Media plan: what it should include and how to build one

A media plan states who your advertising reaches, how many times, in which channels and on what budget. A good plan puts these in numbers and states the assumptions behind them. That way the plan can be compared with what the campaign actually delivered.

Key terms: media strategy, media plan and campaign plan

• The media strategy sets the direction: what advertising should achieve, who it speaks to and what role each channel plays. The strategy often also names the most important media partners. See how we build a media strategy.
• The media plan puts the strategy into practice: audience size, reach, frequency, budget split and timing. A plan can cover a full year, a quarter, several campaigns or a single campaign. The scope depends on the client relationship and the agreed way of working.
• The campaign plan covers the whole campaign on top of the media plan: the message, the assets, the schedule, reporting and any campaign research.

It all starts with the brief

Before the media plan, we need a brief from the client. It can cover one campaign, a longer programme, a quarter or a full year. A good brief includes at least:

• Business situation and objective: what is happening in the company and what it wants to achieve.
• The campaign's main objective and the metric used to judge success.
• Audience and area.
• Budget and timing.
• Wishes and limits: channels that are wanted or ruled out, and the assets. What is already done, what is being planned and what will not be made, for example no video or no radio spot.
• Measurement: the tools and data in use.

The more clearly the brief says what is wanted and what is not, the better we can focus on the planning. In our experience, a clear written brief cuts revision rounds and saves time for both us and the client.

The 7 parts of a media plan

1. Objective

One main objective and a metric for it: awareness, consideration or sales. The objective decides whether you buy reach, attention or clicks, and how the result is measured.

2. Audience in people

The better you know your audience, the more precisely we can define it. The audience size is stated in people, not just as a description. For example, there are about 2.22 million 25–54-year-olds in Finland. Once the size is known, we can calculate a reach target and how many people each channel's budget reaches.

3. Channels and their roles

Channels are chosen by what the audience actually uses and what job the channel has: reaching broadly, repeating the message or driving clicks and sales. We see the audience's media use in our own NØRR3 Media Insights research.

Each channel gets one role and its own metric. A social channel can drive traffic to the website, in which case the metric is clicks. A short video can build reach and a longer one tell a story, in which case views are measured. A small budget cannot carry several parallel campaigns through the learning phase, so each channel gets one campaign and one optimisation goal.

In larger programmes, a channel can run a reach campaign and a traffic campaign side by side: one reaches the audience, the other brings visitors to the website and towards conversions. Every campaign is planned case by case.

4. Reach and frequency

Reach is how many people in the audience see the ad at least once. Frequency is how many times on average the ad is seen. Both get a target, and frequency gets a cap per channel. The ad should stick without annoying people.

Reach and frequency are averages. One person sees the ad more often than average in one channel and less often in another, depending on which media they use most.

5. Budget

The budget is split across channels according to the reach and frequency each role needs. The plan also records the assumptions behind the split, such as prices and estimated reach. See an example of how we would split a €150 000 campaign between TV and video.

6. Timing

Timing and duration are locked to the sales season and the audience's media use. Time of day can matter too. On weekdays, 47.8 % of 18–74-year-olds, about 1.89 million people, say they typically listen to the radio between 9 and 16, but only 13.0 %, about 515 000, between 18 and 24. A morning coffee offer is hardly worth advertising in the evening.

Source: NØRR3 Media Insights 08/2026 · Panel data Norstat · n = 2 022 · 95 % confidence interval ±1.5–2.2 pp.

Finally, the budget is split by week. The weight goes on the decisive moments, such as the application period, the start of the sales season or the week after an opening, and the other weeks are kept lighter. Peak weeks, or even peak days, are chosen to fit each campaign.

7. Measurement

Before the campaign you agree how the result is measured and what it is compared with. Measurement is built before the first buy, not afterwards. At the same time you agree whether to run a campaign study and which metrics it includes, with the campaign objectives in mind. See how we build measurement. After the campaign, the result feeds into the next plan: we compare campaigns with earlier ones and carry the best lessons forward.

