Recently Jay Weintraub has been writing quite a bit about the quantity vs. quality debate in internet media buying. This conversation has been at the forefront of everyone’s mind-or at least everyone I know who is in the direct marketing media buying space.
Direct marketing is tricky in its simplicity. Its very name indicates that it is metrics driven marketing-campaigns that operate less in the land of the ethereal brandscape and more in the land of conversion metrics.
The new problem arises when you reach the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and find a campaign that is meeting all your back end metrics. Now the question becomes “How Much?” How many leads do you want to take from the publisher (whose campaign is working), how much of your budget are you willing to bank on them; in short how much is too much.
Of course as a media buyer, this the problem we all want to have-its like being the kid with too many toys, or is it? If you become too vested with one publisher a million things (and then some) can go wrong.
Obviously this is a proportion game, and it seems to me no publisher should ever be responsible for more than 25% of your traffic, but even that is a risky bet. On the one hand, if you have reasonable budgets you have one sales person who will work hard for your business. Someone who will need/want you around and therefore, answer all your calls and address all your need. But then you also have someone to whom you are beholden, especially if they discover how much of your budget they really have. And if they leave you will have to replace them with 5 plus publishers (in most instances). The upside is, if you have traffic and you know it works then you have the freedom to test more and find more scalable sources.
I wish I had a clear answer, but my team and I struggle with this each month as we draw out our media plan. How much to our big three and now much to the rest? I never know the answer, and each time I think I stumble on it something happens to prove me wrong.
