| Course | MT357 Digital Marketing Platforms and Strategy |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 3 |
| Paper type | Channel selection rationale |
| Length | About 1,130 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | BS in Business Administration |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MT357 Unit 3
Nine Channels, Three Kept, One on Probation: An MT357 Unit 3 Channel Selection Rationale for a Trade-In Objective
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
MT357: Digital Marketing Platforms and Strategy
Unit 3 Channel Selection Rationale
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The shop, channels and figures are composite; the frameworks and research cited are real.
The Objective and Audience, Restated
Objective: lift monthly completed trade-ins to 190 by the end of June 2027, up from a baseline of 132. Audience: switchers, meaning owners of older DSLR glass who recently bought or shopped for a mirrorless camera. Every verdict below is judged against these two sentences.
The Removal Test
Each channel is asked four questions. What would it be asked to do? Does the audience use it for selling rather than browsing? What would disappear if it were removed? What is the verdict? The removal test matters most: a channel that contributes little when it is present will not be missed when it is gone.
Kept: Paid Search on Selling Queries
Paid search on queries such as sell Nikon 70-200 or trade in Canon lens reaches people at the moment they have decided to sell. The words they type express exactly the intent the objective needs. If the channel were removed, the shop would lose its main way of reaching sellers who have never heard of it, since organic search results for these queries are dominated by large marketplaces. Blake et al. (2015) found that paid search on nonbrand queries produced real incremental sales for less-known advertisers, while brand-query ads largely captured customers who would have arrived anyway. The shop should therefore spend on nonbrand selling queries and treat brand search with suspicion. Verdict: kept.
Kept: Email to Past Mirrorless Buyers
The shop's email list includes 3,140 people who bought a mirrorless body from it in the last two years. Many probably still own older DSLR lenses. An email showing current trade-in values for lenses they are likely to own asks them to do something they may already be considering. If the channel were removed, these customers would hear from the shop only about new arrivals, which serve buyers. Verdict: kept.
Kept: Search-Friendly Value Pages
The website's lens value pages, one for each common lens with its current offer range, are the owned counterpart to paid search. They can rank for queries like how much is my Canon 24-70 worth and lead directly to the quote tool. If removed, the shop would rely entirely on paid clicks for selling queries. Verdict: kept, with a monthly refresh of offer ranges.
The three channels kept are the three places where sellers already say, in their own words, that they want to sell.
On Probation: YouTube In-Stream
YouTube is where many photographers research switching systems. Short in-stream ads before switching videos might reach the audience at the right moment. But people watching videos are browsing, not selling, and the shop's own channel has only 1,900 subscribers. The channel gets one quarter on probation with a small test budget and a measure: completed trade-ins traced to it. Verdict: probation.
Excluded: TikTok
TikTok's photography content is popular, but its audience skews toward people making phone videos and beginners, not owners of DSLR lenses considering a sale. Removing it loses nothing the objective needs. Verdict: excluded.
Excluded: Instagram Ads
The shop has 11,200 Instagram followers, mostly buyers who enjoy seeing new arrivals. Instagram ads aimed at photographers would reach people browsing images, not people ready to sell. The shop will keep organic posts but not pay to reach a browsing audience. Verdict: excluded from paid spending.
Excluded: Programmatic Display
Display ads across websites reach people broadly and cheaply but cannot target selling intent well. Lewis and Rao (2015) showed that the sales effects of display ads are usually tiny next to the ordinary week-to-week swings in sales, so measuring them takes enormous samples. For a small shop, that makes display spending nearly impossible to judge. Verdict: excluded.
Excluded: Marketplace Promoted Listings
The shop sells through a large online marketplace, which offers promoted listings. These serve buyers, not sellers, and do nothing to increase trade-ins. Verdict: excluded from this plan, though the sales team may use them separately.
Excluded: Creator Sponsorship
Sponsoring a photography creator could build awareness among switchers. But sponsorships are expensive, hard to measure and usually aimed at selling products. A creator encouraging viewers to sell their lenses to a small Boise shop is unlikely to move many trade-ins. Verdict: excluded for now, with a note to reconsider if YouTube passes probation.
How the Kept Channels Work Together
The three kept channels reinforce each other. A photographer who searches sell Sony 24-70 may click a paid ad, land on the value page for that lens and see the current offer range, then start a quote. A past customer who receives the value email may click through to the same page. The value pages are the meeting point: paid search and email bring sellers to them, and their offer ranges answer the first question any seller asks. If the value pages are accurate and up to date, every other channel works better. That is why the content calendar in Unit 5 gives them a monthly refresh, why the grading videos are embedded on them, and why the paid plan in Unit 7 sends search clicks to them rather than to the home page.
Testing the Verdicts
The verdicts are judgments, and the plan treats them as provisional. After one quarter, each kept channel will be checked against completed trade-ins traced to it, and each excluded channel can be reconsidered if the shop's situation changes, for example if a creator with a strong following among switchers offers a modest sponsorship. Writing the verdicts down now, with reasons, makes it possible to see later which reasons held.
