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.

Finding profitable media buys comes with time spent on market research. Where are the customers that you want to target? Are they watching television shows, visiting a popular social networking site, or working in their garage listening to a local radio station? Traditional media sources like newspapers, television, and radio stations employ marketing metrics for advertisers to utilize while considering specific ad times. Website owners also can provide details like the age of visitors, time spent on the site, and popular outgoing or incoming links.

Media companies can tell you how to reach your intended audience. A newspaper will know what article pages attract different age groups, as well the geographic details of their subscribers. These institutions have spent millions of dollars throughout the years to refine their ad sale mechanics. It is important to remember these companies want you to succeed with your ad slot. This correlates to more ad dollars in the future, since you will be likely be doing more business as a result of profitable media buys.

A quality ad that converts viewers, listeners or readers to buyers is an essential ingredient of any advertising campaign.