Example: reach of two channels

The audience is 25–54-year-olds, about 2.22 million people. Of them, 51.2 %, about 1.14 million, watch MTV channels weekly, and 53.2 %, about 1.18 million, listen to Sanoma's radio stations weekly.

Source: NØRR3 Media Insights 08/2026 · Panel data Norstat · n = 1 086 · 95 % confidence interval ±3.0 pp.

Added together that would be 2.31 million, more than the whole audience. The figures overlap: 67.5 % of MTV's weekly viewers, about 766 000, also listen to Sanoma's radio stations.

Source: NØRR3 Media Insights 08/2026 · Panel data Norstat · n = 563 · 95 % confidence interval ±3.9 pp.

With the overlap removed, the two channels together reach about 1.55 million in a week, or 69.9 % of the audience (1.14 + 1.18 − 0.77 million). The difference is almost 770 000 people. That is reach the plan would have promised but never delivered.

The calculation describes media users, not bought advertising. Advertising reach depends on how much is bought, meaning the channel budget, spot lengths and seasonal pricing, but the overlap works the same way. NØRR3 Media Insights asks about all media from the same respondents, so the overlap can be estimated in the plan.

The plan: summary and channel details

A media plan opens with one page showing the key figures: budget, impressions, clicks, average CPM and how much of the audience is reached. The figures are calculated like this:

• Impressions = budget ÷ CPM × 1 000. For example, 10 000 euros at a 4-euro CPM gives 2.5 million impressions.
• People reached = impressions ÷ average frequency. If the same person sees the ad five times on average, 2.5 million impressions reach about 500 000 people.
• Combined reach of channels = 1 − (1 − reach of channel A) × (1 − reach of channel B). The formula assumes the channels' audiences are independent of each other.

In reality, audiences often overlap more. In the example above the formula would give 77.2 % (1 − 0.488 × 0.468), but the measured overlap gives 69.9 %. If the overlap has not been measured, combined reach is best shown as a range.

The euro amounts, CPM and frequency are illustrative example figures.

In larger campaigns, the summary is followed by a channel section. Each channel gets its own page with, for example, its role, buying method, budget, schedule and target figures.

The most common mistakes

• Adding contacts up as reach. Contacts are not separate people, as the example shows.
• Counting ad-free media. 45.9 % of 25–54-year-olds watch Yle channels weekly, but Yle carries no advertising. Online, 20.3 % of 18–74-year-olds say they use an ad blocker, so the same online medium does not reach all its users with an ad.
• No frequency cap. When the audience is small, the area is tight or the platform chases clicks from the same people, frequency in our campaigns has run away and can pass 20.
• Excluding the oldest age groups by default. In our campaigns across several industries, they have clicked on ads more actively than younger people, and they have buying potential. You can weight towards younger groups, but the oldest should not be shut out completely.

Sources: NØRR3 Media Insights 08/2026 · Panel data Norstat · Yle n = 1 086, ±3.0 pp, ad blocking n = 2 022, ±1.7 pp. NØRR3's own campaign bank, campaign reports 2024–2026: each lesson recurs in campaigns across at least two industries and two advertisers.

A media plan template in brief

Use these points to build and check a plan:

• Brief: objective, audience, budget, timing and limits in writing.
• Objective: main objective and metric.
• Audience: definition and size in people.
• Channels: channel, role and buying method.
• Reach and frequency: target by channel and in total, frequency cap.
• Budget: split by channel and assumptions.
• Timing: dates, duration and, if needed, times of day.
• Measurement: metric, benchmark and reporting rhythm.

Read more about how we do media planning and buying.

Let's build your media plan together

Tell us your objective, audience and budget, and we will plan the right media mix and calculate who it reaches and how many times.

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About the author

Dina Barbis, Senior Media Planner, Partner, NØRR3

Dina leads multichannel media planning and direct-media partnerships: out-of-home, print, Total TV, radio and direct digital campaigns. She has 10+ years of advertising planning and operations across nearly every digital and offline channel. Audience behaviour analysis is her core skill.

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