DMA vs. MSA

This has been a recent big topic amongst the IBD and sales teams. One of the first changes I made when taking this role (about 4 months ago) was moving away from reporting on MSA/PMSA to DMA. This is important for one reason, when using MSA/PMSA, we potentiall aren't reporting on every zip used in a search on the 2 sites. Only with DMA are all the zips in the US accounted for.

DMAs (Designated Market Area) are composed of counties and updated annually. DMAs are often larger than a MSA or PMSA. DMA codes are useful for targeting market segments and MSA codes are useful for targeting a population.

Here is a visual. (Click the arrrow on the bottom left corner to see slide 2.)



The pictures speak for themselves.

A very important thing to note is we can customize the DMA's to better fit the sales markets. For example, 2 of our sales offices in Washington are N. Pugent Sound and Seattle. Based on the proper (or original) DMA set up, all the zip codes for those 2 markets are included in the Seattle DMA. With a little help from the sales team, we can create a new DMA for N. Pugent Sound and apply the necessary zips.