What are the major three decisions that have to be considered in media planning?
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Media Planning Basics: The 10 Parts of a Media PlanMedia Planning Basics: The 10 Parts of a Media PlanJoseph Pych2022-04-25T17:30:33-04:00 Most successful advertising campaigns include a good Media Plan. But what is a Media Plan? What’s it made of? This article explains the 10 parts of Media Plan. What is a Media Plan?In advertising, your Media Plan specifies the audience, location, timing, reach, frequency, cost, and goals of your media placements for your ad campaign. Who Creates Media Plans?The Media Plan is the key deliverable of the Media Planning process, and is traditionally created by a Media Planner. However, Media Plans are sometimes created by Media Buyers, particularly in digital advertising. As workflows evolve, others in the marketing organization may create media plans. The 10 Questions Your Media Plan Should AnswerYour Media Plan should answer all of these questions:
Before getting into details of how a Media Plan answers all these questions, I feel obligated to alert you to some imposters claiming to be Media Plans, which are not. What is NOT a Media PlanIf you are looking at a document that claims to be a Media Plan, but doesn’t answer ALL of the questions above, it’s not a Media Plan. Period. Media Plan Imposters AboundI bring this up because too many people claim to provide a Media Plan but are actually providing something else. I don’t think their intent is to deceive. It’s probably because their definition of Media Plan is “loose.” If you work for an agency, you already know what I mean, and can jump past this section. Here are some examples of documents that sometimes pose as Media Plans that are not really Media Plans A Marketing Mix is not a Media Plan.The output from your marketing mix model is not a Media Plan. Your marketing mix – also known as media mix – is super-useful, but not directly actionable. Your next step is to create an actual Media Plan using your marketing mix model as a guide. You can use your marketing mix model to break down your media budget into buckets. This will help you to track Media Plan progress against your marketing mix as placements are laid down on your plan. Each segment of your marketing mix model will have to be activated in your Media Plan as one or more media placements that each specify the specific media vehicle, ad slot, timing, pricing, quantities, costing, and all the other elements described in more detail below. A Media Strategy is not a Media Plan.The output from a media research tool like Nielsen is not a Media Plan. While very useful in the Media Planning process, a media strategy is just a starting point. Your next step is to activate this media strategy in the form of a concrete Media Plan that answers ALL of the questions above. An Advertising Flowchart is not a Media Plan.While it’s one of my absolute favorite tools for visualizing a Media Plan, an advertising flowchart is not a Media Plan. There are a couple of standalone flowcharting tools that claim to produce a Media Plan. In reality, what they provide is a visual representation of a media strategy in a flowchart format. For example, a layout of budgets by month by market, channel, or platform. Sometimes they’ll also include GRPs or impressions. Because it lacks most of the media placement details, an advertising flowchart is not a Media Plan. A Site List or Station List is not a Media Plan.There are research tools that will spit out lists of stations, websites, apps, influencers, or similar. Lists like these are useful to the Media Planning process. However, the list needs to be fleshed out into a real Media Plan. You need to pick specific ad products, set pricing, set quantities, calculate costs, etc. A Media Budget is not a Media Plan.I see a lot of digital “Media Plans” in Excel that are really just a media budget broken down by month. This is useful, but you have more work to do before it’s a true Media Plan. That one line for “Google” or “Facebook” needs to be broken down into all the specific placements. You also need to account for the costs for all the ad tech like data overlays, ad serving, creative optimization, brand safety, etc. You need to net out these costs to get to the working media that you can plug into the platform. For example, your budget for Google might be $100,000. If you simply plug $100,000 into Google, you’re going to go over budget when the other bills arrive for all the ad tech supporting your placements. A good Media Plan will help you avoid this with Top Down Costing. The other big flaw with this type of Media Plan is it lacks accountability. A true Media Plan will include business KPIs against which your digital advertising will be held accountable. Umm Okay, so… What is a Media Plan?For those of you who did not jump right past my rant above about all the imposters, thank you for listening. Now, it’s time to get down to specifics of the elements of a Media Plan. In the sections below, you’ll find a summary of each element along with links to drill down into more detail. Media Plan GoalsYour Media Plan should capture the goals of your advertising campaign and any specific direction for your media placements. This direction is best captured in a Media Brief. If you’ve not been given a media brief, interview the budget holder to understand the purpose of the advertising campaign, who they hope to reach, and how they want to measure success. Other useful inputs to the Media Plan are media strategy, marketing mix, and any specific placements requested. All of these documents should be referenced in the