How media and data buying actually works
Practical explainers on the mechanics behind media buying, data licensing, and outbound. Written by the people who run these buys, for the people who have to budget for them.
These guides explain how media and data buying work at a mechanical level: how provider waterfalls are sequenced, what drives contact data pricing, how programmatic auctions clear, and which metrics actually indicate whether a buy performed. No product pitch, just the mechanics.
What is a data waterfall?
How sequencing multiple providers raises match rates and lowers cost per record, and where waterfalls stop helping.
Read the guide → DATAIntent data explained, including what it cannot tell you
What buying signals actually measure, how the main types differ, and the limits worth knowing before you budget for it.
Read the guide → DATAWhat B2B contact data should cost
The pricing models providers use, what moves the number, and how to compare quotes that are not quoted the same way.
Read the guide → PROCUREMENTHow to audit your data vendor spend
A step by step method for finding overlap, unused credits, and sources that are no longer contributing coverage.
Read the guide → MEDIAProgrammatic media buying explained
How an impression gets auctioned in milliseconds, who takes a cut along the way, and where budget leaks.
Read the guide → MEDIACPM, CPC, CPA: which metric to buy on
What each pricing model shifts onto whom, and how to pick the one that matches your campaign objective.
Read the guide → MEDIAWhat ABM media is, and when it is worth it
How account based targeting differs from standard audience buying, and the account counts where it starts paying off.
Read the guide → OUTBOUNDOutbound email deliverability basics
Why good data still bounces, what authentication actually does, and the sending practices that protect a domain.
Read the guide →Want this applied to your own spend?
The spend audit uses the same methods described in these guides, run against your actual media and data costs. It is free and produces a line by line comparison.