Charateristics of Print media
Most common print media formats are newspapers and magazines.
Newspaper is typically a high circulation, broad-audience format, that is often used to achieve early-funnel objectives, such as awareness building.
Magazines, on the other hand, have more options and variety in terms of available publications and different themes and audience they cover. For this reason, magazines can offer more targeting towards certain audiences.
The costs for print ads can range from highly expensive full page ads in premium publications, to low cost small ads in low-circulation publications.
Predictability of how readership can vary between publications, and between markets. Some publications and markets may have high share of regular subscribers, whereas others might be sold more via smaller kiosks or retail storess.
Metrics for Print
For tracking Print investments and activities, companies typically have the following available:
Media metrics:
Circulation: How many copies were printed?
Readership: How many people are expected to read the newspaper? (typically more than 1 per copy)
Spend metrics:
Net spend: What was the spend for the print ads, after discounts (e.g. seasonal or other discounts)
Gross spend: What was the spend on the print ads (wihtout taking media discounts in to account)
Including Print media in Marketing Mix Modeling
While data specifications for Marketing Mix Modeling can vary depending on the context, a good starting point for print media is to use Gross Spend as an input metric in the model.
Gross Spend is typically better than Net spend, because Net spend can change even if activity level would remain constant, if discounts are given to the advertiser.
Gross Spend is typically a better metric than circulation and readership, because it can be difficult to make circulation and readership comparable metrics comparable across publications.