Is Online Media Planning really that boring?
You probably heard it — online media planning is all about looking at dozens of numbers and excel tables and you must be a freak to do it. Once, I was thinking like that — my opinion was ‘oh, I would never do a job like this’. Why? Because I’m a creative person who enjoys working in Google Adwords, Analytics and design. Well, guess what — today I work as an online media planner and it’s one of the best jobs I’ve ever had. Continue reading to find out why.
Online Media planning is not all about number and excels.
Before I’ve even thought about being a media planner, this was something that people would say to me every time when I would ask them what media planning is. But once you dive into it, you see that things are much more different.
Yes, a big part of media planning is all about numbers — when you do a media plan, you have a third party software which lists you all portals in your country (by some criteria which you set) and gives you useful information such as reach, affinity index etc. When you decide on which portals you want your ad to go, you put it into excel, define a few formulas just to make your budget reach your goals and you’re good to go.
When your campaign is out, you check it, optimize and write a report when it ends. That part is all about the numbers — and here is the fun part. Often, you’ll do GDN and, in some cases, Search ads! When you do stuff like that, you’ll get a brands ad copy and visuals or/and video. The best part of it is that you’re always welcome to give some advices and tips for the materials you’ve got.
That applies to your clients’ website — if you think you’ll get a better conversions rate with a CTA ‘Download now’ instead of not having CTA at all, go ahead and say it. It will give you better results, make your clients happier and make them believe you more.
You also meet a lot of people.
If you’re up for networking, a media planning job is a perfect fit for you. As an online media planner, you’re between the clients side and media. The cool thing about it is that you’ll be invited to meet your clients better, just as people for work in media on which you buy placements. Many times you’ll get invites from media for various fashion shows, festivals (if they’re the sponsors) and their own internal parties. Because you work together for a longer period of time, it’s very important to stay in a good relationship with them.
Education comes first.
Media planning is a hot topic when it comes to digital — some countries do it differently and have more advanced methods for advertising, such as programmatic. To stay on a track, you’ll learn a lot and be given lots of various educations. Online media planning is not all about ‘I have X$, and the placements I am going to spend it is here and here’. As an online media planner, you advertise your clients on Facebook, Instagram, Google Adwords (mostly GDN and video ads), do an influencer research, work with programmatic etc. That sounds like a lot of things, doesn’t it?
And the thing is that you must know the trends of all these platforms if you want to succeed. Here’s one tip: If you don’t have so many time to go on various educations, do a Facebook / LinkedIn research and find a group about digital advertising where people from your country/region are posting new trends and tips about digital. This can help you a lot because you don’t need to search for the hottest topics in the industry — you’ll get them all in one place.
So, do you still think that online media planning is boring? Or do you see yourself more in advertising on various portals, Facebook, Instagram, meeting a whole bunch of people and educating yourself? Trust me, media planning is fun and it’s not just about the numbers.
I would love to hear your thoughts. Did or do you work as a media planner?