overview of your Media Plan because they will help to support the rationale of your placement decisions. Media Plan BudgetThe next section of your Media Plan is your media budget. The budget holder should have given you a specific budgeting goal. If not, stop right here. Beware of No BudgetYou can’t lay out a Media Plan without a budget. Sure, budgets can change. But every change in budget creates a lot of re-work. This extra work that can be avoided with a little more diligence up front. Beware of Multiple BudgetsThe other red flag is when the budget holder asks for plans at various budget levels. This will double or triple the amount of effort to create the Media Plan. And it multiplies the risk of errors when change requests inevitably arrive. You Need One Budget!So, it’s best to nail down a specific budget number, even if it is “soft.” Once you have your budget, you should break down your budget into “buckets” – one for each segment of your budget. These buckets should correspond to the Media Plan Goals. For example, you might set up a separate bucket for each market, each platform, or each segment of your marketing mix. Additional Resources:
Media Plan PlacementsPlacements are elemental building blocks of your Media Plan. Your Media Plan is comprised of one or more placements. Each of your placements specifies the media program and product (a.k.a. “ad slot”). These terms “program” and “product” are specifically vague because we don’t want to get boxed into a specific media channel by saying station, website, platform, or other channel-specific term. Here are a few examples:
It’s important to note that a program can be an audience program, as shown in the fourth example above. Finding media programs and products is core challenge of Media Planning. Additional Resources:
TargetingIn digital advertising, direct mail, and other targetable media channels, you can add further targeting to your placements. This will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of your media placements by excluding those who don’t match your target audience. Your audience targeting criteria should be included in your Media Plan. For programmatic advertising, this is where you would enter your Deal ID on programmatic direct deals. If on the open market, then simply document your targeting criteria. PackagesMany ad sellers like to bundle media placements into packages. This adds complexity to your Media Plan because while each placement is tracked separately, the costs are tracked at the package level. As a guiding principle in Media Planning, “it’s the job of the ad salesperson to bundle crappy inventory with good inventory and it’s the job of the media buyer to unbundle the package to eliminate the crappy inventory.” In any case, you should expect to handle packages in your Media Plan. I can promise you will hate dealing with packages, especially if you’re trying to create a Media Plan in Excel. Packages complicate costing, performance tracking, reconciliations, and seemingly everything else. We have a running joke on our product team “what about packages?” because they multiply the effort, complexity, and risk of almost every feature of the Media Planning tool. Don’t say I did not warn you about packages! Media Plan TimingThe timing of a media placement is often as simple as a start date and an end date. But some Media Plan placements are more complicated than that. WeekpartingIf you only want to run on certain days of the week, this is known as “weekparting” your placement. For example, if you sell to businesses that work Monday through Friday, you might want to exclude weekends. For more information, see What Is Weekparting? DaypartingIf you only want to run during certain times of the day, this is known as “dayparting” your placement. A good example is radio where you advertise during peak parts of the day like “morning drive.” For more information, see What Is Dayparting? FlightingIf you want breaks in your advertising – known as a “hiatus” – during your placement (without creating separate placements), you can accomplish this by “flighting” your placement. Flighting adds technical complexity to your Media Plan, but it’s important to handle it because of its prevalent use. For more, see What Is Flighting? Media Plan ReachYour Media Plan should tell you how many people you can expect it to reach. In fact, every placement in your Media Plan should indicate reach. Reach is typically included in Media Plans for TV, radio, and traditional channels. However, I’ve noticed that reach is often omitted in digital Media Plans. You’ll almost always see an estimate for impressions, but obviously the same person can see the same ad more than once. Your media plan should always specify how many people you expect to reach. This is core to advertising. Don’t settle for less. Additional Resources:
