About

Imported from terminalskills/skills (skills/media-buying/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add terminalskills/skills --skill media-buying. Copyright stays with the author (Apache-2.0).

Media Buying

Name: media-buying
Author: terminalskills

Overview

Plan and execute paid media across programmatic, direct, and social channels. Optimize spend allocation, audience targeting, and cross-channel performance.

Instructions

Budget allocation framework

Allocate budget across channels based on funnel stage:

AWARENESS (top of funnel) — 30-40% of budget
├── Programmatic display (CPM $2-8)
├── YouTube/CTV (CPM $10-25)
├── Podcast sponsorships (CPM $15-30)
└── Influencer partnerships

CONSIDERATION (middle) — 30-40%
├── Paid social (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn)
├── Sponsored content / native ads
├── Retargeting display (CPM $3-12)
└── Search non-brand keywords

CONVERSION (bottom) — 20-30%
├── Search brand keywords (highest ROAS)
├── Retargeting (cart abandoners, high-intent)
├── Email/SMS (near-zero marginal cost)
└── Affiliate partnerships (CPA-based)

Media plan template

## Media Plan — Q2 2026
**Objective**: Generate 500 qualified leads at <$80 CAC
**Total Budget**: $40,000/month

| Channel | Monthly Budget | Model | Target CPA | Expected Volume |
|---------|---------------|-------|------------|-----------------|
| Google Search (brand) | $5,000 | CPC | $25 | 200 leads |
| Google Search (non-brand) | $8,000 | CPC | $65 | 123 leads |
| Meta Ads | $12,000 | CPA | $90 | 133 leads |
| LinkedIn Ads | $8,000 | CPC | $120 | 67 leads |
| Programmatic Display | $4,000 | CPM | N/A | 500K impressions |
| Content syndication | $3,000 | CPL | $75 | 40 leads |

Programmatic advertising (RTB)

1. User visits a webpage with ad space
2. Publisher's SSP sends bid request to ad exchange (10ms)
3. Ad exchange broadcasts to connected DSPs
4. DSPs evaluate user data + campaign rules → submit bid (50ms)
5. Highest bidder wins, ad is served (~100ms total)

Key players:
- DSP: Where advertisers buy (DV360, The Trade Desk, Amazon DSP)
- SSP: Where publishers sell (Google Ad Manager, Magnite)
- DMP: Audience data (Oracle, Lotame)

DSP campaign structure: Advertiser → Campaign → Insertion Order (by objective) → Line Item (by audience) → Creatives.

Targeting layers

AUDIENCE: First-party data, third-party (DMP), contextual, lookalike, intent signals
INVENTORY: Domain allowlists/blocklists, app vs web, viewability (>70%), ad position
ENVIRONMENTAL: Geography, device, dayparting, frequency caps, browser/OS

Buying models

CPM  (Cost Per 1000 impressions): Awareness/reach. Range: $2-50
CPC  (Cost Per Click): Consideration/traffic. Range: $0.50-15
CPA  (Cost Per Acquisition): Performance/conversion. Range: $10-500
CPV  (Cost Per View): Video campaigns. Range: $0.01-0.10
CPL  (Cost Per Lead): B2B lead gen. Range: $20-200

Brand safety

Pre-bid: Domain allow/blocklists, category exclusions, keyword blocklists,
         brand safety vendors (IAS, DoubleVerify, Oracle Moat)
Post-bid: Viewability measurement (>50% pixels, >1 sec), IVT detection,
          brand suitability scoring, placement reports

Cross-channel optimization

Attribution windows: Google 30-day click, Meta 7-day click / 1-day view, LinkedIn 30-day click / 7-day view, Programmatic 30-day click / 14-day view.

Budget reallocation: Review weekly. Move 10-20% from high-CPA to low-CPA channels, wait 7 days, remeasure. If CPA increases after budget increase, you've hit diminishing returns — pull back. Optimize for marginal CPA, not average CPA.

Negotiating direct deals

For premium placements (homepage takeovers, newsletter sponsorships, podcast ads): request rate card and negotiate 20-40% below, ask for added value (bonus impressions, social posts), request performance guarantees and historical data, negotiate cancellation terms, get makegood policy in writing.

Examples

Create a programmatic media plan

We're launching a B2B SaaS product targeting CTOs and VP Engineering at companies with 100-1000 employees. Budget is $25,000/month for programmatic display and video. Create a full media plan using DV360 — campaign structure, audience segments (first-party site visitors + third-party intent data), creative specs, frequency caps, and brand safety settings. Include a 4-week optimization timeline.

