The Difference Between Paid, Owned and Earned Media

Make the most of your inbound marketing campaign by learning about the differences between paid media, owned media and earned media.

Inbound marketing is proving to be extremely successful for a wide range of businesses, and it can deliver great results for you too. But if you want to succeed, you’ll need to build a cross-channel engagement strategy. Each of the channels can be paid media, owned media or earned media. You need to know the differences between the three, the strengths of each, and how they can work together to meet your marketing objectives. Because when these three click into place, what you get is an inbound campaign that’s bound to succeed.

tl;dr

Paid media is the media coverage you buy — if you pay to display content, it’s paid media.

Owned media is the coverage your business publishes and owns — if you own and administer the content, it’s owned media.

Earned media is the coverage other people produce — if other people talk about your content, it’s earned media.

Paid media

Put simply, paid media is the media coverage that you buy — think social advertising, online display ads and banners, and more traditional forms of advertising like print, radio and television. If you pay to display content, then it’s paid media.

The strength of paid media is that it opens your content up to a wider audience, and generally has a larger reach than your owned or earned channels. The weakness of paid media is that the very fact you have paid to reach your audience undermines any sense of impartiality, and could lessen the authority of your message.

In recent years, paid media trends have shifted drastically online, from more traditional pay-per-click models to more tailored social advertisement, with an increase in the targeting options available. Whereas there has been a tradition for paid media to be perceived as “spammy” in the past, advertisers can now create a personalised message based on demographic and behavioural information about who they are targeting and how they are trying to reach them. Sophisticated online advertising options and formats now allow marketers to reach the right people with the right messages at the right time, moving away from a generic broadcast model.

This shift also allows much greater control over advertising budgets and campaigns, with big data allowing marketers to avoid redundant impressions and low relevance clicks through strategic targeting and optimisation.

Owned media

Owned media is the coverage your business publishes and owns — your website, your blog, your social media channels, and your email comms. You control the message and the calls to action, as you own the channel. If you own and administer content, it’s owned media.

The strength of owned media is exactly what it says on the tin — you have ownership of the message and control the distribution. As such, you can optimise these properties to reflect your brand and maximise the opportunities for interaction when users come across them.

However, it’s highly likely that your owned media channels will only have a limited reach compared to paid and earned audiences. If you’re a new brand, this is especially true, as it will take time and effort to build a sizeable, engaged owned audience. Not only that, but your owned audience are far more likely to be known to you already, limiting your ability to reach potential new customers that aren’t already familiar with you.

The biggest shift in owned media channels in recent years is the move to mobile. Increasingly, users are consuming traditional owned media channels — websites, blogs, magazines, emails — via mobile devices. Although the channels have remained fairly consistent, the method of delivery has evolved, and marketers who want to make the most of these platforms must be aware of this trend.

Earned media

Earned media is the coverage other people produce, outside of your own channels, by sharing links on social media, talking about your brand on their blog, or posting an article in a trade publication or media title. If other people talk about your content, it’s earned media.

Understanding the influential people, titles and brands in your target market is key to succeeding at earned media, as they can be successful in getting your message in front of your target audience. Earned media can extend your reach in a similar way to paid media, but with the added benefits of social proof, trust signals and impartiality — by earning a placement, rather than paying for one, the audience is likely to see you as more authoritative.

However, earning the right placements can be difficult in a very competitive environment, and you don’t have final control over the message, medium or user experience — you could be at the mercy of someone else’s editorial impulses.

Earned media has become more important as a channel with the advent of social media and the sharing economy. There is now an entire ecosystem of peer to peer recommendations and endorsements helping consumers to find content, brands and products online. Tapping in to this ecosystem can unlock powerful promotional opportunities for marketers.

Paid, owned and earned media work together

The secret to a successful inbound marketing media strategy? Paid, owned and earned media must work together to counteract the weaknesses of each channel. By focusing exclusively on paid, owned or earned media, your marketing campaign won’t achieve its full potential.

• Paid-only carries limited authority, but will spread the message further
• Owned-only may struggle to find an audience but can make the most of incoming traffic
• Earned-only provides you no control over the message or the final goal but can provide impartial trust factors

However, when you have a campaign that’s finely balanced to use paid media to find a targeted audience, earned media to gain authority and build relationships, and owned media to set the goals and message, you’re set for success. Each element of your media strategy has strengths that benefit the whole campaign, and counteracts the weaknesses of another.

Owned media tells the story.

Generates the initial interest and controls the final outcome. You control the story and set the goals.

Paid media shares the story.

Gains more attention by reaching a targeted audience.

Earned media generates influence.

Maximises your audience and trustworthiness through influencers and authorities.

Final thoughts

• Owned media allows you to set the agenda, but can struggle to find an audience alone.
• Paid media can reach a targeted audience, but carries no authority or impartiality.
• Earned media provides authority, impartiality and an engaged audience, but you have no control over the message.
• Balancing paid, owned and earned media removes the weaknesses each channel has.

To learn more about creating an effective inbound marketing strategy that leverages owned, paid and earned media, download our free guide: “How to Create a Conversation Audit to Drive B2B Marketing Success”