How Niche Media Planning Might Be Better for Your Advertiser
Reaching a niche audience may be more effective than a broad-based one. Consider these two examples.
Reaching a niche audience may be more effective than a broad-based one. Consider these two examples.
As an online media planner, have you ever faced this scenario: your outcome-driven advertising client requests a media plan containing top comScore sites, but you know that those sites won’t actually meet their goals or timeframe as effectively as lesser-known sites? How can you persuade clients to accept these different sites and your strategy? The solution lies in helping the client to understand the limitations of their request or the added benefits of the niche sites you plan on showcasing in your plan.
Justifying Your Niche Media Plan
It can certainly be said that the same site can achieve different media results just through factors such as how the buy is negotiated, where the placements lie, the timing of the placements and allocation of impressions, and of course, the ad creative itself. That being said, a media plan serving brand awareness will look quite different than one with a goal of generating purchase intent or even actual transactions.
Is your client focused on its Brand Development Index numbers versus its Category Development Index as a reason to do its advertising? (Here is a helpful comparison chart.) Are they seeking some kind of repeat visitor or purchasing behavior, better long-term loyalty, or average lifetime value from a visitor? If you want a more concentrated form of audience targeting and increased reach, then consider niche sites rather than broad ones. Talk to your advertiser about the below reasons for skewing the media plan more towards smaller or niche-oriented sites:
Working Through the Scenarios
To demonstrate how a niche-focused media plan can help, let’s compare two theoretical online media plans, one containing a single “big site” and one without.
Campaign data:
Goal: rebate downloads
Budget: $50,000
Flight: 1 Month
Geo: U.S. only
Target: women, 35-54
Creative: banners/e-mail
Average download (conversion) rate: 4.56 percent
Plan A: Contains one comScore top 100 site and two niche sites; anticipated CTR = 0.15 percent
Site | Big Site No. 1 |
Min Monthly Buy-In | $25,000 |
CPM | $100 |
Impressions | 250,000 |
Site | Niche Site No. 1 |
Min Monthly Buy-In | $10,000 |
CPM | $15 |
Impressions | 666,667 |
Site | Niche Site No. 2 |
Min Monthly Buy-In | $15,000 |
CPM | $14 |
Impressions | 1,071,429 |
Totals | |
Spend | $50,000 |
Effective CPM | $25.15 |
Impressions | 1,988,096 |
Est downloads | 136 |
Plan B: Contains three niche sites and no comScore Top 100 sites; anticipated CTR = 3.12 percent
Site | Niche Site No. 1 |
Min Monthly Buy-In | 15,000 |
CPM | $15 |
Impressions | 15,000 |
Site | Niche Site No. 2 |
Min Monthly Buy-In | $15,000 |
CPM | $14 |
Impressions | 1,071,429 |
Site | Niche Site No. 3 |
Min Monthly Buy-In | 10,000 |
CPM | $25 |
Impressions | 400,000 |
Site | Niche Site No. 4 |
Min Monthly Buy-In | $10,000 |
CPM | $18 |
Impressions | 555,556 |
Totals | |
Spend | $50,000 |
Effective CPM | $16.52 |
Impressions | 3,026,985 |
Est downloads | 4,307 |
As you can see, the difference in outcome can be theoretically huge. This may be all the convincing your advertiser needs to see, too.