Paid Media

What is paid media?

As the name suggests, paid media refers to marketing and advertising channels that you can use to reach your target audience and/or customers for a fee.

If you want a more in-depth understanding of this topic, check out the FAQ section below:

Question #1: What are examples of paid media?

The most common examples of paid media are:

1. Digital ads – These are the ads you see virtually anywhere you go on the internet (unless you have an ad blocker). They are on social media, YouTube, search engine results pages (SERPs), and even on a lot of the websites you visit.
2. Branded content – This refers to content that is specifically produced to promote a brand, product, or service. Examples include advertorials and reviews.
3. Shoutouts and mentions – As you may have already guessed, these involve a celebrity or influencer mentioning your brand on social media.
4. Traditional ads – These are the ads you see on TV, billboards, newspapers, and magazines or hear on the radio.

Question #2: What is the difference between paid media and earned media?

The biggest difference between paid media and earned media lies in the names. As we have seen earlier, paid media consists of channels that you can tap to get in front of your target audience and/or customers. In contrast, earned media refers to the exposure you get from people sharing your content with their family, friends, colleagues, and followers

Unlike paid media, you have no direct control over the amount of earned media you have. All you can do is publish high-quality, valuable, shareworthy content and hope your audience and customers talk about it with other people.

Check this help page for more information on the differences.

Question #4: What are its benefits?

The biggest benefits of paid media are as follows:

1. It gives you access to powerful targeting tools. Most modern digital advertising platforms, such as Google Ads, allow you to easily target the exact people who are most likely to be interested in your products, services, or content, allowing you to more easily build an audience and get conversions.
2. It gives you access to powerful analytics tools. These advertising platforms also give you in-depth analytics data to help you easily optimise your marketing and advertising campaigns for maximum ROI.
3. It helps you see significant results much more quickly. Unlike with SEO, paid media allows you to instantly get in front of your target audience and customers, which, in turn, gives you more qualified leads to convert much more quickly.
4. It helps you easily increase your reach. Things like shoutouts, mentions, and branded content allow you to get in front of someone else’s audience, which instantly gives you a much bigger audience to pitch to.

Question #5: What are its disadvantages?

The biggest disadvantage of paid media is that it requires you to spend money. Depending on the type you choose, you could end up spending thousands of dollars.

Do not worry if you have a limited budget, though. Digital ads do not really cost that much. $10 spent on a properly set up campaign can go a long, long way. You can just increase your ad budget once your audience and customer base grows.

But what about ad blockers?

Well, ad blockers only work on websites and platforms that are accessed using a web browser. People using social media apps, for example, will still see your ads.