Media plan
What is a media plan?
A media plan is the document that sets out where, when and on what budget a campaign’s ads will run, and what each channel is expected to deliver. It names the audience, the channels (search, social, video, radio, outdoor), the budget for each week and the figures the campaign will be judged by. It is signed off before the first euro is spent.
Example
A furniture shop plans a six-week spring campaign with €6,000 of media spend — money that goes straight to Google and Meta. The media plan splits it like this:
- Google Search — €3,000. At €0.60 a click, that buys 5,000 clicks; if 3% of visitors enquire, the plan expects 150 enquiries.
- Facebook and Instagram — €2,400. At €4 per 1,000 impressions, that is 600,000 impressions; if each person sees the ad three times, it reaches about 200,000 people.
- Remarketing — €600. Ads shown only to people who visited the site in the last 30 days.
The plan therefore says in advance that a search enquiry should cost about €20 (€3,000 ÷ 150). If it is costing €35 after the second week, the next step is already written down: part of the budget moves to the channel that is meeting its target.
Why it matters for a business
A media plan is what makes advertising checkable. Without one, the monthly report has nothing to be measured against, and every number looks acceptable. With one, each channel has a job: search brings enquiries, social brings reach, remarketing brings back people who have already visited the site.
It is not the same thing as an editorial calendar, which schedules what you publish yourself; the media plan covers the placements you pay for. It also protects the budget from the easiest decision, which is to put everything into the one channel where money is quickest to spend.
What to ask
- Which figure will each channel be judged by, and what value is expected?
- Where do the assumed cost per click and enquiry rate come from — your own account history or market averages?
- Is the budget in the plan media spend only, and whose name are the ad accounts in?
- When is the first review, and what happens to the money if a channel falls behind?
In the digital marketing we run, the monthly report shows the cost of an enquiry by channel — the numbers the media plan committed to at the start.