Media buying can be a tricky game if you don’t know what you are doing.  The #1 factor for media buys is demographics.  So any offer you are promoting should match the target demographics.  This yields higher conversions without having to test so much to figure what is working.

There are some important sites you need to know of when going into media buys and these are what I suggest (Ya, I know these sites are already known, but do you use them the way you are supposed to?):

1. Google Ad Planner – This site allows you to search sites that have media available for purchase by demographics or by URL. Excellent resource.
2. Quatcast – Type in any URL into Quantcast and get demographics.  You can then look at the affinity sites that Quantcast gives you and look at those demographics.  Quantcast is a kick ass demographics research tool. You can then take these demographics and use their planner (or Google’s) and find more sites for the target market you are going after.
3. Compete – Very similar to Quantcast except they give you keywords.  Compete also has a paid version where you can do more in depth analysis
4. Alexa – Alexa is unique in that it has been around the longest and it may just have “better” and more accurate data than the others.  I could be wrong here, so someone correct me if I am.

Now that you have your demographics and target URL’s you want to figure out which Media Agency’s have that demographics.  This is probably the more important website of all time when doing media buys and market research. Not many people know about this website and you should.  comScore’s services are a bit expensive, but if you got the money, USE IT on this.

comScore - This website IS the all encompassing website for media buys, market intelligence, media planning, tracking, and everything.

Every month they release reports that analyze the whole internet marketing scene. Be sure to watch their Press Releases section at http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases

Make sure you download their “comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for October 2009″ report.  They have a new one every month.  This thing is amazing.  Shows you upcoming trends, what’s hot, and where media is being bought.

Table 2 shows you “Top 10 Gaining Site Categories by Percentage Change in Unique Visitors.” Now who wouldn’t want that?

Below is the one from October. It basically says that eCards is a upcoming trend along with other markets. Get your Christmas campaigns up NOW!

Table 4 is what particularly interests me. This is probably the BEST table to use when starting out with media buys.  This list is a list of the Top 50 companies that own media on the internet. The table below is a copy of it. Why not start contacting these companies and negotiating deals?

Building relationships with people at these companies will only help you.  It’s 90% of how low the rate on your media buy can go.  Seriously.  Search for them on LinkedIn, FaceBook, etc. IF you have a chance to go to Ad:Tech – GO and meet these people. Become friends with them, tell them what you do, then tell them to hook you up. Simple right?