What Each Exclusion Saves
Excluding five channels is also a decision about the shop's time. Each channel, even an unpaid one, needs someone to create content, watch results and respond to comments. The shop has five employees. Concentrating on three channels and one test lets the marketing coordinator do each one properly rather than spreading thin across nine.
What the Mix Leaves Out
The plan reaches people who search for selling, who already bought from the shop or who research values. It does not reach photographers who might sell but have not yet started looking. Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick (2022) describe this as a trade-off between reach and relevance. The plan chooses relevance, because the objective is measured in completed trade-ins, not awareness.
Conclusion
Paid search on selling queries, email to past mirrorless buyers and value pages are kept because each reaches sellers who have expressed intent. YouTube is tested. Five channels are excluded because removing them loses nothing the trade-in objective needs.
References
Blake, T., Nosko, C., & Tadelis, S. (2015). Consumer heterogeneity and paid search effectiveness: A large-scale field experiment. Econometrica, 83(1), 155-174. https://doi.org/10.3982/ECTA12423
Chaffey, D., & Ellis-Chadwick, F. (2022). Digital marketing: Strategy, implementation and practice (8th ed.). Pearson.
Lewis, R. A., & Rao, J. M. (2015). The unfavorable economics of measuring the returns to advertising. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 130(4), 1941-1973. https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjv023
The Purdue Global MT357 Unit 3 instructions
Unit 3 asks students to choose digital channels for their objective and justify each choice and exclusion. The objective and audience from Unit 2 should be restated exactly, since every verdict depends on them. Instructors expect each channel to be tested with the same questions, such as what it would do, whether the audience uses it for the intended action and what would be lost without it. Exclusions deserve as much argument as choices. Research should support verdicts where possible, especially on measurement and incrementality. A section showing how the kept channels work together is valuable. The paper should acknowledge what the mix cannot reach. A table summarizing verdicts helps, but the reasoning belongs in prose so each decision can be followed.
How the MT 357 Unit 3 example is put together
The sample restates the objective and audience, then explains the removal test. Paid search on selling queries is kept, citing Blake and colleagues on nonbrand versus brand search. Email to past mirrorless buyers and value pages are kept, under the highlighted line that the kept channels are the places where sellers already say they want to sell. YouTube receives a probation quarter. Five exclusions follow, each with its reason, including Lewis and Rao on the difficulty of measuring display ads. A section shows how paid search and email both lead to value pages. Another explains the time each exclusion saves. A section on testing the verdicts and a note on what the mix leaves out, citing Chaffey and Ellis-Chadwick, close the paper.
Where the points sit in the MT357 Unit 3 rubric
Channel rationales are commonly assessed on fidelity to the objective, consistency of the test applied, quality of exclusion arguments and use of evidence. Graders reward rationales that restate the objective and judge every channel against it. The same questions should be asked of each channel. Exclusions should be argued, not listed. Research on channel effectiveness and measurement should support verdicts. Showing how channels reinforce each other demonstrates strategy. Acknowledging what the mix misses shows judgment. Sources appear in APA 7. Rationales that keep every popular channel, or that justify choices by audience size without asking whether the audience uses the channel for the needed action, tend to score lower.
Common MT357 Unit 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Channel papers often choose channels because they are popular or because competitors use them. Another common weakness is justifying choices without justifying exclusions. Some students cite audience size without asking whether that audience would take the needed action on that channel. Research on incrementality is rarely used. Before drafting, write your objective and audience at the top of the page and, for each channel, finish the sentence if we stopped using this channel, we would lose... If the answer is nothing the objective needs, the channel belongs on the exclusion list with that sentence as its reason.
Get an MT357 Unit 3 example written to your instructions
Paste the Unit 3 prompt, the channels your section lists or expects, and the objective and audience you set in Unit 2, even in rough form. Returned in 24-48h, the first custom rationale is free; it argues every exclusion as fully as every choice and puts a month beside each platform claim it makes. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
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MT357 Unit 3 questions, answered
How many channels should the rationale keep?
As few as the objective needs, often two to four for a small business. What graders weigh is the reasoning behind the count: every kept channel needs a job no other channel does, and every dropped one needs a reason. A rationale that keeps six or seven channels with a paragraph each usually reads as a list rather than a selection.
Can a channel be kept as a test?
Yes, and instructors tend to credit it when the test has limits: a capped budget, a fixed period and a result that would end it. Label it as a test, separate from the confirmed channels, and state what evidence would move it into the plan or out of it. An open-ended trial reads as indecision rather than caution.
Should I describe each platform's features?
Briefly, and only the features that bear on the objective. Feature descriptions date quickly, since platforms change ad formats, targeting and reporting often, so note the month you checked. Graders care more about why a channel fits the audience's behavior than about how its ad manager works, and a dated claim reads as careful.
Where can I find a free MT357 Unit 3 sample paper?
The complete MT357 Unit 3 channel rationale is on this page, keeping three of nine channels for a camera shop's trade-in goal.
Why is paid search on selling queries kept in the MT357 Unit 3 sample?
People typing queries like sell Nikon 70-200 have already decided to sell, and nonbrand search can add real sales for less-known businesses.