Contents
- What is media split?
- Media split in media planning
- Why is media split necessary?
- How to conduct media split?
What is media split?
Media split is the process of distributing an advertising budget across various channels, time periods, content, and other criteria. This term is actively used in the development of media plans, which define how and where advertising materials will be placed. Media split can be created for individual advertising campaigns as well as for longer periods, such as monthly or yearly plans.
Let's consider a simple example: a company has an advertising budget of 1,000,000 rubles per month. The marketer's task is to efficiently allocate these funds across various promotion channels. As a result of the analysis, they decide to allocate:
- 300,000 ₽ for advertising on Yandex Direct,
- 250,000 ₽ for Google Adwords,
- 170,000 ₽ for targeted advertising on VKontakte,
- 100,000 ₽ for email newsletters,
- 100,000 ₽ for advertising in the media,
- 80,000 ₽ for renting two banners near the retail outlet.
Media split in media planning
Annual media split is especially useful for companies operating in sectors with pronounced seasonality or unstable demand. Graphs show how the advertising budget changes throughout the year. For example, peak months of consumer activity and advertising spending may occur in March, August, and September.
To better understand how media split fits into media planning, let's consider the main stages of this process:
- Setting goals, such as increasing brand awareness, boosting sales, or launching a new product;
- Developing a strategy — determining the scale, timing, and intensity of the advertising campaign;
- Defining KPIs — key performance indicators that will be used to assess the success of the advertising campaign;
- Evaluating and selecting promotion channels based on various characteristics, such as reach, frequency of contact, and profitability;
- Distributing the budget among advertising channels — media split;
- Creating a media plan, including the advertising schedule and placement locations;
- Purchasing advertising — media buying;
- Analyzing and evaluating the effectiveness of the conducted campaign.
Why is media split necessary?
When creating a media split, marketers set several key tasks:
- Optimal budget allocation among channels that most effectively accomplish the set tasks. For example, for image advertising, the relationship between reach and cost is important, while for sales advertising, conversion to sales and profitability are more critical.
- Increasing return on advertising expenditures. The effectiveness of each channel directly affects overall profitability, so it is important to monitor less effective sources and exclude them from the media split.
- Flexibility of the media split. It is vital to leave a reserve budget for potential risks and regularly reallocate funds to more effective communication channels.
- Improving budgeting methods to minimize the need for changes during the campaign process. Automation and end-to-end analytics can be used for this purpose.
How to conduct media split?
At the media planning stage, the key task of the marketer is to match placement parameters and choose the best option to achieve the set goal. Various factors are taken into account when selecting advertising channels, such as channel effectiveness, cost per click, number of leads, and cost per order.
The placement cost can be fixed or vary depending on volume, number of impressions, clicks, and conversions. For example, renting a banner may cost 50,000 rubles per month, regardless of how many users see it. When launching contextual or targeted advertising, it is important to choose the most advantageous payment scheme:
- CPM (Cost Per Mille) — payment for a thousand impressions;
- CPC (Cost Per Click) — payment for each click;
- CPA (Cost Per Action) — payment for a targeted action (purchase, application, subscription).
Coverage and frequency of contacts also play an important role. Coverage refers to the number of users who have seen the advertisement at least once, while the frequency of contact refers to the number of impressions for one user. Ideally, the frequency should be 3-5 impressions, although for well-known brands, 1-2 impressions may suffice.
The affinity index shows how closely the target audience of the channel matches the overall target audience. A channel is considered suitable if the index exceeds 100. For example, if the share of women aged 18 to 55 is 38%, and among readers of a specialized publication — 72%, then the index will be 189%, which makes this publication more suitable for advertising placement.
Finally, return on investment (ROI or ROMI) shows how much profit each ruble spent on advertising brings. It is calculated using the formula:
ROMI = (Revenue − Advertising Expense) / Advertising Expense × 100%
In media split, channels are selected to maximize overall profitability, ensuring more effective use of the advertising budget.