Media Planning & Channel Strategy
Deciding where the budget goes and why, with the thresholds each channel needs to work and a plan for reallocating as evidence comes in.
Overview
Budget usually gets split the way it was split last year, adjusted slightly. That is not allocation, it is inertia, and it is why so many plans have a little money in a lot of places, doing nothing anywhere.
We plan from how your buyers actually find and choose, then apply the thresholds each channel needs to function. Where the budget cannot clear a threshold, we say so and take the channel out rather than underfunding it.
Who this is for
- Companies spending across many channels with no view of which are carrying the result
- Teams whose media plan is inherited rather than decided
- Businesses entering a market where they do not know the channel economics
How we approach media planning & channel strategy
The specific pieces of work a typical engagement covers. Scope is agreed up front — nothing here is a surprise line item later.
Audience and channel fit
Where your buyers actually are at each stage. Attention is not the same as intent, and the two need different channels.
Budget allocation
How much goes where, with the reasoning, and the minimum viable spend for each channel written down explicitly.
Reach and frequency planning
How often the message needs to land before it registers, and what that costs. Underfunded frequency is money spent for no effect.
Flighting and seasonality
When to spend heavily and when to go quiet, based on your demand pattern rather than the calendar quarter.
Test budget
A ring-fenced share for channels you have not proven, so exploration does not compete with the plan every month.
Reallocation rules
The thresholds at which money moves between channels, agreed in advance so shifts are decisions rather than reactions.
From first call to measured result
The same sequence every time, so you always know what happens next.
Baseline
What you spend now, what it returns, and where the measurement is unreliable. The last part is usually substantial.
Model
Build the allocation against your funnel economics, including the minimum threshold for each channel considered.
Plan
A flighted plan with budgets, targets and the reallocation rules. Detailed enough to buy against.
Review
A fixed review cadence where the plan changes on evidence. A media plan that never changes was never a plan.
Outcomes, not deliverables
A pile of artefacts isn't progress. These are the changes the work is meant to produce — and what we report against.
Concentrated spend
Fewer channels funded properly beats many funded thinly, and the difference is usually visible within a quarter.
Reallocation without argument
Rules agreed in advance mean budget moves on evidence instead of on whoever is most persuasive that month.
Room to learn
A protected test budget means new channels get a fair trial rather than a starved one.
A plan buyers can execute
Specific enough that your team or your agency can go and buy against it immediately.
Common questions about Media Planning & Channel Strategy
The things people ask before they get in touch. If yours is not here, ask us directly.
Do you buy the media as well?
We can, or we can hand the plan to your existing buying team or agency. Plenty of clients want an independent plan precisely because their buyer also sells the media.
What is the minimum budget for this to be worth doing?
Below roughly ten thousand a month the allocation question is simpler than the planning cost justifies, and we will tell you that rather than take the work.
How often should the media plan change?
Reviewed monthly, restructured quarterly. More often than that and you are reacting to noise rather than signal.
Our tracking is unreliable. Can you still plan?
Yes, but with wider error bars, and fixing measurement usually becomes the first recommendation because everything downstream depends on it.
Thinking about Media Planning & Channel Strategy?
Tell us what you are trying to change. If we are not the right fit we will say so, and point you somewhere better.
Looking at the wider picture?
Media Planning & Channel Strategy usually sits alongside other work in Strategy & Consulting. Browse the full area to see what it connects to.