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01 · STR · 01/04

Media plan.

Not a mix by habit. Not an agency copy. An allocation tied to your target CAC.

You set a global budget, we deliver a per-channel allocation tied to your acceptable acquisition cost and average basket. Every euro placed is attached to a measured target, not to a Meta + Google reflex.

By Jérôme · Strategy & data

Get my media plan quotedSee the Brasero mission

02 · OPERATION NOTE · OPS MEDIA PLAN

Media plan, decoded

The field report

You are launching a product, opening a market, or your CACthe cost to acquire a new customer has drifted for three months without a clear culprit. It's the moment to re-frame the allocation before pouring more budget in.

The cost of waiting

Without a written media plan, you steer on gut. You over-invest on Meta because it ships fast, under-invest on LinkedIn because the cost-per-click stings. The real opportunity cost runs into tens of thousands over 12 months for a 5-50 M€ SME.

In black and white

A 12-month per-channel budget grid, indexed on your target CACthe cost to acquire a new customer. A written arbitrage logic your teams can defend in board meetings. A frame to say no to ad repsthe platforms selling ad space (Meta, Google…) pushing a new format every quarter.

The manoeuvre

We start from 12 months of GA4the Google audience measurement tool and Meta / Google Ads history, before drafting a single line. We measure your real per-channel CACthe cost to acquire a new customer in Looker StudioGoogle reporting dashboards fed by Funnel.iothe tool centralising your marketing data, then test budget scenarios against your business goals. Delivered as a quarterly grid, adjustable monthly.

The lock that breaks

Media arbitrages defendable at executive committee. A quarterly review loop no longer hostage to a single vendor. A clean base to plug in marketing automation downstream.

03 · WHAT WE WON'T WRITE IN AN RFP

A media plan is a business steering tool. Not a PowerPoint deck to approve.

Most media plans we inherit are strategic decoration: three slides, a per-channel mix, and no one knows how to recompute the target CAC if the basket moves. A useful plan is one that answers in 10 minutes the question "if I cut 30% of Meta budget, where do I shift it". If the decision mechanic is not written down, the agency vs freelance vs in-house debate replays every six months and no one settles it.

  • 01

    CAC-calibrated allocation

    Each channel receives a budget tied to an acceptable acquisition cost, not to a historical share. You know in advance which channel you cut first if the margin tightens.

  • 02

    Quarterly review loop

    The plan re-adjusts every three months on indicators agreed up front, not on the last agency report. Your teams know how to defend the arbitrages at the executive committee.

  • 03

    Frame against pushy ad reps

    You receive four ad format proposals per month. The written plan gives you the criterion to say yes or no in 5 minutes. Ad reps stop reselling you the wheel every quarter.

  • 04

    Media logic that stays yours

    If you change agency tomorrow, the plan stays with you, defendable. The new team picks up the grid, not three months of re-scoping from scratch.

04 · THE MISSION THAT PROVED IT

We laid it down on these grounds.

Brasero estate, corporate retreats and weddings in Liège province

Brasero Group

Hospitality & events

Yearly media plan over 24 months.

Read the Brasero mission
Battlekart, immersive karting in Verlaine and Malmedy

Battlekart

Indoor leisure · immersive karting

18-month multi-channel media plan.

Read the Battlekart mission
Ecostal Group team handling a solar panel in their warehouse

Ecostal Group

B2B photovoltaic e-commerce

18-month media plan across three eshops.

Read the Ecostal mission

05 · THE PLAY-BY-PLAY

Four steps. Five weeks on average. No budget surprise at the finish line.

  1. STEP 01

    We audit 12 months of history.

    Cross-reading of GA4 (opens in a new window) + Meta / Google Ads + Funnel.io (opens in a new window) (marketing data lake) over four quarters. We measure your real per-channel CAC, your marginal cost, and how much budget each channel can absorb before saturating. That is what makes the plan defendable rather than inspirational.

  2. STEP 02

    We model three budget scenarios.

    Base, prudent, aggressive scenarios. Each costed over 12 months with explicit CAC, basket and conversion rate assumptions. Modelling on Looker Studio (opens in a new window) (Google reporting dashboards) wired to BigQuery (opens in a new window) (Google dedicated data warehouse), not a hand-built spreadsheet.

