Media Planning and Buying

01

From strategy to buys

The media plan is the third step of the work. It turns the roles set in the media strategy into buys: who is reached, how often and in which formats. The assets are planned at the same time, because the format and the way it is bought are decided together.

The plan defines the audience and counts its size, sets reach and frequency, splits the budget across channels and locks the timing. After that we negotiate the rates and place the buys.

02

What we need from you

Planning starts with a brief. We need the business situation, the campaign's main objective and metric, the audience and area, the budget and timing, and the measurement already in use. Tell us your limits too: channels that are ruled out and assets that will not be made.

You can send the brief through the form or go through it with us. In our experience, a written brief cuts revision rounds, and the plan is ready sooner.

03

Who to reach, where and when

We define the audience from NØRR3 Media Insights and state its size in people. The same data shows which channels the group follows and when. For example, 47.8 %*, about 1 891 000 people, say they typically listen to the radio between 9 and 16 on weekdays, and 13.0 % between 18 and 24. Time of day is therefore part of the plan.

When the brand is on the NØRR3 Media Insights brand list, or your own question has been added, the plan can be built around the media use of people who are interested in the brand but do not use it yet. The Research page explains how that group is defined.

04

One job for each channel

We give each channel one job and its own metric: reach broadly, repeat the message or bring visitors and sales. For video the metric is views, for a traffic campaign clicks.

The budget decides how many campaigns a channel can carry. A small budget cannot take several parallel campaigns through the learning phase, so each channel gets one campaign and one optimisation goal. With a larger budget, a reach campaign and a traffic campaign can run side by side in the same channel.

05

Reach, frequency and assumptions

We calculate reach and frequency in advance, so the plan can be measured against what actually ran. The advance calculation is an estimate, and we state its assumptions. Contacts are not separate people, so contact counts from different channels are not added up as reach.

An example: there are about 2.22 million people aged 25 to 54 in Finland. Of them, 51.2 %*** watch MTV channels weekly and 53.2 %*** listen to Sanoma radio stations. Added together that would be 2.31 million, more than the whole audience. With the overlapping users removed, the two channels reach about 1.55 million in a week, or 69.9 %. These figures describe media users. Advertising reach depends on how much is bought.

Reach that is open to advertising is assessed channel by channel. 20.3 %*, about 803 000 people aged 18 to 74, say they use an ad blocker online. Blocking does not necessarily remove all online advertising, and it does not apply to TV, radio or out of home, for example. So the same share is not deducted from every channel.

06

Budget, negotiation and buying

The budget is split across channels according to the reach and frequency each role needs. Timing is locked to the audience's media use and the sales season. We negotiate rates with media owners and place the buys according to the plan.

Finally, the budget is split by week. The decisive weeks get the most money, such as the start of an application period, the opening of the sales season or the week after an opening. The other weeks are kept lighter.

07

What you get

The first page of the plan shows the key figures: budget, impressions, clicks, average CPM and how much of the audience we reach. In larger campaigns each channel also gets its own page with its role, buying method, budget, schedule and target figures.

If the overlap between channels has not been measured, we show combined reach as a range. The formula alone assumes the audiences are independent. In the example above it would give 77.2 %, while the measured figure is 69.9 %.

08

The plan keeps moving

The metric and the benchmark are agreed before the first buy. At the same time we decide whether to run a campaign study.

We track reach, frequency and results while the campaign runs and move budget according to the agreed goal. In supported channels, delivery and tracking can be handled in the Campaign & Reporting app in NØRR3 Marketing Engine. After the campaign, measurement shows what the media delivered, and that evidence goes into the next plan.

09

What our campaigns have shown

A narrow audience wears out fast. 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.** So we set a frequency cap and track it in click buying too. When frequency runs away, we widen the audience or move money to another channel.

Do not exclude the oldest age groups by default. In our campaigns across several industries, they have clicked on ads more actively than younger people.**

* NØRR3 Media Insights, Norstat panel, wave 9, August 2026, n = 2 022, aged 18 to 74, margin of error ±1.5–2.2 percentage points. Radio: at what times of day do you typically use these media on a weekday. Ad blocking: which of the following describe you. ** NØRR3's own campaign bank, campaign reports 2024–2026: each lesson recurs in campaigns across at least two industries and two advertisers. *** NØRR3 Media Insights, Norstat panel, wave 9, August 2026, aged 25 to 54, n = 1 086, margin of error ±3.0 percentage points. Overlap among MTV weekly viewers n = 563, ±3.9 percentage points.