Media Plan Build With Rate Card Normalisation

Quoted CPMs across Gulf publishers hide most of the price difference. Across the last fourteen regional display plans we normalised, the quoted CPM between the cheapest and the dearest line varied by roughly 1.4x; the cost per thousand viewable impressions those same lines actually delivered varied by 3.1x. A plan is only a comparison when every line is priced on one basis, and rate cards are written so that they are not. How a line gets priced: Every quote is restated as cost per thousand viewable impressions at the MRC threshold you measure on, fifty percent of pixels in view for one second on display and two seconds on video, using that publisher's placement-level viewability from the previous quarter rather than their network average. Fixed-position sponsorships, cost-per-day takeovers, CPCV video and open-market CPM all end up in the same column. Where a seller will not give placement-level numbers, we price the line at the bottom of their disclosed range and mark it unverified. Arabic-language inventory is normalised apart from English; on the same property the two deliver differently enough that a blended figure describes neither. What arrives: A flight plan by market, channel and seller, with the audience assumption written next to each line. The normalised rate comparison with the arithmetic visible, so your finance team can re-run it without us. A reach and frequency model in Google Reach Planner, reconciled against Ipsos and Comscore panel data where the plan sits alongside regional television or out of home. Two allocations at the same total budget, with what each one buys and what it gives up. And the lines we would not buy, named, with the reason. What we argue about: Frequency, usually. Most GCC plans we inherit are built to a reach target and then capped at a number somebody remembers from a deck. We set the cap from the response curve in your own historical delivery where it exists, and where it does not we say so rather than borrowing a benchmark from another category. The second argument is deal floors. A private marketplace floor you negotiated once and never revisited is a rate card you no longer control. What we refuse: We take no rebate, no annual volume bonus and no percentage of media spend, from any seller, on any plan. The fee is flat and it is the whole of what we earn, which is the only reason a plan from us can recommend spending less. We will not build a plan around a ranking claim from a publisher's own dashboard, and we do not carry a seller's audience projection into a plan without a panel or first-party source behind it. If your incumbent agency holds the buying and you want a second read on their plan, say so at the start. We will do it, and we will not then bid for the buying. Not included: Negotiation and insertion orders, ad server setup, creative trafficking and campaign management are separate pieces of work with their own scope. This engagement ends at a signed-off plan and the rate comparison underneath it. We do not resell inventory, hold budget or invoice media. Who this is not for: Buyers whose question is how to get a lower CPM. The cheapest thousand impressions in this region are almost always the ones nobody sees, and we would spend the engagement saying so. Also not for teams under roughly two hundred thousand dollars of annual working media, where the plan costs more than the waste it removes and a single strong publisher relationship serves you better.