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Ad Process

Ad Process

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Ad Process

Understand the ad process and the steps involved to create and place ads.

You'll want to plan, buy media, create and possibly test the ads and then produce, distribute and measure in-market effectiveness of your ads.

 

Tip

The ad process from start to finish

  • Planning includes determining your ad strategy, plan and budget.   And figuring out what you will do yourself or who you will hire to help.

    • Advertising Strategy and Planning

    • How to Determine Your Ad Budget

    • Who You Can Hire to Help You with Advertising

    • Ways to Save Money on Advertising

    • Different Types of Advertising

    • Advertising Ideas and Examples


  • Media planning is an important part of the ad process and should be done before you start creating ads in conjunction with your ad planning since buying ad space (where the ads will run or be placed) will be a significant portion of your ad budget.  You need to invest enough to reach enough of your target audience enough times so your message will be seen.  The rule of thumb is you need to reach 70% or more of your target audience at least three times in a month with your ad message for it to have any effect.

    • Media planning and buying

    • Ad rates, costs and budgets

    • How to Do Media Scenario Planning

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  • The process of creating the ad(s) varies depending on whether you do this yourself or hire freelancers or an agency, as well as the type of advertising you are creating.  You'll want to leave time to write a rough draft and then time for the design.  Additional time is needed to finalize the copy and design.  You may want to incorporate time for testing and revising the ads.

    • How to Create Ads Yourself

    • Find Agencies and advertising freelancers to Hire

    • Top Suppliers for Advertising

    • How to choose the best ad

 

  • Ad testing is a part of the ad process that most large companies and major advertisers include and many small businesses don't.  Most of the techniques for ad testing can be used by small businesses to help determine which ads will be most effective and to improve the ads before they are run.

    • Ad Testing

  • Producing the ad involves meeting each media sellers specifications.  If you've hired an agency or freelancer to create the ads, they'll manage the ad production process.  You just need to monitor the budget and make your approvals quickly to avoid late and rush charges for production.  Trafficking the ad is the term the ad industry uses for sending the ads out to the media outlets.  The timing for this varies based on what type of media you are buying.  For TV, ads needs to be pre-approved by stations before they are aired.  Magazine ads have a very long lead time.  The sections on MarketingZone for each type of advertising explain what's involved and include tips on how to save money on production costs.

 

  • Measuring ad effectiveness and optimizing the advertising.  This part of the ad process can be done real-time for search and online ads.  For other types of advertising, it's best to pre-test the ads to make sure they will work.  Next evaluate the success of the media plan and media weight (amount of money you invested) to learn what worked and what didn't.  The learning is then applied to the next ad campaign.

    • How to determine ad effectiveness

Tip

Ad process related to timing

 
  • How long does it take to get ads in market (on air, in print)? 
    • That depends on what type of advertising you are creating and if you're creating an ad or a campaign that will run in several types of advertising media (like on TV, print and online). 
    • Ad Timing has more information on this.

 

  • In a hurry?  Fastest Ways to Get Advertising Done

 

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