Media buying is the strategic purchasing of advertising space and airtime across digital, broadcast (TV, radio), out-of-home and print channels. Its purpose is to secure the most effective placements at the best possible value, reach the right audience at the right time, and maximise return on investment.
That’s the theory. In practice, effective media buying relies on strong relationships between buyers and media partners. These relationships create the agility and speed needed to pivot campaigns, respond to changing conditions and capitalise on opportunities as they arise.
There are two types of media buying:
Direct buying: Negotiating manually with a website publisher, TV network, or print publication.
Programmatic buying: Using automated software and real-time bidding algorithms to purchase digital ad space instantly.
Whether you buy direct or programmatic, tailor every touchpoint to each audience's needs, and never assume a one-size-fits-all. It’ll be an expensive mistake!
There are several key components to brand awareness:
Brand awareness is a powerful driver of growth, directly influencing sales, trust and customer choice. People are more likely to buy from a name they recognise because familiarity creates confidence and reassurance, and it is therefore often the first, and most important, step in building a lasting relationship between a brand and its customers.
Brand awareness is measured through a combination of consumer research (via surveys) and behavioural data, with platforms like Tracksuit leading the way here. No single metric tells the full story, though, so marketers bring together direct feedback and online activity to understand how well a brand is known and whether that awareness is growing.
The goal of media buying is to drive sustained improvement across these measures by lifting awareness above established benchmarks and, ultimately, surpassing previous performance.
Put simply, effective brand awareness starts with understanding your audience: where they spend their time, how they consume media and what influences them.
From there, an omnichannel approach is often the most effective, creating multiple opportunities for the brand to be seen, recognised and remembered. Performance can then be continually refined, with investment optimised towards the channels and placements generating the strongest engagement and impact.
Using tools such as Tracksuit, you can track real-time* (*monthly, which for brand tracking is real-time!) consumer shifts and prove the potential return on investment for a brand awareness activation.
Effective media negotiation is critical to securing the right mix of premium and cost-effective media placements to maximise exposure. An agency partner that has strong relationships with media vendors and an understanding of market trends means they can negotiate deals that offer premium placements at competitive prices, plus deliver plenty of bonus as a value-add.
When done well, efficient media buying translates into benefits such as:
Sennheiser, a premium global audio brand, needed a comprehensive 2025 media strategy to elevate awareness and strengthen emotional connection, to boost retail demand in Australia. The task was to run an efficient acquisition program with sufficient broad-reach visibility to prime the market and capture category buyers during critical, high-stakes selling periods.
The strategy delivered over a 127% uplift in direct sales by campaign end. The brand achieved record growth during key retail periods, including Father’s Day, Black Friday, and Christmas/Boxing Day. They secured a share-of-voice win against the category in four out of five months (with a net increase of 300%). This gave us a better understanding of funnel strategy effectiveness and helped shape further activation across channels.
McCormacks needed a campaign to boost awareness of Magnum Board and Thermory, driving traffic, leads, and conversions. The challenge was to target a diverse range of category buyers, from construction professionals to design-conscious consumers, while standing out in a competitive market.
We designed a media strategy that married scale with precision, ensuring every impression worked hard to build both brand salience and conversion potential.
Within the first three months of activation, McCormacks saw powerful performance gains across every metric; 400% increase in website traffic over the campaign period, 22% uplift in sales (during key campaign period) reflecting strong conversion from digital exposure, and 47% uplift in Magnum Board enquiries demonstrating deeper engagement with core products.
