When it comes to marketing terminology, some terms are “nice to know” and some are a “must know”. The terms paid, owned, and earned fall into the second category as they’re vital components of modern marketing strategies.
In this article, we’ll help you understand exactly what paid, owned, and earned media are, the difference between them, and how they work together in the multi-platform landscape of 2025.
With more platforms than ever, these key terms will help you assess your current marketing materials and assets to identify opportunities for the next financial year.
Paid Media
Paid media incorporates any marketing that you can’t execute for free, including print, radio, and TV ads, or billboards, that fits into the realm of traditional advertising. Online, it spans a rapidly evolving landscape: social media ads, search engine ads, display advertising, and newer formats like Google Performance Max campaigns, Meta Advantage+ shopping ads, TikTok Ads, and LinkedIn Conversation Ads.
Due to its advanced targeting options and AI-powered optimization, paid marketing content remains a powerful way to reach your desired target audience. There are significant advantages to incorporating paid media into your marketing strategy, regardless of whether you’re targeting search or targeting social.
Owned Media
Owned media is the marketing content you already own, so the content you can publish for free. It’s your website, your blog posts, your social media channels (minus the paid ads), email marketing, and incredibly popular formats like newsletters (think Substack), podcasts, and community platforms like Discord or Geneva.
Generally speaking, owned marketing content is free and you have full control over who sees it and when – but that’s dependent on the platform as the algorithm has the ultimate say on the likes of Youtube and Instagram.
Regardless, Owned media is still a powerful tool in your content strategy. You have to put budget behind paid, and you can’t control earned, but you can always create content with the hope of reaching your audience organically.
Note on AI-generated content: As AI tools become more prevalent, owned content may include AI-generated materials, but transparency and disclosure remain important for maintaining audience trust.
Earned Media
Earned media involves any content where other people are talking about you. This includes traditional PR, media reports where your CEO is used as a subject-matter expert, and product reviews.
Earned media also includes social media like influencer mentions, and modern forms like Reddit threads discussing your brand, product, review videos, TikTok duets, or stitches featuring your content, and LinkedIn shoutouts from industry professionals.
It’s also called word-of-mouth marketing or free media. The best part about an earned media strategy is that it helps build trust in your business and products or services. It shows potential customers that you’re legitimate and that your offerings are worth discussing.
Important note: 92% of people trust recommendations from friends and family over other types of advertising. However, we’re also seeing “recommendation fatigue” as audiences become more discerning about sponsored content versus genius advocacy. The key to overcoming this is authentic transparency – brands that clearly disclose partnerships while focusing on genuine value and honest experiences tend to maintain stronger trust with their audiences.
What’s the Difference? – Quick Comparison
- Paid: You pay for placement. You have a high level of control over your message and audience targeting criteria, but limited control over reception. Examples include Google ads, Facebook ads, and Tiktok ads.
- Owned: You create but there are various levels of control, and that depends on the platform and the algorithm. Examples include your website, blog, email newsletter, and podcast.
- Earned: What others create about you, so you have no direct control. Examples include media reports, social mentions, and PR coverage.
Understandably there are often questions about what kind of media a particular part of marketing is. Sometimes it’s not that clear because things like social media have multiple options for marketers! Let’s clarify a few common confusions:
- Is PR paid, owned or earned? PR is primarily earned media and while you might pay for PR services, it’s when people talk about your press releases, products, or brand, that’s earned media. Your press releases themselves are owned media.
- Are influencers paid, owned, or earned? Influencers can be all three. An employee or founder sharing company content is owned media, a fan posting about your brand is earned media, and a sponsored collaboration is paid media. Interestingly, affiliate influencers often blur the lines between earned and paid.
- Is podcasting paid, owned, or earned? It depends. Your own podcast is owned media, whereas advertising on someone else’s podcast is paid media. Being featured as a guest or having someone mention your brand in their podcast is earned media.
- Is SEO paid, owned, or earned? SEO is primarily owned media – it’s optimization you perform on content you control (your website). However, earning quality backlinks involves earned media elements.
- Is social media earned or owned? Social media spans all three categories. Your organic posts are owned media, your social ads are paid media, and when customers or fans post about you, that’s earned media.
Why you need all three in 2025
People respond best to integrated, multi-platform marketing campaigns. Here’s why:
Our attention is fragmented across more platforms than ever. We don’t spend long on any single piece of content, but when we see consistent messaging across multiple touchpoints – our friends sharing content (earned), branded posts in our feeds (owned), and targeted ads (paid) – we’re more likely to remember and trust that brand.
Consider how customers research a restaurant today: they might discover it through a Google Ad (paid), check the website and Instagram for the menu (owned), read reviews on Yelp (earned), see food photos on TikTok (earned), and finally make a reservation. Smart businesses maintain a presence across all these touchpoints.
Track your success across all media types
Managing paid, owned, and earned media performance can be challenging when data is scattered across platforms. Marketers often spend hours manually extracting performance data from individual platforms – a process that’s neither efficient nor strategic.
The solution? Connect all your marketing channels into Digivizer’s real-time analytics platform where you can track your paid, owned and earned performance in one place. At a glance, you can see how all your campaigns perform and compare against each other – meaning you’ll see the insights needed to execute digital marketing campaigns that deliver higher returns.
The most successful brands in 2025 will be those that seamlessly integrate paid, owned, and earned media into cohesive campaigns. Whether you leverage real-time insights to manage this integration yourself or combine them with expert agency services, the key is understanding how each media type amplifies the others.
Ready to see how your paid, owned, and earned efforts are performing together? Contact us today to discover how unified media tracking can transform your marketing strategy.
