6 Digital Media Planning Tools That Help Smart Buying Teams in 2021

Media planning tools

The job of a media planner demands a diverse skill set, including strict organizational capabilities, an intuitive, logical vision, and a creative eye. But media planners can’t manually keep track of everything on their own. Every modern marketing team can find a little help from digital media planning tools that leverage the simple power of technology to manage a long-term, complex, robust media strategy. 

What are media planning tools?

Media planning tools are any digital tools built to enable smoother communication of information within a company’s media strategy and more effective collaboration between team members. These tools should streamline the media buying process by improving the media planning process first. They do so through the helpful visualization of data and other automated services, like facilitating the media planning process between advertisers and vendors in real time.

These planning tools give media teams the ability to round up the many distinct steps toward their media planning and buying goals. At a high-level, these tools have several benefits:

  • They distill overarching strategy into consumable insights and action items.
  • They assist the media buying process by conveying all of the key information so that media planners and their teams can keep budgets straight and the media mix balanced across digital channels.
  • They simplify audience measurement, giving marketers a better understanding of how they are reaching their target audience in the target market.

Smart tools for media planning

New media platforms and media planning software are becoming available online, suited for a variety of needs and budgets. However, several of them are quickly becoming essential, while the rest may only fit certain needs that don’t apply to all marketers. Here are the essential digital media planning tools that your team should start using this year:
Media Flowchart
Media flowcharts, also known as advertising flowcharts or blocking charts, show the media execution plan at a glance, including the various media (AKA where your ads will be placed) along with the timing and durations of the ads.
Media flowchart - Media Planning Software
Agency RFP Scorecard
An agency RFP scorecard can help media planners effectively evaluate media partners for every new campaign. It compares RFP responses side-by-side to determine the best candidate for your campaign.
Vendor profile
Advertising Campaign Calendar
An advertising campaign calendar, also called a marketing calendar or a media campaign calendar, is a tool used to plan your marketing efforts. Similar to the media flowchart, it helps visualize marketing strategy by providing a calendar view of all of your campaigns. It differs from the flowchart in that it has a different format and gives a wider view of multiple campaigns, rather than specific media executions.
Media Schedule
A media schedule is a tool that media managers use to establish the framework of a plan for their media campaigns across all media channels. This tool will indicate where media spend is going and what return that spend should be producing.
Media Buying Platforms
A media buying platform is software that enables the purchasing of ad space. Media buying platforms offer several benefits to advertisers, the most obvious of which is that it provides the media buyer with a centralized location for discovering and securing ad space.
Media Agency RFP Discovery Tool

One media planning tool that is still emerging is a media agency RFP discovery tool. Essentially, it’s a media planning platform that offers something other advertising platforms do not: the ability to discover new media vendors whose offerings precisely match the needs of your RFP. 

Media planning

Only one tool like this currently exists, and you can find it in the BriefBid platform. BriefBid also offers all of the essential media planning tools on this list, making it the ideal solution for media planners to run successful media campaigns. You can learn more about BriefBid’s set of digital media planning tools on our website. 

Share this post

Create omni-channel media plans in minutes, assign or discover media partners, and receive personalized proposals from media sales teams. Free for agencies and brands.

Media flowchart - Media Planning Software

Looking to advertise outside of Facebook?
Discover new solutions and media partners.

100% free for agencies and brands. Unlimited users.