One of the most important things you do before activating your ads is media budget planning. Once advertising is live, though, you need to look at how much you’re spending in relation to how effective your ads are.

But how often should you evaluate your paid media budget allocation? Too often and you may not give your ads time to achieve your goals. Too little and you could miss out on opportunities to optimize.

To help you make up your mind, we include our tips for scrutinizing your paid media budget and recommend a certain CT marketing agency with a proven ability to exceed your goals (hint: it’s Mascola Group).

What Kind of Business Are You?

Doing your media budget planning can be simpler when you know what kind of business you’re running and keep that clearly at the front of your mind.

When we say, “what kind of business,” we don’t necessarily mean direct-to-consumer, lifestyle consumer product, or luxury real estate offering. Instead, we’re talking about the kind of business you are financially. Do you have a big or small budget? Does your business benefit from short-term promotional campaigns, or are you looking for heightened brand awareness in the long run?

Depending on your answers to those questions, you might want to evaluate your paid media budget allocation at different intervals. To help you figure out how to judge your ad spend based on what kind of business you are, we’ve put together the list below:

• Monthly: If you’re business’ budget is tight, is new to a type of advertising (e.g. this is your first-time spending on search or social), or needs to quickly show a return on ad spend, you may want to monitor advertising monthly to swiftly optimize and get the most for your money.
• Weekly: This is best for brands frequently running short-term campaigns (e.g. special holiday sales, regularly changing seasonal promotions, etc.). These goals may have specific objectives to achieve in a short period, making weekly monitoring necessary in case you need to change spend, messaging, or design.
• Quarterly: If your business uses paid media to increase brand awareness, you may be able to analyze your paid media budget allocation less frequently. Checking on a quarterly basis gives a brand campaign time to let frequency and reach of ads helping audiences associate the story, meaning, and attitude of your ads with the name.

Thinking Through Your Media Budget Planning

If you’re developing a marketing budget for the first time, you can set yourself up for success by making plans centered around three considerations:

Step 1: Know Your Audience

Where does your audience spend their time (both physically and online)? Knowing how they consume content, as well as the kinds of environments where they might be exposed to physical advertising, can help you decide what types of placements—from billboards and bus stop signs to TikTok ads—you should spend on. You can find out by performing your own research in-house, or by partnering with a marketing agency capable of deep audience research.

Step 2: Choose Your Media Mix

These are the placements you choose for both your physical and digital ads once you know your audiences’ habit. Are they older audiences who spend a lot of time on the road? Then you might want to spend on a mix podcast live reads, billboards, and Facebook ads (for when they’re not behind the wheel). On the flip side, if they’re younger adults who predominantly get news from social media and spend around 90 minutes a day watching videos on their phones, TikTok will probably find its way into your media plan. As you’re developing a marketing budget for your advertising, though, be aware that each platform may have different cost structures that impact ads’ visibility and effectiveness. On Facebook, for example, the amount you spend directly influences potential audience reach, more so than targeting.

Step 3: Check Your Estimated Costs

Once you’ve chosen your ideal media mix, add up all the estimated costs and compare it against your budget. If the sum is within your target numbers, happy advertising! If your estimates go over your spending limits, though, you’ll need to adjust. In that case, go back to what you know about your audience. What will be the most important type of media (i.e. the most likely to reach them and/or resonate with them)? Keep that, then look at everything else and begin asking what is less important, or likely to be the least successful based on what your audience information. From there, you’ll able to whittle down your media mix to one that fits both your needs and your budget as much as possible.

What Else Should You Consider?

Beyond these top three priorities, evaluating your media budget planning and allocation should also include thinking about your overall campaign goals. If brand awareness is your advertising’s overarching purpose, it can succeed across several placements, from train station posters to Facebook Instant Experiences. If you want direct sales, however, you might choose Instagram ads linking straight to product pages, cutting down the number of steps your audience needs to take to reach a point of purchase. Whatever your goals, they will also affect the performance metrics you keep tabs on. (e.g. site traffic or purchases).

Find a Marketing Agency That Can Support Your Media Budget Planning

If your business is new to paid media, or you would just love another expert’s perspective when developing a marketing budget, consider working with an agency that specializes in creative, strategic, and effective paid media services.

That’s exactly what we offer at Mascola Group, a CT marketing agency that embodies the idea of Marketing with Integrity. Our team of experts uses deep media buying knowledge and relationships to achieve high-impact, cost-effective placements in both physical and digital outlets for our clients. With our proprietary reporting tools, we also provide immediate analysis and optimization to help you meet your business goals.

Is that the kind of paid media your brand is ready for? Then contact Mascola Group and begin a successful marketing relationship built on integrity.