13 Media Planning Tools I Tried & What Worked Best [+ Free Template]

Nowadays, people are consuming marketing and media in more ways than one, which means that media planning tools are no longer optional for those who want to reach their audiences across a variety of channels.

I’ve found that while traditional outlets like TV, publications, and radio can still be valuable for certain businesses, more media planning is needed across online platforms like email, social media, influencer, and search than ever before.

That means comprehensive media planning software is important for staying on top of what you’re doing and determining how it works.

But where do you start? To help, I've rounded up a list of the essential media planning tools, software, and templates to use this year to help grow your audience.

1. HubSpot Media Planning Template [Featured Resource]

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Price: Free

HubSpot's paid media template can help you track your spending on paid media, when your messages are going out, and how much revenue you're generating from each source.

With this media tool, you'll have access to charts that automatically adjust when you add your spending and ROI information. This resource is free — get your copy now.

Key Features

Available in Google Sheets — no logins or apps required Allows full customization based on your needs Designed for easy tracking and reporting month-to-month

What I like: You can use this template to compile monthly data from your media efforts. With this media planning tool, you'll see which paid media channel works best for your company and produces the best results for your bottom line.

Best for: Small teams and solopreneurs who want an easy-to-use document to plan and report on efforts.

2. Bionic Media Planning Software

Price: $995/month for up to 5 users

Bionic has some of the best media planning tools. They offer companies flowcharts, IOs and RFPs, trafficking, reporting, and dashboards about clients.

With regular updates, agencies using the software are provided with up-to-date planning tools to run and organize their campaigns.

Key Features

All-inclusive pricing means you don’t have to pay for each feature Cloud-based platform Intuitive interface

What I like: Bionic is a cloud-based media planning tool. You can be up and running with this tool in minutes with unlimited training, support, and data backups at no additional cost.

Best for: Agencies and mid-sized organizations with complex advertising needs.

3. SRDS Media Planning Platform

Price: Contact for pricing

The most important tool in media planning is data, and SRDS offers companies some of the best data-gathering tools. Thanks to their top-notch data-gathering software, you can feel confident promoting your media on all platforms. I wasn’t able to demo this specifically, but it consistently receives high rankings.

Key Features

Ability to compare and evaluate advertising options Ability to connect directly with media reps Makes it easy to find media used by your target markets

What I like: You'll have access to extensive datasets that showcase audience statistics and demographics. This will help you choose the right platforms and messages to target specific audiences.

Best for: Agencies and larger organizations who use lots of different ad placements and channels.

4. Media Plan HQ

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Price: 30-day free trial; $45/user per month (minimum of 3 users)

Media Plan HQ is a great media planning tool that doesn't rely on spreadsheets. A real-time interface tracks dates, placements, and budgets without relying on Excel. The organized interface will make it easy for you to manage projects, track your marketing ROI, and share all the data with your team and stakeholders.

What’s more, it helps you break down your media buys by media, category, campaign, and stores/locations, which means that you can get the reporting and tracking you need with seamless insertion order development.

Key Features

Creative project management Marketing invoice validation Marketing request forms Unlimited media plans, organizations, and media vendors Unlimited creative storage, free upgrades, and free email support

What I like: There’s a lot to like here. Coming from an agency world, I love that it’s a collaborative, all-in-one platform that combines project management with media buying. Because you can work alongside team members without all the back-and-forth communication in emails, the reduced complexity means the platform can grow with your needs and your team.

Best for: Small creative teams or departments and agencies.

5. Mediatool

Price: Contact for pricing.

Mediatool is a collaborative marketing platform that can help companies plan media to target whoever they want to. You can leverage actionable insights, collaborate with your team members, and develop impactful ad campaigns to make you stand out.

Key Features

20 integrations and counting Oversee campaign data and tracking Provides a platform you can use for a single source of media data Helps enhance productivity with efficient workflows Easy to customize and scale to your needs AI-integration provides media data insights instantaneously through a GPT-style chat

What I like: The platform is efficient, easy to understand, and easier to use than other media software — it’s intuitive and provides a centralized place to manage media data.

Best for: Mid-size companies with a variety of complex advertising needs.

6. Quantcast

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Price: 30-day trial; Contact for pricing

When you use Quantcast, you'll have insights with data from over 100 million websites. The tool uses AI so users can better predict how their media will influence their target audience. Due to the continuous bombardment of ads for products and services, this feature is essential.

Getting started is easy — a credit card is not required to set up an account. Their intuitive platform walks you through the process step by step.

Key Features

Audience source location filtering Supports cookieless and omnichannel advertising Uses 3rd party data and AI to create real-time audience insights Easy to pinpoint new and existing audiences Insights into customer journey Intuitive interface and exceptional documentation

What I like: Quantcast is fantastic for understanding your audience‘s behavior. It provides real-time insights based on your ads and media to your audience, which can help you better understand them and create ads they’ll appreciate.

Best for: Marketing pros who want to simplify their existing media planning martech suite.

7. BasisAutomate+

Price: Contact for pricing

Basis Technologies offers an all-in-one advertising platform that optimizes media planning, execution, and analysis. It’s a great solution for teams who want to be more efficient and strategically focused without getting bogged down in tedious tasks.

