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media-planning

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Updated 10-16 08:04

About this skill

Media Planning

Decides where, when and how often the target audience should meet the message, at what cost per thousand people who matter, and how delivery will be checked against the plan. Written from established media-planning practice and Stockwell and Shaw (1994) Direct Marketing Checklists, NTC Business Books. The skill plans and specifies; booking and spending need explicit client authority.

Use When

  • The campaign needs a media plan: which channels, what weight, which weeks and how much per medium.
  • Radio or Facebook? How often should people see this? Is this station worth the money?
  • Compare what was booked against what actually ran, and agree make-goods for the shortfall.
  • Weight the budget by region or season, for example heavier in Kampala or around Christmas.

Do Not Use When

  • advertising-strategy-and-budget when the total budget or objectives are not yet set.
  • programmatic-and-brand-safety for DSP, private-deal, CTV, digital-screen (DOOH) and digital-audio buying, supply-path and fee checks, viewability, invalid traffic and brand-safety settings; classic outdoor, broadcast TV and FM radio stay here.
  • traction-channel-bullseye for choosing which acquisition channels to test at all.
  • playbook-paid-social-advertising or paid-search-advertising for platform campaign builds and ad sets.
  • Stop before any booking, insertion order or spend without the client's written authority.

Required Inputs

Artefact Source/provider Required? If absent
Objective, target audience definition and campaign period Approved brief Yes Stop; request the brief
Approved media budget and floor advertising-strategy-and-budget output or client Yes Plan scenarios at two budget levels, labelled
Audience data per medium (circulation audits, listenership, platform audience estimates, ad reach) Media owners' kits, audits, platform tools, source register Conditional Mark in-target share not assessed; plan a test or research step
Rate cards and quotes Media owners, platforms, suppliers Conditional Use labelled ranges from the client's own buying history; never quote remembered prices
Sales or distribution by area Client Conditional Weight by population and label the assumption

Workflow

  1. Restate objective, audience and period; stop if the target audience is undefined or "everyone".
  2. Choose the delivery goal: reach-led (launch, awareness), frequency-led (complex message, competitive clutter) or response-led (leads and sales).
  3. Screen each candidate medium with the four-point test and classify primary, secondary or tertiary by in-target audience share (see media maths and selection).
  4. Compare media on cost per thousand in-target (target CPM), then incremental reach per shilling.
  5. Set reach and frequency targets and the effective-frequency assumption for this brand and message; record the reasoning.
  6. Schedule: continuity, flighting or pulsing, aligned to buying cycles, school terms, holidays and payday (see scheduling and weighting).
  7. Weight geography by category and brand development and by distribution; do not advertise where people cannot buy.
  8. Build the plan table and the post-buy template, stating every assumption and its source; run quality and anti-slop gates, correct and rerun, and withhold any rate or audience figure without a source.
  9. After the flight, reconcile planned vs actual delivery and recommend make-goods or re-weighting.

Core concepts at a glance

Term Definition Formula
Reach % (or number) of the target exposed at least once in the period Unduplicated exposed ÷ target universe
Frequency Average exposures among those reached Impressions to target ÷ people reached
GRPs Gross rating points across a schedule (total audience) Reach % × average frequency
TRPs Rating points among the defined target Target reach % × target frequency
Effective reach % of target reached at or above the effective frequency From the frequency distribution
CPM Cost per thousand impressions Cost ÷ impressions × 1,000
Target CPM (CPIM) Cost per thousand in-target impressions or readers Cost ÷ in-target audience × 1,000
CPP Cost per rating point Cost ÷ rating points
Share of voice Brand weight ÷ category weight Brand spend or GRPs ÷ category total

Outputs

Artefact Consumer Acceptance condition
Media plan Client approver, media buyer Medium, rationale, in-target share, target CPM, weight, dates, cost and delivery target per line
Reach and frequency statement Client and strategist Reach %, average frequency, effective-frequency assumption and GRP/TRP total are stated with method
Flowchart (schedule) Buyer and client Week-by-week weights by medium with bursts and gaps visible
Post-buy reconciliation Client and agency Planned vs actual delivery, variance, cause and make-good action per line

Evidence Produced

Evidence Format Acceptance condition
Audience and rate source register Table Each audience and cost figure has source and date, or is labelled an assumption
Medium screening table Table Four-point test and in-target share recorded per medium
Post-buy record Table Proof of delivery (platform exports, station logs, photographs of outdoor sites) attached or not assessed

Capability and Permission Boundaries

Read and search only; analysis is read-only. Publishing, spend, live account changes, outreach and personal-data processing need explicit, action-specific client authority. Booking, signing insertion orders, paying media owners or contacting suppliers on the client's behalf needs the same authority, and outdoor permits and regulated categories route to the legal/market release gate.

Degraded Mode

Without audited audience or rate data, return the narrowest qualified result and mark the affected checks not assessed. Medium roles, schedule logic, weights as percentages of budget and a list of data to obtain can still be delivered; never convert an unaudited claim into a delivery target.

Decision Rules

Condition Action Failure or risk avoided
A medium's in-target share is low but it is the only route to a segment Keep it as tertiary with a capped weight Losing a segment for the sake of efficiency
Two media overlap heavily Cost the second only against incremental in-target reach; consider alternating Paying twice for the same people
Budget cannot reach effective frequency across the whole audience Narrow the audience or shorten the flight Wide, forgettable exposure
Competitors avoid a medium entirely Test before assuming it is an untapped opportunity Buying a medium that does not pay
Delivery claims come only from the seller Require audit, logs or platform exports Paying for undelivered spots or impressions
Uganda Meta ad-reach figures used for sizing Treat as a floor, not the audience size Under-planning because the figure reflects a blocked-platform period (register MK-02)
The flight overlaps an election or national event, or relies on a platform whose access is unstable (Facebook in Uganda) Verify access at the booking date, add a pause rule and a non-internet medium (radio, SMS, outdoor), and flag outage days in the post-buy Paying for undelivered impressions during a shutdown (registers UG-INTERNET-SHUTDOWN-2026, UG-FACEBOOK-ACCESS-2026)

Quality Standards

  • Every medium has a role, a rationale from audience evidence and a delivery target.
  • Target CPM, not headline CPM, drives comparison; incremental reach is shown when adding media.
  • Effective-frequency assumption is explicit and justified for this message, not a universal "3+".
  • Schedule reflects the buying cycle and local calendar; geography reflects distribution.
  • A post-buy template exists before launch, and the plan acceptance checklist (planning sequence and handoffs) is complete, including a response code per medium.
  • British English; UGX (or named currency); no remembered prices or audience figures.

Anti-Patterns

  • Choosing media by title prestige or headline CPM. Fix: compare cost per thousand in-target and incremental reach.
  • Treating "3+ exposures" as a law. Fix: set the effective-frequency assumption per brand, message and clutter, and test.
  • Spreading a small budget across many stations and platforms. Fix: concentrate to reach effective frequency in fewer places.
  • Advertising where the product is not stocked. Fix: check distribution before weighting geography.
  • Paying on seller claims. Fix: require logs, audits, photographs and exports; reconcile after the flight.
  • Quoting a WhatsApp user figure for Uganda or Kenya without a named survey. Fix: state that no credible figure was admitted (register MK-03) and use the client's own list data.

References