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Effective media planning in a recession

by Odette van der Haar (@odette_roper), CEO, Association for Communication and Advertising Media planning is an ever-shifting discipline. It is a continuous process of reviewing media data (ratings, demographics, rankings, clicks) combined with a great deal of research and, of course, negotiation to deliver the best media schedule for a campaign. In a recession, a good media planner becomes even more crucial.

This is because clients and agencies are held to deliver value, a return on investment and/or a return on objectives. It is also because different channels are clamouring for marketing spend, making it critical for the media planner strategically develop the communications campaign strategy.

In the run-up to the APEX awards which are all about on defining effectiveness in advertising and communications, I thought it appropriate to scrutinise what makes for effective media planning in a recession.

Digital spend jumps from 1-2% to 10-15% of SA media budgets

by Herman Manson (@marklives) The online media planning space is moving at a hectic pace – where else can you can lose two big spending clients close together and still plan for 100% growth over the next two years? Lighthouse Digital, the media agency launched only three years ago, has grown from 4 to 26 people, and has been doubling its revenue every year since then.

Aaron Van Schaik, Managing Director at Lighthouse Digital, estimates the value of SA’s digital advertising spend at around R1.2 billion – Aaron Van Schaikbetween 40-50% of that is spent on search. Google doesn’t release its figures for the South African market making it difficult to be sure of exact actual spend. But growth has been rapid with spend jumping from 1-2% of media budgets a year ago to between 10-15% today*.

Van Schaik attributes this growth to marketers realising the value digital media represents as well as directives form international parent companies asking local operations to shift budgets online.

Demystifying the CTR vs. CPA debate

MarkLives asked Michelle Pearman, a media planner at Digivox, to discuss what determines a successful online media campaign. Here Pearman tries to demystify several metrics used for measuring the success of your online campaign and weighs which one brings you closer to meeting your marketing objectives.

Have a question about digital marketing? Email or Tweet it to us and we will go looking for answers!

In a world of measurable marketing initiatives, what exactly constitutes a successful campaign? You design a great ad. People click on it. Objective met? Unlikely.

CTR (Click-Through-Rate) has been considered the benchmark for many years surrounded by debates on what constitutes a good CTR. Is this a discussion worth having?

If the objective is to sell tickets to an event, wouldn’t you care more about how many tickets you sold, and what the return on investment on your marketing buck is?

The pragmatic Andrea Mitchell

Andrea Mitchell is one of the original stalwarts of South Africa’s internet economy having been involved in the online advertising and publishing industry since shortly after the commercial web launched in South Africa.

Listen before you jump into social, says Diane Charton

Acceleration Media is an old hand at the digital media game. It was launched as a specialist online media company more than 12 years ago, at a point in time when everybody was talking about the potential of online media but when advertisers were not nearly as invested in the medium as they are today.

Martin MacGregor, ex-MD of Nota Bene CT, joins M&C Saatchi Abel

Martin MacGregor, the former MD at Nota Bene MEC Cape Town, has joined M&C Saatchi Abel as managing partner: connection (we’ll get to that in a moment).