/dm:media-plan

Purpose

Generate a holistic paid media plan that coordinates budget, channels, audiences, creative, and timing across all advertising platforms. Balances reach and efficiency objectives with practical execution constraints to produce a ready-to-implement plan with clear pacing targets and contingency protocols.

Input Required

The user must provide (or will be prompted for):

• Campaign dates: Start date, end date, and any blackout periods or mandatory flight windows
• Total paid media budget: Aggregate budget for the campaign period with any channel-specific floors or caps
• Channels available: Platforms in consideration — Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, TikTok Ads, programmatic display, connected TV, native, audio, out-of-home, etc.
• Campaign objectives: Primary and secondary objectives — awareness (reach/impressions), consideration (traffic/engagement), conversion (leads/sales/ROAS)
• Target audiences with segments: Audience definitions including demographics, interests, behaviors, custom audiences, lookalikes, and retargeting pools
• Creative assets available: Existing ad formats and sizes, video lengths, static variants, and any creative production timelines for new assets
• Geographic targeting: Markets, regions, DMAs, or countries to target with any geo-specific budget weighting
• Competitive spending intelligence: Known or estimated competitor ad spend, share of voice benchmarks, and auction pressure indicators
• Historical performance by channel: Past campaign data — CPC, CPM, CPA, ROAS, conversion rates — by channel and audience segment
• Seasonality factors: Demand fluctuations, industry events, holidays, promotional periods, or competitive surges that affect costs or performance

Process

1. Load brand context: Read ~/.claude-marketing/brands/_active-brand.json for the active slug, then load ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/profile.json. Apply brand voice, compliance rules for target markets (skills/context-engine/compliance-rules.md), and industry context. Also check for guidelines at ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/guidelines/_manifest.json — if present, load restrictions and relevant category files. Check for custom templates at ~/.claude-marketing/brands/{slug}/templates/. Check for agency SOPs at ~/.claude-marketing/sops/. If no brand exists, ask: "Set up a brand first (/dm:brand-setup)?" — or proceed with defaults.
2. Assess channel-objective fit: Evaluate each available channel against campaign objectives using reach capability, targeting precision, cost benchmarks, creative format support, and measurement reliability
3. Allocate budget across channels: Distribute budget using efficiency-weighted allocation — factor in historical performance, diminishing returns curves, minimum effective spend thresholds, and strategic importance per channel
4. Design flight schedule: Structure campaign timing as continuous, pulsing, or flighting based on objectives, seasonality, and budget — define weekly spend levels and heavy-up periods
5. Build audience targeting matrix: Map each audience segment to its optimal channel(s) with targeting parameters, expected reach, estimated frequency, and overlap management between platforms
6. Plan creative rotation: Schedule creative variants across channels with rotation frequency, fatigue thresholds (impressions or frequency caps), A/B test windows, and refresh dates for new assets
7. Define measurement framework: Establish KPIs per channel, tracking requirements (pixels, UTMs, offline conversion imports), attribution model, and reporting cadence
8. Set contingency holdback: Reserve 10-15% of budget as contingency for opportunistic scaling, underperformance reallocation, or emerging platform opportunities — define trigger criteria for deployment
9. Create platform setup checklists: Build channel-specific setup checklists covering account structure, campaign naming conventions, tracking implementation, audience uploads, and creative specs
10. Model reach and frequency estimates: Project total reach, average frequency, and effective frequency per channel and in aggregate — flag oversaturation or underspend risks
11. Compile unified media plan calendar: Assemble all components into a single calendar view showing budget pacing, creative rotation, audience activation, and measurement milestones week by week

Output

A structured paid media plan containing:

• Channel allocation table: Budget amount, percentage share, and strategic rationale for each channel with minimum and maximum spend guardrails
• Flight schedule with weekly budget waves: Week-by-week spend plan showing ramp-up, steady state, heavy-up, and wind-down phases per channel
• Audience targeting matrix: Segment-by-channel-by-creative mapping showing targeting parameters, expected reach, frequency caps, and overlap management
• Creative rotation calendar: Asset schedule per channel with rotation dates, fatigue thresholds, A/B test windows, and refresh milestones for new creative
• Reach and frequency estimates: Projected reach, average frequency, and effective frequency per channel and in aggregate with confidence ranges
• Measurement framework: KPIs per channel, tracking requirements, attribution model, reporting cadence, and data integration points
• Platform setup checklists: Channel-specific implementation checklists covering account structure, naming conventions, tracking, audiences, and creative specs
• Contingency budget plan: Reserve amount, deployment trigger criteria (over/underperformance thresholds), and reallocation decision framework
• Competitive spending comparison: Estimated share of voice, auction overlap indicators, and competitive pressure assessment by channel
• Daily/weekly pacing targets: Spend and performance pacing benchmarks for in-flight monitoring with acceptable variance thresholds
• Cross-channel synergy map: Retargeting flows between channels, sequential messaging paths, and audience progression logic from awareness to conversion
• Risk scenarios with budget reallocation triggers: Defined scenarios (platform outage, CPM spikes, underperformance, budget cuts) with pre-approved reallocation responses

Agents Used

• media-buyer — Channel allocation, budget pacing, auction dynamics, platform setup, reach/frequency modeling, competitive spending analysis, and creative rotation planning
• marketing-strategist — Objective-channel alignment, audience strategy, cross-channel synergy design, contingency planning, and measurement framework architecture