The Twin Cities, city by city
Minneapolis-Saint Paul is the 15th largest television market in the country, and it is spread out. Buying the whole DMA when you serve one corner of it is the most common way a good budget gets wasted — so here is how we think about each of the ten largest cities in the metro.
Why the geography decision comes first
The Twin Cities DMA covers roughly 1.8 million television households across sixteen counties in two states. A broadcast buy reaches all of them, which is exactly right if you sell to all of them and badly wrong if your vans will not drive past Lakeville.
A business in Woodbury buying the full market is paying to reach Chaska, Elk River and western Wisconsin. That is not a rounding error — it is frequently half the budget. Connected TV and direct mail can both be bought down to zip code and carrier route, which is how the same money buys frequency where it matters instead of breadth everywhere.
Minneapolis
430,162 · Hennepin CountyThe market's core: downtown business district, the university, and the densest media consumption in the state.
Read more 02Saint Paul
305,585 · Ramsey CountyThe state capital and the east metro's anchor — older housing stock, established neighbourhoods, different buying patterns to Minneapolis.
Read more 03Bloomington
88,673 · Hennepin CountyMall of America, the I-494 strip and the hotel corridor. The metro's retail and hospitality centre of gravity.
Read more 04Brooklyn Park
82,772 · Hennepin CountyThe northwest metro's largest city and one of the most diverse in Minnesota — a market that rewards media planned for it specifically.
Read more 05Woodbury
82,765 · Washington CountyThe east metro's affluent growth story. High household income, newer housing, and almost entirely missed by a Minneapolis-weighted plan.
Read more 06Lakeville
81,280 · Dakota CountyAmong the fastest-growing cities in the metro. New construction, young families, and a home services market to match.
Read more 07Plymouth
78,393 · Hennepin CountyNorthwest suburban, affluent, corporate. High-value households and a considered-purchase audience.
Read more 08Blaine
77,819 · Anoka CountyNorth metro, still growing, home of the National Sports Center. A value-conscious market where offer clarity beats polish.
Read more 09Maple Grove
74,543 · Hennepin CountyArbor Lakes retail, high household income, family-heavy. One of the strongest retail draws in the northwest metro.
Read more 10Eagan
66,757 · Dakota CountySouth metro corporate base — Blue Cross, Thomson Reuters and the Vikings' training facility. Established, stable, high-income.
Read morePopulation figures are US Census-based 2026 estimates via World Population Review, for the eight counties generally counted as Metro Minnesota. The Minnesota State Demographic Center's 2024 estimates put several of these cities 1–3% differently; the ranking is the same in both. We name the source rather than presenting a bare number, and Rochester and Duluth are excluded because they are separate markets, not Twin Cities suburbs.
Tell us your actual service area.
The zip codes you will drive to, not the metro you are listed in. It is the single most useful thing you can give us, and it usually changes the plan more than the budget does.
Let's build the plan.
Tell us the market, the budget and what a win looks like. We will come back with a plan that says exactly where it goes and what it should return.