Loading…
Paid, owned and earned media
5 minutes · 7 steps · workout 1 of 6 in this module
What you'll be able to do
By the end of this workout, you'll be able to sort any channel into paid, owned or earned, spot when a business is renting all of its growth, and plan how paid traffic turns into an audience you own.
A first look: Three kinds of attention
Every channel you'll ever use falls into one of three buckets. Paid: you buy the attention, and it stops the day you stop paying (Google Ads, Meta ads, TikTok ads, sponsored posts, Amazon ads). Owned: you control the channel and the message, and reaching people costs almost nothing per message (your website, email list, SMS and WhatsApp lists, your app, your own social profiles). Earned: other people talk about you because they want to (reviews, shares, press, creators who post without being paid, AI assistants recommending you). Paid is fast but rented. Owned is slow to build but yours. Earned is the cheapest and most trusted, but you can't order it, only deserve it.
Example: Northpack: a Meta ad for the commuter backpack is paid. The weekly email to 8,000 subscribers is owned. A cyclist's YouTube review that sends 300 visitors a month is earned.
What this workout covers
- Three kinds of attention
- Case: Profitable, and completely rented
- Paid feeds owned, owned feeds earned
A question from this workout: Profitable, and completely rented
Northpack's Meta ads are working: every dollar spent brings back three in revenue. The founder is happy and wants to put all of next year's budget into more ads. Nobody has set up an email signup on the site yet, and the customer list lives only inside Shopify order records.
- Monthly ad spend
- $3,000
- Revenue from ads
- $9,000
- Email subscribers
- 0
- Instagram followers
- 1,200
- Share of revenue that comes from ads
- 85%
What's the biggest risk in this picture, and what do you change?
- Nothing. The ads are profitable, so scale the spend as fast as possible
- Almost all growth is rented. Keep the ads, but add email capture at checkout and on the site so every paid visitor can become someone you reach for free next time
- Stop the ads and post more on Instagram, because followers are free
- Move the whole budget to a press campaign to get earned media instead
Pick your answer first, then open the reasoning below.
Show the answer and the reasoning
Answer: B. Almost all growth is rented. Keep the ads, but add email capture at checkout and on the site so every paid visitor can become someone you reach for free next time
When 85% of revenue depends on one paid channel, a cost increase or an account issue can cut sales overnight. The fix isn't to stop paid ads; it's to make each paid visitor worth more by capturing them into an owned channel. The most common mistake is scaling only the ads. Ad costs usually rise as you spend more, and you'd still be starting from zero every month.
The other steps work the same way: you decide first, then see why each option is right or wrong.
How you practice here
- 2 short concept cards
- 2 multiple-choice questions
- 1 campaign case with real-looking numbers
- 1 matching exercise
- 1 guided calculation
Part of the module: The Digital Channel Map
Search, social media, marketplaces, email and messaging: what each channel is good for and where your customers actually spend their time.
More workouts in this module
- Search: capturing intent (Google, YouTube, AI assistants)
- Social media: creating demand
- Marketplaces: where many shoppers start (Amazon, Etsy, eBay)
- Email, SMS and WhatsApp: reaching your own audience
- Choosing channels on a tight budget
Programs that include this workout