What is media planning and how does a media plan work?
The steps of media planning, what goes into a media plan, and how publishers can help advertisers plan campaigns from audiences instead of placements.
Written by Samhub with the help of AI·Updated 13 Oct 2026·3 min readMedia planning is deciding where, when and to whom an advertising campaign should run, and how the budget is split, to reach the campaign’s goal. The result is a media plan.
The steps of media planning
Set the goal
Awareness, consideration or sales, and how success will be measured.
Choose channels and partners
Which publishers, platforms and formats reach that audience best.
Set reach, frequency and timing
How many people, how often, and in which weeks.
Split the budget
Across channels and periods, based on cost and expected effect.
Measure and adjust
Track results during the campaign and move budget to what works.
What a media plan includes
| Field | Example |
|---|---|
| Goal and KPI | Awareness, measured as reach in the target audience |
| Audience | Families with children in the region |
| Channels and formats | News site display, newsletter, sponsored article |
| Flight dates | Four weeks in spring |
| Budget and price | Per channel, with CPM or fixed price |
| Expected delivery | Impressions, reach and frequency |
16 pages for publishers, with a checklist for data, programmatic and direct sales.
Media planning vs media buying
Planning decides what to do. Buying makes it happen: negotiating, booking and running the campaign. In smaller teams the same person does both.
How publishers can help advertisers plan
Most advertisers plan from audiences, not from sites. A publisher that can show which audiences it reaches, how many people are in each and what a campaign would deliver becomes part of the plan instead of a line item to negotiate down.
More ad sales with data at Stampen Media, using Samhub.
Frequently asked questions
Planning decides where, when and to whom the campaign runs. Buying negotiates and books the media to carry out the plan.
Goal and KPI, audience, channels and formats, dates, budget per channel, price and expected delivery.
Media agencies for most large advertisers, in-house teams at some brands, and often the publisher’s own sales team for local advertisers.
It shows which audiences each channel reaches and what earlier campaigns delivered, so the budget goes where the audience is.
Related terms
The document that sells your audience and ad formats.
How many ads were shown versus how many people saw them.
The signed order for a direct ad campaign.
Your list prices for ad formats and packages.
Negotiating and booking ad space for a campaign.
One campaign across several media.
Plan, report and validate campaigns on your own audience data, and win back direct deals.
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Get the Media Monetization Playbook: how media houses turn first-party data into higher CPMs, data deals and direct sales. With checklists for every step.
