What are Media Buys

Media buys refer to buying advertising space from a company offering a form of media entertainment or information to an audience. The advertiser buys a unit of time on a cable television or radio station. The advertiser might also buy ad space on a website or in a daily newspaper.  The individuals buying media time or print space take into consideration a number of factors, including the demographics of the audience for a particular media property, the time slot, the duration, and the longevity of their campaign.

The various media buys available to an advertiser depends on the media. Local television and cable companies sell ad units called commercials. The commercials run in a unit of time, often times sold as fifteen second, thirty second, or one minute slots between programming.  The cost of running a commercial depends on the time of day and the popularity of the program. Super Bowl commercials are notoriously expensive media buys since they reach the largest viewing audience on television.

Similar to television, radio ads sell in time slots, also called commercials. The ad can be heard at varying times between regular programming. The advertiser also needs to be aware of the demographics of the listening audience, the overall reach of the radio station, and the number of times the ad will run.

A video or banner ad slot can be purchased from most high traffic websites. Visitors who interact with the ad will be taken to a website or shown a product. A website owner typically charges an advertiser by the amount of times the banner has been displayed (usually by a 1,000 impressions) or by the amount of times it has been clicked over a set period of time.