Many businesses hear of the benefits of paid media such as reaching wider audiences and increasing lead quality. But what is paid media exactly?
If you’d first like to learn what a complete marketing strategy for a business involves, download The Ultimate List of Marketing Resources for Any Campaign eBook.
Paid Media Definition
33% of marketers increase their brand awareness with paid advertising.
Paid media is a marketing method that involves promoting content through paid placements. For example, your business can pay to:
- Have your website become a sponsored link on Google
- Make your ads and posts get more impressions on social media
- Get an influencer to promote your product or brand
- Use re-targeting ads to engage with users who have interacted with your website or app
- Take advantage of traditional media such as billboards or TV ads
As you can see, paid media, sometimes known as PPC (pay-per-click), promotes content externally and typically involves a paid placement, usually pay-per-click advertising or display ads.
Its goal is to attract audiences to a piece of content or website page, starting them down your content funnel or buyer journey.
Related Blog: How to Find Your Target Audience on Social Media
The infographic below explains what a paid media strategy is and how its core components work well for attracting an interested audience online using digital advertising methods.
In the video below, see how Impact’s managed marketing division combines research, design, copy, and more in a paid media marketing strategy to create ads that work for your business.
Difference Between Paid, Earned, and Owned Media
Paid media, as we noted, refers to content that is externally placed for a fee. This differs from the other types of outbound marketing (as opposed to inbound marketing, which focuses on drawing people to a website) like earned and owned media.
Additional examples of paid media include:
Earned media refers to content that is about your business or something related to your business that you haven’t paid for. In other words, this kind of content often exists as articles or interviews about an organization created with no financial incentive.
Examples of earned media include:
- Reposts by others of your online content
- Positive reviews
- Word-of-mouth marketing
Owned media refers to content that is created and owned by your organization, and featured in your proprietary channels.
Examples of earned media include:
- Blogs
- Apps
- Email newsletters
Why Is Paid Media Marketing Important?
A paid media strategy is important for businesses because it’s a promotional avenue that offers the chance for businesses to create exposure for their content and increase their brand awareness in a short period of time.
Unlike owned and earned media, which often rely on organic means to drive visitors to content, paid media is a far more direct method of outreach that can target very specific topics—often relating to an individual service or product.
For this reason, it’s important for marketing teams to have a PPC strategy for their content to get it in front of the right audiences at the right time.
To discover what you need to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy, download The Ultimate List of Marketing Resources for Any Campaign eBook, an extensive resource with loads of helpful information for marketers.