Media Plan FrequencyYour Media Plan should tell you how often each of the people reached by your advertisements see your advertisements. This is known as “frequency.” Effective FrequencyTypically, a person will need to see your ad a bunch of times before it has an effect on them. This magic number is known as “effective frequency.” You’ll want to optimize your Media Plan to maximize the number of people with effective frequency. Frequency CappingYou’ll also want to avoid bombarding the same person with too many ads. You know how annoying it can be to see the same ad over and over. And it wastes media budget that could have been directed to achieve effective frequency with others. In digital advertising, this can be controlled by “frequency capping.” Your Media Plan should indicate frequency, effective frequency, and frequency capping policy. Media Plan Cost BreakdownIn the old days, media costing was presented simply as a lump sum total of all the costs. Nowadays, it’s becoming common to see the costs itemized into all of its parts. Beware of ShenanigansDigital advertising is notorious for hidden costs related to ad tech. In May 2020, ISBA & PwC published a Programmatic Supply Chain Transparency Study, which revealed “that 51% of advertiser spend reaches the end publisher, 15% of the spend is unaccounted for (labeled the ‘unknown delta’)”. You Need Cost TransparencySo, where does the other 49% go? Your Media Plan should tell you where every penny is being spent. It should account for data overlay, platform fees, ad serving, ad verification, creative optimization, brand safety, agency compensation, net media cost, and all other fees. Your Media Plan should give you perfect transparency into all costs. Additional Resources:
Media Plan Ad SpecificationsOne of the leading causes of missing start dates on placements is late creative. And one of the leading causes of late creative is missing ad specs. Gathering creative is often a separate step in the Media Planning process. And it’s often neglected. A good way to improve the efficiency of creative development is to gather and document ad specifications directly within the Media Plan. This should include the basic ad unit plus any restrictions. For example, “300×250” ad unit with “70kb maximum file size. No animation. PNG or JPEG format.” Your Media Plan should carefully document these ad specifications. Additional Resources:
Media Plan CreativeShockingly, many Media Plans don’t indicate which ads – a.k.a. creative – are running with each of the placements. This makes no sense. The whole reason for buying media is to run ads, right? Don’t settle for a Media Plan that does not reference the creative. Each of the placements in your Media Plan should indicate which ad is running in that spot. If you’re rotating ads, you should include the name of the rotation. Know What’s RunningThe obvious reason for referencing creative in your Media Plan is to know which ads are running. Gain InsightsAnother reason for referencing creative in your Media Plan is because it sets you up to gain insights into your spending and performance over time. By including your ads in your Media Plan, you can understand how much money you’re putting behind each piece of create. It also sets you up to measure the performance of your creative. Media Plan KPI GoalsThe reason for advertising is to achieve business objectives, such as achieving a sales goal. It’s frustrating to see so Media Plans that don’t include business goals. This is wrong. Don’t settle for Media Plans that only lay out your ad placements and spending. That may have been acceptable for TV and radio advertising where it’s hard to measure performance. But it’s not acceptable for digital advertising. Be SpecificYour Media Plan should include specific objectives such as impressions, clicks, conversions, sales, and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Your goals should include specific counts and amounts, not simply CPMs and conversion rates. Call Your ShotsIt’s important to “call your shots” by setting up all your KPIs and goals before you run your ads. These goals should be presented with the media authorization and agreed upon during the budget sign-off process. Demand AccountabilityAnd when your ads start running, you should compare your performance against the baseline you set with your Media Plan. It’s not enough to know “this placement drove 77 conversions at a cost per conversion of $43.84.” You should also know you expected 93 conversions at a cost per conversion of $33.87 and are pacing 17.2% behind goal. Additional Resources:
How to Create a Media PlanCreating a comprehensive media plan can be overwhelming. As you have learned, there’s a lot in a media plan. I hope you agree all this detail is necessary and useful. Start SmallIf this is your first time creating a media plan, it’s best to start with the basics. A basic way to create a Media Plan is with spreadsheet software, like Excel. To help you get started, here is a free Media Plan template. Then Level UpAs you outgrow Excel, you’ll want to level up to a real media planning tool, like Bionic Media Planning Software. Please let us know if you’re curious to learn more about Bionic. Additional Resources:
What are the three steps in the media planning process?Media Planning Process. Market Analysis. Market analysis entails the research conducted by a company concerning its target audience. ... . Establishing the Media Objective. The media objective describes the expected goal from conducting the media plan. ... . Setting the Strategy.. What are the factors considered in media planning?Creating a Media Plan. Reach. One of the two most important factors to consider, reach is the number of people you want to get in front of during a particular timeframe, such as a week or a month.. Frequency. ... . Cost-per-thousand. ... . Selectivity. ... . Impact.. What are the three media planning questions?3 Key Questions for Social Media Planning. Defined goals and objectives (e.g., increased web traffic, new leads or brand visibility).. Who they want to reach (target audience).. How much they're willing to spend (budget).. What are the types of media planning?There are two main areas of media planning advertising. Online media channels include display ads and video marketing. Offline media channels include radio/podcasts and print. There are also three types of digital media planning, paid media, owned media, and earned media.
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