  3. STEP 03

    We validate the grid with your CFO.

    90-minute workshop on call or onsite. We confront the modelling against your gross margin, cash plan, sales calendar. The plan doesn't ship until your CFO signs off in writing. No silent additions outside the quote after that.

  4. STEP 04

    We document the review loop.

    Quarterly Notion grid, threshold indicators, and a written reallocation procedure: if a channel drifts by X%, here is the move. Handover to your teams or your existing media agency. You then steer without vendor dependency.

06 · THE FLOW AT A GLANCE

The path each budget euro takes between your P&L and your ad platforms.

— not the mix by habit50/50 Meta + Google by defaultGLOBAL BUDGET · ALLOCATION36%28%22%14%GOOGLE ADSlow CPC · high intentMETA ADSvolume · discoveryLINKEDIN ADSB2B · decision-makersTIKTOK ADStargeted awarenessTARGET CACCFO-signed ceilingAVERAGE BASKETindexed on gross marginWEEKLY STEERINGthresholds + written drillMODELLINGGA4 · BIGQUERY · LOOKER STUDIO · FUNNEL.IOquarterly Notion grid · documented handover

Each share of the budget is tied to a defendable target acquisition cost, not to a historical share. The grid re-adjusts every quarter.

07 · NOT YET FOR YOU IF

Three cases where laying down a media plan is not the top priority.

  • You refuse to share your gross margin.

    Without visibility on your margin and average basket, we cannot calibrate a defendable target CAC. We can ship a generic plan, but it will be worth no more than the one ad reps push at you.

  • Your yearly ad budget is below 80 k€.

    Below this threshold, multi-channel arbitrage has little room to manoeuvre. You will gain more by focusing on two mastered channels than by building a theoretical grid across five platforms.

  • No one on your side will steer the grid afterwards.

    A media plan requires a minimum quarterly reading of two hours. If no one is dedicated to holding the rhythm, the grid becomes decorative after six months and you slip back to the mix-by-habit.

08 · THE QUESTIONS WE ACTUALLY HEAR

Questions whispered after the second meeting. Honest answers.

On the 5-50 M€ SME missions we ran in 2024-2026, the gap between mix-by-habit and calibrated plan sits around 15-25% lower CAC (cost to acquire a new customer) over 12 months. Applied to a 200 k€ ad budget, that is 30-50 k€ of savings or extra volume. To frame it all, we often run the communication plan in parallel.

Not opposed. The real-time dashboard is for execution, the written plan is for decision. Without a plan, you receive 30 indicators a day and have no idea which one should trigger an arbitrage. The written plan sets the thresholds. The dashboard watches them. Both layers complement each other, but the plan comes first. This is also what distinguishes the agency vs freelance vs in-house debate: the pilot is whoever holds the plan, not whoever watches the dashboard.

The budget grid holds 12 months on the skeleton. Reallocation thresholds are reviewed every three months. CAC assumptions are revised at least twice a year, or immediately in case of market shock (Meta changes formats, competitor launch, raw material spike). We document the update procedure so it stays playable without us, as we did on the Brasero mission where the plan held 18 months without rewrite.

On 60% of our missions, the declared CAC does not survive 30 minutes of audit. Usually one of two classic traps: Meta and Google each claim the same sale, or everything is credited to the last click only. We fix it before modelling. If the gap is too wide, we recommend scoping the tracking layer first, otherwise the plan sits on sand.

The Notion grid costs nothing to maintain. The quarterly review takes 2-4 hours from your team or media agency. If you want us to hold the loop ourselves after initial scoping, we bill per quarter, not per month. You can stop whenever. If your model is pure e-commerce, the LTV-CAC strategy takes over downstream to steer the margin.

Yes, on 40% of missions. The rule: who steers the budget grid and who executes. If the existing agency stays pilot, we scope with them and document the procedure. If they execute our grid, we accompany three quarters then step back. We never step on the other side without saying.

Field note

A media plan is first a financial discipline. Not a marketing exercise. When we ship one without having seen the client gross margin, we are tinkering. At our shop, we do not sign the quote until the CFO has shown their dashboard. Rarely glamorous, but that is what makes the plan still hold 18 months in.

Jérôme · Strategy & data
JérômeStrategy & data · HeySquad

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