories I don’t recommend bidding any higher than $2.00 – $1.50.

Set a performance goalFinally, I recommend placing their tracking pixel so you can measure your acquisition costs. If the off you’re promoting pays $35 you want your acquisition cost to be less to make a profit. I suggest setting the goal at 1/2 the offer payout. For $35 you would set to $17.50. This will also let you measure your conversions inside the Context Web user interface. You’re done! Now it’s all about letting it run for a day or two. Obviously if you spend a lot without a conversion you want to reevaluate, however you want to give the campaign a fair chance. If you’ve set your daily budget at $100 – $200 let it run for a while and see what happens.

Advertising On EveryDayHealth.com (Motherload Of Media)

Disclaimer: – Dont be a jackass when it comes to direct media buying. If you use me as a reference and tarnish my image, I’m going to be severly pissed. These are enormous sites that command enormous respect from Advertisers. Be PROFESSIONAL.

First off, Everyday Health is a lot like WebMD. Older type demographics so entertainment and dating offers probably not going to be a really good match to run here. Here’s a glimpse at some demographics:

And here’s a glimpse at a mother load of web properties they have content across:

Now their audience specs are interesting, they claim to have more reach than WebMd:

A ton of advertising options: Newsletter Sponsorships - Over 17 Million Active Subscribers. Everyday Health offers over 50 newsletters focusing on everything from Asthma and Allergies to Healthy Living to Skin and Beauty. Everyday Health newsletters are delivered to over 17 million active subscribers who have signed up to receive this targeted information.Lead Generation - A Targeted Message To Your Key Consumers. Everyday Health will pinpoint your key target in our registration process and deliver a special offer from your brand to generate qualified leads. Millions of active registered users with an average of 15,000 new registrants every day.

Search - Reach Your Target Market Quicker. Our targeted search will help you reach more consumers with your message as they are searching for relevant information.

Mobile Apps - Over 15 Interactive Mobile Apps. Delivering both static and rich media ads across multiple platforms, including iPhone/iTouch/iPad, Android and Blackberry.Custom Stand-Alone Emails -Engaging Users with Your Message. Everyday Health will create an exclusive email customized to your brand’s objectives that will build awareness, introduce special offers and more. Email sent to opt-in subscribers matching your target demographic.Video - Bring Your Brand Message to Life with a More Compelling Experience. Choose from our extensive video library or let Everyday Health create a custom video for your brand.

Ad Specs: Standard Formats:

Display Advertising Specs: Dimension measurements provided in pixels.File size limits provided in kilobytes. OPA. Dimensions: 970×90, 300×600 File Size Limit:40KBMedium RectangleDimensions: 300×250File Size Limit:40KBLeaderboardDimensions: 728×90File Size Limit:40KBWide SkyscraperDimensions:160×600File Size Limit:40KB

General Guidelines: • File Formats Accepted: GIF, JPG, SWF, 3rd party ad tag • DFP is used to serve all Everyday Health site ads and all newsletter

placements • Animation may loop 3 times, 18 fps 15 seconds per max • All ad units must launch a new browser window when clicked on • UTP ads (user targeted placement) should have GIF/JPG versions of

creative • All ads are served via JavaScipt tags

Flash Guidelines: • Flash files must be coded properly for proper click and impression

tracking • All flash files must be submitted as a .SWF file with accompanying

back up of GIF/JPG for display to users who do not accept flash • A click thru URL must also be supplied for each .SWF ad unit

Mobile Banner Ads:Mobile Banner for iPhone and DroidDimensions: 320×50File Size Limit:5KBMobile Banner for iPadDimensions: 728×90File Size Limit: 40KB

File Formats Accepted: GIF/JPG, third party redirects or inreds can be used but should only contain image files and no flash.

Rich Media:In-Page Video Advertising

Leaderboard :• Dimensions: 728×90 • File Size Limit:40KB • Polite Download:*1.2MB max including the 40KB

Medium Rectangle• Dimensions: 300×250 • File Size Limit: 40KB • Polite Download: *1.2MB max including the 40KB

Pre-roll, for inclusion in HealthologyPartner.com. Please see additional specs. Max animation length up to 15 seconds. LeaderboardDimensions: 728×90 > 728×310Expanding downFile Size Limit:40KBPolite Download:80KB max including the 40k

Medium RectangleDimensions: 300×250 > 550×250Expanding left onto content wellFile Size Limit: 40KBPolite Download: *80KB max including the 40k

OPADimensions: 970×90 > 970×418Expanding downFile Size Limit: 40KBPolite Download: *80KB max including the 40k

SkyscraperDimensions: 160×600 > 320×600Expanding to rightFile Size Limit: 40KBPolite Download: *80KB max including the 40k

General Guidelines • Must have “push down” functionality enabled • Ad must expand upon mouse over or click on expand button • Ad must retract upon mouse off or clicking on close button • Audio must be user initiated with a clearly recognizable on/off button•

