Media Buying FAQ’s

What is a Media Buyer?

A Media Buyer is a professional manager of advertising budgets. Akin to a financial advisor who would help you determine how to invest your savings. A Media Buyer (sometimes called a Media Trader or Media Planner) professionally manages your advertising budget allocation, executes advertising orders, and manages the success and delivery of your paid media purchases. Skilled at knowing how to reach demographics efficiently and effectively, a Media Buyer will take your ad dollars and make them work harder and smarter.

What is a media buy?

A media buy is your order for advertising space with a media company.

Media buying refers to the purchase of advertising in all forms.

At Thrive Advertising, we buy Traditional Advertising and Digital Advertising.

Traditional Advertising includes things like TV commercials, radio spots, bus advertising, billboards, and print ads.

Digital Marketing can be done as Display Advertising which is graphic advertising on websites, apps, or social media through banners made of text, images, video, and audio. Or Digital Radio, OTT and Connected TV, and Native Advertising,

Why would I hire a media buyer instead of purchasing ads on my own?

You probably don’t choose your retirement allocation without consulting with an expert. Likely you let your CPA do your taxes.

When writing contracts, you hire an attorney, and when allocating an advertising budget, smart marketers and business owners use a professional Media Buyer.

A Media Buyer’s full-time job is to invest in advertising. Therefore, we have experience allocating millions of marketing dollars and have had discussions with hundreds of business owners and marketers who’ve disclosed what advertising works and what doesn’t.

We lend you the experience of others who have gone before you and have learned harsh media investing lessons. Our volume purchasing provides you with lower rates and better placement. Our full-time management of your media buy ensures full delivery.

Why should I choose Thrive?

Thrive was founded in 2008 by a media sales superstar! Robin was the up-and-coming, top new business exec at ABC Television in Seattle and won award after award for selling media space to advertisers and ad agencies. Her media negotiation training and experience gave her a front-row seat to the world of advertising investments.

Robin saw a need to be met for marketers and business owners to understand how to invest their advertising budgets without an unbiased advisor.

For the past 14 years, Robin has led her team with one goal in mind: providing a business service that gives extraordinary value and dramatically increases ROI.

Our experience in Traditional Media, combined with our ongoing education and extensive experience in the Digital Marketing world, allows us to be highly competitive Media Buyers.

Robin’s continued education includes completing the prestigious Cornell University Digital Marketing Program.

Our client testimonials are our best sales pitch. Adding us to your team gives you an edge over your competition that will boost your sales and directly impact your bottom line.

How much does hiring a Thrive media buyer cost?

Hiring Thrive adds no cost to your marketing budget.

We don’t have fees or retainers.

We make an industry-standard commission of the overall ad buy and are compensated with the same percentage on all ad buys, so we don’t have a financial incentive to place your ad dollars with one media company over another.

We keep our overhead low and focus on being a master of media buying instead of being a jack of all trades with high overhead and fancy office space.

You may not know that advertising salespeople are typically 100% commission-only salesman.

When a Media Buyer places your ad buys, the commission structure is adjusted to compensate our team.

Therefore, the commission is already “baked in” to the ad buy whether you buy directly from a media company or you let us act as your unbiased media advisor advocating for you.

We know how to get you more for your investment, and we use our collective buying power to your advantage.

How does Thrive protect my advertising dollars?

We manage your advertising investments with laser focus.

Combing through invoices and delivery reports with a fine-tooth comb, managing the ad buys with exceptional attention to detail.

Our focus on ensuring accurate delivery is paramount to our success as a media buying company, and we take the responsibility very seriously.

Holding the media companies accountable for what they sell you is critical.

We provide monthly digestible metrics showing full campaign delivery with detailed notes about optimizations and performance.

We protect your advertising investments by making the media companies honor their promises.

Identify where to place your ads
Which media aligns best with your demographic? What type of advertising will produce the greatest ROI? With Thrive on your team, we’ll provide solutions even before these questions arise.
Leverage collective ad spend
We have relationship with medias nationwide. This translates into our ability to negotiate the most efficient and effective advertising buys possible. With our agency collective buying power, we get better rates, more added value and fantastic results.
Negotiate advertising investments
Buying advertising every single day keeps our negotiation skills razor-sharp. Knowing the competitive media landscape inside and out allows us to scrutinize every media proposal more clearly. Every media value is not created equal, and we know an apples to oranges and a red flag when we see it.
Traffic ads and track creative submissions
Thrive creates cloud-based creative calendars for each client so the specs and deadlines are easily trackable and all ad trafficking is transparent and simple.
Monitor ad campaign success
Conversion goals, ROAS, CTR, CPM, CPC, VCR, Nielsen, and ComScore Ratings are just a few ways to monitor ad campaigns. But do rating points or impressions = revenue? Through the duration of the many facets of your complex campaign, we’ll work with your team to ensure they see tangible results.
Hold media companies accountable
Accountability in advertising is critical. We ensure the media companies stand behind what they sell by using guaranteed viewable impressions, setting conversion goals, and monitoring audience engagement. We are on it daily, so you don’t have to be.
Cloud-based easy to read campaign Metrics delivered to your inbox monthly
Expect digestible monthly metrics and detailed reporting where you can see how your advertising investments performed.
Reconcile invoices and provide single point billing
We will save you considerable time every month with single-point invoicing when placing multiple media buys. We reconcile each invoice to ensure complete delivery and accountability from the media companies while providing a monthly invoice for the client from Thrive. Hands down, this may be what our clients love most about us.

Media Buying FAQ’s

Identify where to place your ads

Leverage collective ad spend

Negotiate advertising investments

Traffic ads and track creative submissions

Monitor ad campaign success

Hold media companies accountable

Cloud-based easy to read campaign Metrics delivered to your inbox monthly

Reconcile invoices and provide single point billing