Annual media plan 2026-2027

How does an annual media plan differ from a quarterly one?

The annual plan solves a different problem. Kvartalny answers the question “what we are launching”, annual - to the question “how much money to give to marketing and what the company will get in return.” It is not read by a performance team, but owner or financial director, and he has other requirements: to see the entire amount at once, understand the distribution by month, know what will happen, if there is less money.

Therefore, there are five sheets in this form, and only one of them is the one “channel × month” grid, which is usually called a media plan.

• Summary of the year. Eight channels for twelve months. Total formulas for rows and columns are hard-coded, you only need to change numbers in cells.
• Quarters. Focus, main goal and acceptance metric each quarter plus a share of the annual budget.
• Plan-fact. Twelve lines for the year: budget, leads, CPL in the context of plan and fact, and a column of decisions.
• Seasonality. Demand coefficient by month and column “What is the justification” so that the figure does not hang in the air.
• Reserve Three budget reduction scenarios with answers, which we turn off first.

Why does seasonality come before budget?

The most common mistake in annual plans is the even distribution of the budget across months. Twelve identical amounts mean that in high season the company undersupplied the volume and overpaid for the auction when it was low. Moreover there is nothing to justify such a distribution: it was taken from the division of the annual amounts for twelve.

In the form, the seasonality sheet is first filled out, and the budget grid is obtained as “basic amount per channel × month coefficient”. Then to the question “why is there twice as much in November as in July” there is an answer from own data, and not from feelings.

the “Reserve” sheet is the one for which everything is done

The budget is almost always cut. Difference between calm and panicky shorthand for whether the script is written in advance. When is the decision accepted in the moment, the first to go under the knife is usually what is easiest measure and the worst thing to lose: a working performance. And turn off you need to do it in reverse order - starting with tests that have not yet paid off.

The three lines on this form cover three real-world scenarios. Filled out for Twenty minutes saves a week of arguing.

what to do next

The annual plan sets the framework, but specific launches live within it. If you need details on channels, hypotheses and creatives, take it media plan template - he designed for a quarter and is linked to this form along the lines of channels. If there is a separate event within the year, it has its own logic and its own phases, for there is this media plan for the event. The offline part of the budget - radio, outdoor advertising, the press - is considered differently, via GRP and OTS, and a separate form for it: offline advertising media plan.

To verify the target values of CPL and CAC by niche are useful CPL benchmarks in B2B and unit economics calculator.