Media planning: How to calculate the budget and plan the placement of advertising materials

Is it possible to understand which channels will be most effective before launching an advertisement? And calculate how much traffic and conversions advertising will bring? How to plan budgets for advertising campaigns and monitor their results? A media plan will help us answer all these questions.

What is a media plan?

Media plan is a marketing tool that allows you to select the most effective advertising channels, calculate the necessary budget for each of them and predict the results of advertising.

Develop a media plan, based on business objectives and using marketing research (analysis of the competitive situation in the market, analysis of the target audience), as well as the experience of previous advertising campaigns. We will talk more about this below.

Advertising channels can be chosen based on the sales funnel:

Depending on what level your product is at, sources of traffic are selected.

• Needs formation
  At this level, consumers do not yet have a clearly formed need for your service. In this case, media advertising and banner ads in Google networks will be suitable.
• Searching for information about the solution to the problem
  The user already knows about their problem and is looking for a solution. Advertising in Google networks or social networks will push the user one step closer to choosing your company.
• Searching and choosing the right company
  The user has already made a decision about which products or services will solve his problem and now he is at the stage of choosing the right company for him. This is where advertising on Google Search is perfect.
• Buying
  At this stage, the user has gone through all stages of the funnel, selected a company and makes a purchase.
• Repeat sales
  The user has already become your customer and now you need to push him to make repeat sales. In this case, retargeting in Direct and in social networks, as well as email newsletters, will help you.

A media plan is created in the form of a table with information on promotion channels, costs, planned results, budget, etc. The timing of the campaigns is also specified. It can be a month, a quarter or a longer period. However, we do not recommend making a media plan for more than a few months, as most advertising channels on the Internet are auction systems and in the long term can be unpredictable. For example, if a large competitor enters the market, the price of a click may increase and the cost of advertising may be increased. In this case, the media plan should be adjusted according to the market situation.

A media plan can be developed:

• For each advertising channel. For example, advertising on Google, Bing, Facebook, bloggers, direct placement on websites, and so on.
• For each advertising tool. In this case, each channel of promotion is analyzed in more detail. For example, in Google advertising tools such as Campaign Wizard, Search advertising, in Google Display Network, Video advertising and others are used. And for each of these tools, you can calculate the budget, the number of applications received, the cost per lead, and so on.

Why does a business owner need a media plan?

Often aspiring entrepreneurs ask themselves this question. Let’s try to summarize the benefits of a media plan:

• It helps you determine the performance indicators you need to strive for, as well as plan ways to achieve these indicators
• Shows which advertising channels are worth investing in, and which ones will not bring the desired results
• Allows you to properly allocate the budget between the channels of promotion
• Helps to forecast the expected income

After the launch of advertising campaigns, the media plan can be adjusted in the process of advertising. This happens in the case described above – the entry of a major competitor into the market, or when a certain advertising channel does not give the desired number of conversions and budgets should be redistributed in accordance with this situation.

Media plan and campaign plan: the same thing or different?

We would like to point out that a media plan and an advertising campaign plan are completely different things.

An advertising campaign plan is drawn up after the media plan has been created and reflects the strategy for promoting the product through the chosen channel. For example, if the media plan states that the business needs to run advertising on Google Search, then it’s time to create an advertising campaign plan for this channel. It will specify the necessary targeting, promotion region, campaign period, keywords, will also prescribe ad texts, quick links, clarifications, etc.

Also, if Facebook advertising is approved in the media plan, it is necessary to create an advertising campaign plan for this channel. The plan will specify the region of displays, the period of advertising, audience characteristics (interests, age, gender, marital status, etc.), ad texts and creatives.
Thus, the advertising campaign plan shows us how the advertisement will look like in a certain period of time and to whom it will be shown.

How to prepare for creating a media plan

So, with the definition of a media plan and its necessity sorted out, now we move on to the most interesting part – creating a media plan. But first, a little theory. How to prepare for creating a media plan?

1. Define the goals of the business

Why do you need advertising? To expand your reach and increase recognition or to raise the number of sales to a certain level? This will help you understand what direction to go in and what tools can help you. For example, if you have a new product that you need to tell your target audience about and gain consumer trust, then you need to include media advertising in your media plan. If the goal is to increase the number of sales from the site, then here it is worth calculating the indicators for advertising on Google Search.

Do not forget that the goals should be measurable, achievable and limited in time. It is unlikely that you will achieve the goal of “get as many conversions as possible from the site.” But the goal of “increase the number of units sold from the site by 40% by the end of this year” is quite realistic.

2. Study your competitors

You need to understand where they advertise and why. Chances are, if several of your competitors are using the same advertising channel, then there’s your target audience there to compete for.

