Daniel Santa Lucia
Account Director/Media Buyer at Daniel Santa Lucia
Website Address: www.linkedin.com/in/dansantalucia
What services does your company provide?
Media Buying and Planning
About Daniel Santa Lucia:
I am a freelance Account Director and media planner and buyer.
The Biggest change in marketing that I see coming in the next 5 years is?
The biggest change that I see is the continuing of audience fragmentation with additional networks offering a streaming service with custom content for their paid subscribers.
What percent of your advertising service offerings does media buying make up?
75%
What makes your company unique?
I like to be a part of all aspects of my accounts from planning, negotiating, and purchasing media to account service.
What was the biggest obstacle you had to overcome in your business?
The biggest obstacle that I had to overcome in the business is reaching our desired audience however they are consuming media with traditional, OTT/CTV, digital, etc. There are so many more options out there and making sure we have enough budget to utilize media effectively.
How did you get started in media?
I got started back in college, I actually went to school for broadcasting and just been in love with it since.
How do you determine the best avenue to invest a client’s budget?
I think it all depends on what the client’s needs are. Obviously with the way things are today and the media landscape, audiences are so fragmented. There are different avenues to go with to efficiently utilize that client’s budget but it all goes with needs. It’s all about talking to the client setting expectations and figuring out what their needs are and what their goals are. If you don’t have those goals, your tactics could be completely different and strategies might not work.
What is an essential aspect or role to have as a media buyer?
I think that one of the biggest things is flexibility. You might feel that one strategy might be the best-case scenario for one thing or another. But if there are budget restraints or the client has needs and goals of change, you need to kind of pivot on the fly and not be tied down to what you’re doing on that plan. In this ever-changing environment new things are coming in left and right.
If you want to limit your advertising efforts to a certain geography or region, what are some of the best channels to utilize?
You know looking at OTT where you can get as granular as zip codes. Local cable is another great one to go with.
Why is media buying important to a company?
It’s important because it’s not so much media buying but more media planning. It’s important because you want to make sure you’re delivering your message to the right audience, the right amount of time. You don’t want to just take a hit. Sometimes you want to take a shotgun approach where you just blanket an entire market, sometimes get to go with a sniper rifle as in I need to go after this audience that’s living here in this geographical area because you don’t want to waste money and resources for it. So it’s incredibly important to have to have someone on your team that knows what’s going on in the media landscape because it’s ever changing. It’s important to keep up with trends and knowing what’s going on in that particular market because each market is a little bit different.
What’s the most enjoyable part about your job?
I love putting the pieces together. Talking with the client, getting what their goals and their needs are as well as their budget and trying to figure out what media are we going to purchase to accomplish their goals. Then presenting to the client and actually see it come to fruition is amazing.
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