Media Buyers have a unique place in the digital marketing industry. They hold the keys to a company's brand exposure while establishing appropriate advertising strategy to drive brand awareness.
What is a Media Buyer?
Media Buyers are mainly responsible for the planning and buying of advertising for digital, print, TV, radio, and other channels as well as reporting on success. Other responsibilities can include developing and implementing interactive media campaigns and presentations, analyzing media data, and providing strategic direction to senior management, and clients. Media Buyers are typically required to establish strong business relationships with clients while negotiating with media representatives. A Media Buyer's role is highly collaborative as they work with sales teams to create strategic media plans to drive sales, market share, and increase brand visibility.
What skills do Media Buyers need?
Media Buyers need to be able to build media plans first and foremost. Having knowledge of ad serving technology and research tools is important. In addition, Media Buyers should be familiar with how to negotiate buys. Because data analysis plays a huge role in determining what media to buy, and how to move forward with future projects, being able to navigate analytics is a non-negotiable skill. Familiarity with tools such as Comscore, Kantar, MOAT, MediaOcean, Nielsen @Plan, Ad Relevance, Mediamind, DoubleClick/DFA, etc. is also important.
What experience do Media Buyers need?
The easiest way to get experience is through working in the field, especially in advertising on the client-side. In advertising, you want to make sure you're managing ad campaign execution and measurement since those are both key components to becoming a master Media Buyer. If you're working as a Freelancer, seek out ad agencies and gain experience working on client pitches and plans. Acquire as much diverse experience at different agencies as possible so your bases are covered if you decide to pivot to full-time with a company.
What are hiring managers looking for in Media /Buyers?
Hiring managers are looking for Media Buyers with prior experience in integrated media planning or digital media planning. The reason being, today the majority of media is online so knowledge of digital media, including social, mobile, tablet, video, content, SEM and programmatic is imperative. Hiring managers want to make sure you know the media process entirely from planning to implementation to the brand's overall strategy in the context of changing marketplace conditions and opportunities.
How to succeed as a Media Buyer:
Because the digital landscape is constantly changing, a successful Media Buyer has the ability to recommend and implement new ideas and innovations to improve each media tactic and customer account performance. This person has a clear understanding of customized marketing plans that target customer goals for their sales, marketing and lead nurturing funnel. This includes measuring KPIs and performance metrics and being able to communicate results across teams to ensure program evolution. Media Buyers who provide vision, strategy and serve as a subject matter expert for clients thrive. Looking to dip your feet in media buying? Search our relevant job openings today! Click here to access our free Job Toolkit for everything you need to know about today’s most in-demand jobs.