Media buying software is used by companies in managing their marketing and advertising and other media events for all types of media.
Media can include:
- Magazines
- Newspapers
- Direct Mail
- Catalogs
- Online websites
- Search engines
- Billboards
- Radio
- Broadcast television and cable television in the purchase of broadcast segments
This software can include:
- Trend and research analysis (ratings)
- Airtime planning and estimating (TV and radio)
- Spot distribution (TV and radio)
- Insertion scheduling (magazines, Newspapers, catalogs, etc)
- Invoice reconciliation
- Multimarket postbuy
- Vendor management
- Planning and account integration
- Access to online services
- Choice of on-site or remote computing
- Integrated response analysis
The most robust media purchasing packages will help with your Media decisions from the initial analysis of ratings, through the buying process and then with response analysis to be sure that the purchased media is having the desired results. These high level software packages also come complete with budget analysis and other financial components.
Major providers of software for media buys include:
- Marketing Pilot
- IFS Manufacturing
- Microsoft
- Arbitron
Factors to consider when purchasing software to help manage you media purchases include:
- Buy it in unison with other marketing and business systems – it needs to be fully integrated to get the biggest returns
- History of provider – except for a few large companies – many companies come and go
- Core of business or peripheral
- Major media emphasis (TV, publication, etc)
- System resources: Not usually an issue, but sometimes small business environments are on over-taxed hardware already.