Optimize cross-channel budget allocation

We run ads across Google Search ($15K/mo), Meta ($20K/mo), LinkedIn ($10K/mo), and programmatic display ($5K/mo). Our blended CPA is $95 but varies wildly by channel. Analyze the marginal CPA for each channel at different spend levels and recommend a reallocation to reduce blended CPA by 20%. Include the data I need to collect and the rebalancing schedule.

Set up brand safety for programmatic campaigns

We're a financial services company running programmatic display across 500+ publisher sites. Set up comprehensive brand safety — domain allowlist of premium financial and business publishers, category exclusions, keyword blocklists specific to our industry, and viewability thresholds. Include a weekly audit process to catch new placement issues.

Guidelines

Always set up brand safety (allowlists, blocklists, verification vendors) before launching programmatic campaigns
Optimize for marginal CPA, not average CPA — the next dollar should go to the cheapest conversion
Never reallocate more than 20% of a channel's budget in a single week to avoid resetting algorithmic learning
Use frequency caps to prevent ad fatigue (typically 3-5 impressions per user per day for display)
Always request historical performance data and makegood policies before signing direct deals
Review placement reports weekly to catch brand safety issues early
Include viewability thresholds (>70%) in all programmatic line items

Use it

Copy one of these into your project. Installing also returns the manifest and these snippets.

yaml

targets:
  - https://api.opensmartroute.ai/api/v1/registry/terminalskills-skills-media-buying/manifest   # or paste the manifest below

Manifest

An Open Capability Manifest: the router reads it to know what this does, what it costs and when to pick it.

terminalskills-skills-media-buying.ocm.jsonjson

{
  "ocm": "1",
  "id": "terminalskills-skills-media-buying",
  "kind": "skill",
  "name": "media-buying",
  "description": "Plan and execute media buying across digital and traditional channels — programmatic advertising, DSP platforms, direct buys, and budget allocation. Use when tasks involve programmatic ad buying, real-time bidding (RTB), demand-side platform setup, media plan creation, CPM/CPC/CPA optimization, cross-channel budget allocation, audience segmentation for paid media, or negotiating direct ad placements.",
  "publisher": "terminalskills",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "capabilities": {
    "domains": [
      "finance"
    ],
    "tags": [
      "skill-md",
      "media-buying",
      "programmatic",
      "advertising",
      "dsp",
      "rtb",
      "skills-sh"
    ],
    "languages": [
      "en"
    ]
  },
  "quality_prior": 0.6,
  "examples": [
    "Plan and execute media buying across digital and traditional channels — programmatic advertising, DSP platforms, direct buys, and budget allocation. Use when tasks involve programmatic ad buying, real-time bidding (RTB), demand-side platform setup, media plan creation, CPM/CPC/CPA optimization, cross-channel budget allocation, audience segmentation for paid media, or negotiating direct ad placements."
  ],
  "primary": false,
  "metadata": {
    "source": {
      "provider": "skills.sh",
      "repository": "https://github.com/terminalskills/skills",
      "path": "skills/media-buying/SKILL.md",
      "ref": "HEAD",
      "url": "https://github.com/terminalskills/skills/blob/HEAD/skills/media-buying/SKILL.md",
      "key": "terminalskills/skills/skills/media-buying/SKILL.md"
    },
    "compatibility": "No special requirements",
    "license": "Apache-2.0"
  },
  "instructions": "# Media Buying\n\n## Overview\n\nPlan and execute paid media across programmatic, direct, and social channels. Optimize spend allocation, audience targeting, and cross-channel performance.\n\n## Instructions\n\n### Budget allocation framework\n\nAllocate budget across channels based on funnel stage:\n\n```\nAWARENESS (top of funnel) — 30-40% of budget\n├── Programmatic display (CPM $2-8)\n├── YouTube/CTV (CPM $10-25)\n├── Podcast sponsorships (CPM $15-30)\n└── Influencer partnerships\n\nCONSIDERATION (middle) — 30-40%\n├── Paid social (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn)\n├── Sponsored content / native ads\n├── Retargeting dis",
  "cost": {
    "context_tokens": 1427
  }
}

Fetch it by URL: GET /api/v1/registry/terminalskills-skills-media-buying/manifest?version=1.0.0

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