• • If the ad expands with user click, the panel still must retract when

mouse is removed • Polite download required • Expanding ads must have the flash property “wmode” set to

“transparent” • Z-index on Everyday Health menus is 100,000. Z-index of the ad

should be set lower than that

Newsletter Placements

• Everyday Health portfolio’s opt-in daily newsletters cover a range of diet, health and fitness content and are delivered to subscribers who have signed up to receive information

• Ad sizes include: 728×90, 300×250, 300×600 • Only GIF and JPG formats accepted, no Flash SWF files • Redirects can be used, but should only contain image files, no Flash • Ads must be received 5 business days prior to launch date

Advertising in newsletters is one of the quickest ways to grab optins from competitors or advertise your products and services to someone else's email lists. Check out these Ad specs from Everyday Health and start emailing their list members!

Ad Specs: Newsletter Ad Placements

WebMD – Serious Media Buying For Serious Advertisers

WARNING: Do not attempt to buy media from WebMD until you have gone through this post entirely and have a really good understanding on what it’s going to take to not only perform well with the many number of options available to advertise on WebMD with, but to get a clear understanding that if you try and promote some thin affiliate site or try to pawn “crap” on them, they will immediately get rid of you.

PAY ATTENTION: I say again. Pay really close attention to the type of site WebMD is and the quality of content it provides. I’ve longed used this site for health related content and they are the premier source on the web for health information. They have a ton of traffic, a variety of advertising options and if done right, you can have some opportunities to run advertising affiliates only dream of. Forget your typical Media Buying sources and Media Buy Exchanges who broker traffic from other sources. Should you take on this beast, you are dealing with a direct site advertising buy that can potentially propel you into Media Buying Stardom.

ONCE AGAIN: Read everything over and over until you get it through your head that you intend to put and offer or some type of advertisement together that will not “offend” WebMD in any way. Get this wrong and you strike out. As in, start over. I can tell you from experience of putting larger advertisers on this media buy that even some of the most organized and experienced marketers try to game the system and get this wrong.

The first page you need to read in it’s entirety:http://www.webmd.com/about-webmd-pol …ia/default.htm Then you need to brush up and realize how much traffic is availabe JUST ON THE SITE ALONE along with some pretty basic Demographic Information:

TRAFFIC

DEMOGRAPHICS

Now that we have established this is the real deal when it comes to serious media buying on one of the largest health information sites in the world, you need to read that attatched zip file which contains all of WebMD’s Ad Specs. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE read every one of them entirely so that you can realize what’s possible here. This is one of the most comprehensive direct site buys for the health niche in the world which covers an absolute ton of topics, there are a ton of advertising campaigns you could potentially run and there is a ton of ways to advertise.

An absolute ton of media buying options are available. The WebMD AdSpecs include:

• WebMD Magazine Media Kit • WebMD Tech Specs For 360 Yahoo • WebMD Tech Specs For Consumer Homepage Roadblock Ads • WebMD Tech Specs For Pregnancy Week By Week Newsletter Ads • Tech Specs For WebMD Daily Video Sponsorship • WebMd Tech Specs For Ads On Consumer Standard Pages • WebMD Tech Specs For Consumer Gateway Roadblock Ads • WebMD Tech Specs For Consumer Newsletter Ads

You can grab all the ad specs by clicking here.

Advertising On FreeRideGames.com

Here’s a large gaming site with a variety of direct buy media options. Good news too, over 83% of their traffic is from the US, check out their demographics:

Free Ride Games is the premier 100% FREE, FULL-DOWNLOAD PC CASUSAL GAME service on the web, covering multiple genres such as Hidden Object, Match Three, Sports, Puzzle, Arcade and Card/Board games.

A good variety of ad specifications to choose from:

• Home Page Ads• Genre/Game Pages• Branded Game Addons• Homepage Take-Over Addons

You can see all the options they have for advertising by clicking here.

Homepage Ads Genre/Game Pages

5 Media Buying Traffic Sources You Can Use Right Now

Here are 5 more Media Buying Traffic Sources you can get started with right away: AdEngage101 Continental Blvd, Ste 1050El Segundo, CA [email protected]: CPM and CPC

Drivepm110 5th Ave, 8th FlNew York, NY 10011917-267-3231www.drivepm.comNotes: CPA, CPC, CTC

Glam Media646-205-7008www.glammedia.comNotes: women consumers online lifestyle, beauty, fashion, design, and cooking blogs and sites from indie publishersCPM

Interclick200 Park Ave SSuite 908-909New York, NY 10003646-722-6260www.interclick.comNotes: comscore fastest growingad network 2007-2008Transparent, 10K MinCPMPaypopup.com350 Highway 7 EastSte 308, Richmond HillOntario, Canada L4B [email protected]: Ad Pckgs, Pop up/underCPM

End Of Media Buying IconBONUS!

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