Definition

The actual purchase of advertising space or time, where agencies negotiate with publishers to secure placements. It's like buying real estate, except the property disappears after 30 seconds and costs are measured in CPM instead of square footage.

Example Usage

Our media buy for the holiday campaign included premium placements on three major networks and a takeover of Times Square.

Origin

Traditional advertising terminology from the Mad Men era of the 1960s

Fun Fact

In traditional media, buyers would literally negotiate over martinis at lunch; now it's done algorithmically in milliseconds by computers that definitely aren't drinking.

Source: Advertising industry standard terminology

Related Terms

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ascription

In data analytics and sociology, the act of assigning credit, blame, or characteristics to a person or thing based on analysis rather than self-identification. Marketers use this to decide who deserves credit for a conversion, while sociologists use it to study how society boxes people into categories they didn't choose. Both involve making assumptions that may or may not reflect reality.

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dayparting

The practice of scheduling ads or content to run during specific times of day when target audiences are most active. Because showing cereal ads at 3 AM is generally suboptimal.

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marketing qualified lead

A prospect who's shown enough interest to warrant sales attention but hasn't quite committed, occupying that precious limbo between 'downloaded a whitepaper' and 'actually wants to talk to someone.' The marketing team's way of saying 'we've done our part, now it's your turn' to sales.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

sales qualified lead

A prospect who's been vetted by marketing, kicked over to sales, and deemed worthy of actual human attention rather than automated email sequences. Abbreviated as SQL, which confusingly has nothing to do with databases.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

barn door

A completely obvious insight or recommendation that anyone could have identified without research or analysis. The marketing equivalent of saying water is wet.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Advanced

cohort analysis

A method of grouping customers by shared characteristics or behaviors within a specific timeframe to track patterns over time. It's essentially marketing's way of figuring out which batch of customers is actually worth keeping around.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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