Digital Ad Buying - WKQ Media

Digital Audio Ads: Reaching Audiences in a Noisy World

Posted on June 3, 2025 - 9:20 pm by Brianna Herrington

Smart Sound Strategies: Using Digital Audio to Drive Campaign Impact

Navigating the complexities of digital audio advertising in the political sphere has been a formidable challenge for our agency. Despite substantial budgets and the medium’s rising prominence, we encountered significant obstacles that necessitated a strategic pivot to alternative inventory types, ultimately salvaging our campaign objectives.

Challenges in Digital Audio Advertising

Our initial foray into digital audio was met with limited inventory availability. The scarcity of ad slots, coupled with intense competition, made it difficult to secure placements that aligned with our campaign timelines. Additionally, the lack of standardized measurement tools in digital audio hindered our ability to assess return on investment effectively.

Strategic Pivot to Alternative Channels

Recognizing these challenges, we redirected our focus to more accessible and measurable advertising channels:

Programmatic Advertising: We leveraged programmatic platforms to automate media buying across various digital channels, enhancing efficiency and targeting precision. This approach allowed us to reach specific voter demographics with tailored messages, optimizing our ad spend.

Social Media Campaigns: Utilizing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, we engaged with voters through interactive content and targeted ads. The robust analytics provided by these platforms enabled real-time performance tracking and campaign adjustments.

Display and Native Advertising: We invested in display and native ads across high-traffic websites frequented by our target audience. This strategy ensured visibility and reinforced our campaign messages through consistent online presence.

Here’s What Changed

By diversifying our advertising strategy, we achieved:

Improved Reach and Engagement: The shift allowed us to connect with a broader audience, increasing voter engagement through multiple touchpoints.

Enhanced Measurability: The alternative channels offered robust analytics, facilitating data-driven decisions and precise campaign optimization.

Cost Efficiency: Diversifying our ad spend across various platforms mitigated the high costs associated with scarce digital audio inventory, ensuring a more efficient allocation of resources.

Our agency’s ability to adapt to the challenges in digital audio advertising by pivoting to alternative inventory types was instrumental in achieving our campaign goals. This experience underscores the importance of flexibility and innovation in navigating the evolving landscape of political digital marketing.

CTV Unlocked: Reaching Voters Where They Are

Posted on May 5, 2025 - 2:51 pm by WKQ Media

Innovative Advertising: Leveraging Connected TV (CTV) to Prioritize Our Client’s Campaigns

In the rapidly evolving world of digital marketing, Connected TV (CTV) has emerged as an invaluable tool for reaching engaged audiences. At our agency, we saw CTV not as an oversaturated market but as a promising, underutilized space where we could prioritize our client’s needs, securing impactful placements and building long-term value.

Why CTV?

CTV provides advertisers the opportunity to deliver targeted, high-quality ads directly to viewers through streaming platforms and smart TVs. With its expanding reach and the growing number of households using smart TVs, CTV offers access to a prime audience—without the saturation that often plagues other digital channels. Whether viewers are watching on their big glass screen at home or engaging with content through streaming services, CTV gives us the ability to reach them wherever they’re consuming TV content, in a more layered and strategic way.

Voters don’t know whether they’re on a FAST app, broadcast linear, or cable. We can reach them wherever they watch TV, and CTV enables us to do this across multiple layers and platforms, ensuring a seamless and comprehensive approach to targeting.

Rather than competing in a crowded space, we saw CTV as a market full of untapped potential for impactful, strategic advertising. The key to success in this area is ensuring our clients’ messages are consistently reaching the right people with the right level of exposure. That’s why we turned to programmatic guaranteed deals and Private Marketplace (PMP) deals to lock in premium placements and maximize both reach and frequency.

Programmatic Guaranteed Deals & PMPs: Securing Reach & Frequency

To ensure our client’s campaigns were delivered at the optimal cadence, we utilized programmatic guaranteed deals and PMPs. These agreements allowed us to secure highly targeted ad placements on major streaming platforms like Roku, Paramount, and Hulu. Our goal with these deals was to ensure that the right people saw our client’s message at the right frequency, delivering consistent visibility without oversaturation.

By locking in premium placements on these platforms, we could guarantee exposure to key audiences while controlling frequency to avoid overwhelming viewers. This strategic approach helped us strike the perfect balance between reach and repetition, ensuring our client’s message landed with the audience in a meaningful and impactful way. The result? A more effective advertising campaign that resonates without drowning in the clutter of linear and traditional ad formats.

Expanding Our Client’s Reach: Billboards & Gas Station TV Screens

Taking things further, we combined CTV placements with other out-of-home (OOH) strategies like digital billboards and gas station TV screens, integrating these into the larger media mix. This expanded the campaign’s reach, ensuring that the message was delivered in both digital environments and high-traffic physical locations, reinforcing brand visibility across diverse platforms.

Digital billboards and gas station screens allowed us to target commuters and drivers, extending the campaign beyond the home and into real-world settings. This omnichannel approach provided additional opportunities to keep the message top-of-mind, while reinforcing key points in environments where people are more likely to be receptive to external media—whether they are consuming content through CTV or more traditional linear ads.

The Impact of CTV for Our Clients

The result? A more effective and holistic advertising strategy that reached a wide range of engaged consumers. By focusing on a less saturated market like CTV, and strategically investing in programmatic guaranteed deals and PMPs, we ensured that our client’s message reached their target audience at just the right frequency and at the perfect moment. This helped prevent ad fatigue while maximizing the impact of every interaction.

Further bolstered by OOH tactics like billboards and gas station TV screens, this integrated approach allowed us to significantly amplify our client’s reach, keeping their messaging consistent and highly visible across multiple touchpoints. With CTV continuing to grow, advertisers have the opportunity to break free from the noise of linear TV and traditional digital ad spaces, making each campaign more personalized and impactful.

Connected TV offers a powerful advertising solution, particularly for clients looking to break through the noise of more crowded digital channels. By utilizing programmatic guaranteed deals, PMPs, and integrating OOH placements, we were able to prioritize our client’s campaign in a market that’s still ripe for exploration. As CTV continues to grow and evolve, staying ahead of the curve with strategic deals and placements will ensure we’re delivering maximum value to our clients, all while maintaining the right balance of reach and frequency. With big glass screens becoming more central to home viewing, now is the time to prioritize CTV in the media mix.