Annual Media Plan and Budget Allocation for DACH

Where the next 100,000 EUR goes: Rarely to the channel with the best reported return. We fit a response curve per channel from your own weekly spend and conversion history, and the plan carries two numbers on every line: the floor below which that channel produces nothing you can read, and the ceiling past which you are paying to reach demand that was already arriving. In German-market plans those ceilings usually sit below what the incumbent agency proposed, because the binding constraint is not budget. It is how much reachable demand exists inside a legally narrow window. Why a German plan is not a translated UK plan: Advertising for virtual slots, online poker and online casino is barred between 06:00 and 21:00 under the State Treaty on Gambling. A year of acquisition is therefore compressed into evening inventory that every licensed operator bids for at the same time, and a CPA modelled on daytime reach comes apart the moment you scale. Energy retail runs on a different clock: switching volume follows the price-adjustment letters that land in November and December, the comparison portals take the intent before you ever see it, and the real allocation question is how much brand spend has to be running in September to still be in the consideration set in December. Pet brands plan against a Q4 retail media auction they cannot outbid and a January cohort of first-time owners whose twelve-month value has almost no relationship to the first basket. How the plan is built: We start from eight quarters of weekly spend by channel and market, order or deposit data at the same weekly grain, and whatever geo variation your history already contains. Where the history has no variance to read, which is the usual case when spend has been flat and always-on, we specify a six-week geo holdout to create it before the allocation is finalised rather than assert a number we cannot defend. Seasonality, the promotional calendar, sponsorship commitments and fixed carriage deals enter as constraints, not as inputs to be optimised away. What you receive: A quarter-by-quarter allocation with named line items and flight dates. Floor and ceiling per channel with the fitted curve behind each one. A cut order: the exact sequence in which lines come out if the budget is reduced by 15, 30 or 50 percent, agreed while nobody is under pressure. A reallocation trigger list, separating the conditions that should change the plan mid-quarter from the ones that look alarming and should be ignored. One working session with your finance counterpart so the plan survives contact with the budget process. What we do not do: We do not buy media, hold platform access to your spend, or take any commission, rebate or share of billings from a vendor named in the plan. We do not build allocations on platform-reported conversions; where the only number available is a platform marking its own homework, the plan says so on that line. We do not produce creative, and we do not manage the agency that executes this. Not the right engagement if: You need a plan next week; the fitting alone takes longer than that. You cannot release weekly data below channel level. You want confirmation of an allocation already agreed internally. Or you are trading in a licensed German category without a licence, in which case the media plan is not your problem.