3. Study your target audience

This will help you understand where it “lives” and what channels will help you reach it. In addition, depending on the region where your audience is located and their ability to pay, the reach and cost per click will vary.

4. Use previous experience

If you’ve previously run ad campaigns with the same goal you’ve set now, analyze the results and find the channels that worked most effectively.

Be sure to include them in your media plan and use them. But also do not ignore those channels that did not produce the desired results. Remember that market conditions can change, so it’s worth testing different options. Analyze these campaigns, find their weaknesses and optimize them, taking into account previous experience.

How to create a media plan

Now let’s go directly to creating a media plan. You can do it in an ordinary Excel spreadsheet. We will show an example of creating a media plan for advertising on Google Search.

When creating an advertising campaign, we first designate the region of promotion and the terms of the advertising campaign. Then in the first column we specify the channel of promotion and then enter the necessary data for calculation in the table.

To predict the budget and results of advertising on Google Search is quite easy, as Google shows the cost per click and if your budget allows you to take the first positions on the request, you can calculate the approximate results of displays, and knowing the conversion rate of the site can calculate sales.

All you need to do is to choose the regions where the ads will be displayed, select the keywords, and the system will calculate the monthly budget for you.

Google uses the existing campaigns of competitors for forecasting. Of course, this is generalized data, and the actual figures after the launch of a campaign may differ, so we do not rule out the possibility that the media plan will have to be adjusted.

If, for example, the goal of your advertising campaigns is sales, it is better to calculate the budget based on the conversion rate of the site and the number of desired applications, as well as the average cost of an application from previous advertising campaigns, if any.
So, thanks to the budget forecast we have learned the number of impressions, clicks and the average cost per click – enter these indicators in the table.

Then we need to determine the key performance indicators of advertising (KPI). These are the metrics that the advertising campaign should achieve. These metrics are determined depending on the goals of advertising. If it is to increase reach, then the KPI can be set to a certain number of impressions over a period of time. If the goal of the advertisement is sales, the KPI specifies the number of conversions to be achieved by a certain period.

It is also worth calculating ROMI (return on investment) – the percentage ratio between revenue and marketing investments. It allows you to assess how effective a particular advertising channel is. ROMI is calculated using the following formula:

ROMI = marketing revenue – marketing expenses / marketing expenses × 100

If the obtained result is more than 0% – advertising brings profit, investments are profitable for the company. If the indicator is less than 0% – advertising does not pay for itself, budgets were invested in vain. If it is exactly 0% – the investment paid off, but did not bring profit.

Also put in the table this predicted figure, which we should get in the course of the advertising campaign.
Do not forget to specify the financial component – budget and profit from advertising. How to calculate the budget is indicated above.

As for the profit forecast, several indicators will need to be determined:

• Budget per advertising channel
• Cost per request (you can rely on the experience of previous campaigns or take the average cost on the market.
• Conversion from a request to a sale
• Average check

Knowing these indicators, you can predict the profit according to the formulas:

• Budget/cost per request = number of requests
• Number of requests * conversion from request to sale = number of sales
• Number of sales * average check = profit
• Profit – advertising costs = projected profit

These indicators should also be entered into the table.

These are the main indicators that should be present in a media plan in one way or another. There is no single template for all companies, each business is focused on its own goals and makes a plan based on them.

We recommend to make the plan as detailed as possible, for example, to divide advertising channels into separate campaigns and calculate indicators for them.
By analogy, you can make a media plan for other advertising channels – advertising in GDN, in the feed of social networks, direct advertising on third-party sites and others. If you don’t have metrics from previous campaigns and this is your first launch, you should constantly check in with your existing campaigns as the ads run and adjust your media plan as needed.

And by the way, a very important point – before launching advertising campaigns, be sure to check the site to which the advertisement leads. It must work correctly and without errors, and most importantly – be user-friendly. After all, if you are advertising on a site that does not bring sales, you risk wasting your budget and no media plan will not help you.

PRO Tip:

Any advertising campaign should be clearly tracked to understand its effectiveness and to be able to optimize it in the future, for this we recommend using a tracker with powerful analytics AdsBridge.

Books on media planning

• “Media planning & buying in the 21st century” by Ronald D. Geskey: A comprehensive guide to modern media planning, covering everything from traditional to digital media strategies.
• “Media planning: a practical guide” by Jim Surmanek: A book that focuses on the practical aspects of media planning, including case studies and real-world applications.

Online courses and tutorials:

• Coursera – Media planning essentials: An online course that covers the basics of media planning, including strategies for both traditional and digital media.
• Udemy – Media planning and buying: Offers various courses that cover different aspects of media planning, including digital media and social media planning.

Conclusion

Now you know the difference between a media plan and an advertising campaign plan and why it is so important to a business. We hope this will help you allocate budgets wisely and get great results from advertising.