Media planning for businesses that want to know where to advertise

Media planning is the process of working out which advertising channels, placements and schedules give a business the best chance of reaching the right people, in the right places, often enough to change what they do — within the budget available.

It sits between strategy and buying. Campaign strategy defines what the advertising needs to achieve; media planning decides where and how that happens; media buying secures the inventory.

• Business analysis — how the business sells, what a customer is worth and what capacity it has
• Audience analysis — who buys, who influences the decision and how they consume media
• Geography — where customers are and where advertising would be wasted
• Media research — audiences, costs, availability and lead times for each option
• Channel selection — choosing channels that each have a clear job
• Budget allocation — setting enough investment for each channel to work
• Timing — when activity should run and for how long
• Reach — how many of the target audience are likely to see the advertising
• Frequency — how often they are likely to see it
• Measurement — how success will be judged before any money is spent

Business model

How the business earns revenue — one-off sales, subscriptions, appointments, contracts or repeat orders — shapes what advertising needs to deliver.

Target customer

Who buys, who influences the decision, and how clearly that group can be reached.

Geography

Where customers are, how far they will travel and whether the business serves a catchment, a region or the whole country.

Average transaction value

What a typical sale is worth. It sets how much can sensibly be spent to win one.

Margins

Revenue is not profit. Where relevant, gross margin decides how much advertising a sale can support.

Customer lifetime value where relevant

If customers buy again, the value of the first sale understates what a new customer is worth.

Sales process

Whether advertising should drive an online purchase, a call, a form, a showroom visit or a sales meeting.

Buying cycle

How long people take to decide, which affects timing, frequency and the balance between reach and capture.

Previous advertising

What has been tried, what the results showed and what was learned.

Growth objectives

What the business is trying to change — more enquiries, more visits, a launch, a new market.

Budget

The range available. It constrains scale, duration and how many channels are realistic.

Different purchases need different advertising:

• Impulse purchases — decisions are quick, so presence close to the moment of purchase matters
• Considered purchases — people research and compare, so repeated exposure and presence in search both count
• High-value services — trust and familiarity carry weight, and the sales process often involves several contacts
• Recurring purchases — retention and repeat buying change the value of a new customer
• Local services — catchment, proximity and local search are central
• National ecommerce — acquisition cost, margin, creative volume and attribution drive decisions
• B2B sales — small, specific audiences, longer cycles and several decision-makers

Demand capture reaches people who already want something and are looking for it — for example paid search, comparison environments and retargeting. It tends to be easier to measure because the response is close to the advertising.

Demand creation reaches people before they are looking, so that the business is known and considered when the need arises — for example outdoor, radio, TV, connected TV, YouTube, social, print and sponsorship.

Capture is limited by how many people are already searching. Creation can grow that pool, but its effect usually takes longer to show and is harder to attribute to a single click. Many plans use both; the right balance depends on existing demand, the buying cycle, competition and budget.

Every channel in a plan should have a job. Possible roles include:

• create awareness
• generate consideration
• capture active demand
• generate leads
• drive footfall
• support a launch
• reinforce other media
• retarget interested audiences

If a channel cannot be given a clear role, or the budget cannot fund that role properly, it is usually better left out. See how to choose advertising channels.

Geography is one of the biggest sources of wasted budget. Planning can work at several levels:

• postcode and catchment planning
• town or city
• regional
• national
• individual store or showroom catchments

The aim is to concentrate advertising where customers are and where the business can serve them, avoiding coverage that looks impressive but reaches people who will never buy.

Splitting a budget evenly across channels is not a planning method. Each channel has different economics, and a thin allocation can leave every channel below the level where it has a realistic chance of working. Allocation should consider:

• minimum viable investment — the level below which a channel cannot do its job
• channel economics — how costs relate to the audience reached or the response generated
• duration — how long activity needs to run
• reach and frequency — how many people, how often
• testing — budget set aside to learn
• creative costs — production for each format
• measurement costs — tracking, research or analysis

See how to split an advertising budget.

Reach is the number or share of the target audience who see the advertising at least once. Frequency is how many times, on average, they see it.

A plan with high reach and low frequency may be seen once and forgotten; a plan with high frequency and low reach may repeatedly hit the same small group. The balance depends on the objective, the creative and the budget. Read reach, frequency and impressions.

• Always-on — continuous presence, often at a lower weight
• Bursts — concentrated periods of heavier activity
• Launches — activity built around an opening or new product
• Seasonality — when demand naturally rises or falls
• Sales cycles — when decisions are actually made
• Lead times — some media must be booked weeks or months ahead; see how far in advance to book advertising

Depending on the objective and channels, measures can include:

• leads, calls and enquiries
• bookings
• sales and revenue
• cost per acquisition
• reach and frequency
• brand measures such as awareness or consideration
• footfall where relevant

Not every channel can be measured with perfect attribution. Broadcast and outdoor rarely produce a click, and digital attribution can over-credit the last touch. A good plan agrees in advance what will be measured and how. See how advertising is measured.

These scenarios show how thinking changes with scale. They are not fixed splits and do not predict results.

£5,000 per month

The key question is usually whether to concentrate on one or two channels rather than spreading the budget too thinly. Questions that decide this include: is there existing search demand to capture; how local is the market; what is a customer worth; can the business handle more enquiries; and is there creative available for the channels being considered?

£10,000 per month

More combinations may become practical — for example pairing a capture channel with a reach channel in a defined area — but each still needs enough weight to do its job, and the choice should still depend on the business rather than the budget.

£25,000 per month

Broader reach, several channels with distinct roles and more structured testing may become possible, including geographic tests or holdout areas that help show what the reach media is contributing.