Key Features

Automated planning, performance, and measurement Reduces operational complexity and manual work Single platform to integrate all advertising efforts

What I like: When running multiple ad campaigns, it can feel chaotic. Basis Technologies allows you to integrate all your ads and media in one location across several platforms.

Best for: Marketing pros who want to simplify their existing media planning martech suite.

8. Proximic by Comscore

Price: Contact for pricing

Proximic is a platform by Comscore designed to help marketers reach their audiences at scale despite the challenges of modern advertising. With options for media buyers to precisely target audiences and media sellers to maximize monetization, Proximic offers solutions for both sides of the media equation.

Since we’re focused on media planning and marketing primarily, I’m focusing on the solution for media buyers, which is designed to improve reach by creating predictive audiences that don’t require personal identifiers.

Key Features

AI-powered contextual targeting improves reach Meets consumer data privacy requirements by eliminating ID-based targeting Content targeting to ensure your ads appear alongside brand-safe content

What I like: In the post-cookie world, where signal loss is a major problem faced by advertisers, I love that they have an AI-driven solution to make it easier to reach existing and new audiences.

Best for: Growing organizations with significant advertising needs and advertising agencies.

9. Nielsen

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Price: Contact for pricing

Nielsen is a household name in audience measurement. It's mainly for television metrics, but you can use it for other metrics across platforms. With a suite of solutions under categories of audience measurement, media planning, marketing optimization, and content metadata, it’s pretty much a media planner’s powerhouse, making it easier to gain an all-encompassing view of your audience.

Key Features

Audience segmentation Competitive intelligence Consumer insights Scenario planning

Note: Because Nielsen offers a comprehensive suite of solutions for media planners and marketers, the list of key features is quite long when you factor in audience measurement, marketing optimization, and content metadata. While those could be quite beneficial solutions for marketers, I’ve focused exclusively on Nielson’s media planning solutions.

What I like: Nielsen has advanced audience segmentation and competitive intelligence that shows you the total picture of the media landscape. This media planning software can help your brand stand out among your competition.

Best for: Large organizations.

10. HubSpot Social Media Software

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Price: $15/month/seat Marketing Hub Starter; $15/month/seat Starter Customer Platform; $800/month (3 seats) for Marketing Hub Professional; $3,600/month Marketing Hub Enterprise (5 seats).

HubSpot Social Media Software is the best option for those who want to plan media specifically for social media. It allows you to publish any media on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, or another social media platform. You can also see how your audience converts from social media to CRM.

Key Features

Centralized location for planning, building, and managing social media campaigns Social mention monitoring Social media marketing reporting

What I like: It can be time-consuming to constantly refresh your social media to see how many people have interacted with your ads. This platform will help you save time and effort from continually refreshing your socials. I also love that HubSpot’s Social Media Management Software provides weekly insights and AI-generated recommendations to help you stay on top of the content most likely to drive engagement.

Best for: Small businesses and solopreneurs, especially those using HubSpot as a CRM.

11. Scarborough from Nielsen

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Price: Contact for pricing

Scarborough is another name from Nielsen in media planning. It‘s a media planning tool that helps you get more hyper-focused on audience insights from locals from your area. It’s perfect for region-specific ads and promotions.

Key Features

Market-specific consumer habits Cross-platform consumption Insights into emerging and growing segments

What I like: You‘ll be able to profile consumers much more than with standard demographics. You’ll see their shopping behaviors, media consumption, and lifestyle. You can further narrow it down by people who watch specific sports or what they stream on devices.

Best for: Local businesses or businesses advertising in specific geographic markets.

12. MRI-Simmons

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Price: Contact for pricing

MRI-Simmons focuses on consumer insights and analytics that make it easier for media buyers, marketers, and advertisers to understand consumer behaviors and make data-driven decisions. There are three outstanding media planning tools, each covering slightly different aspects:

Catalyst is the primary platform for media planners focused on consumer behavior analysis. Activate Campaign Targets (ACT) helps marketers gain insights from the data and use them to target campaigns. Brand Catalyst provides a tool for analyzing brand positioning and perception.

Companies using MRI-Simmons include Spotify, Coca-Cola, Dell, and more.

Key Features

Shareable reports and dashboards Visual storytelling for quick analysis Interactive quick reports

What I like: MRI-Simmons is a powerful segmentation tool that can help you find new audiences and follow trends. Knowing your new audience can help you anticipate their behavior and attitudes and find the best ways to market your products or services to them. I love the integration of all three tools for a comprehensive approach to media planning and marketing.

Best for: Mid-size to enterprise-level companies.

13. Monday.com

Price: Free for up to 2 seats, limited features; $9/seat/month for Basic; $12/seat/month for Standard; $19/seat/month for Pro; Contact for Enterprise pricing.

Monday.com is an all-encompassing tool that enables you to schedule your media and implement it in the best ways possible for your audience. You can also use the task management features to check off your to-do list.

I have used Monday for so many different kinds of projects, including content planning and management, ticketing systems, project management, and creating an internal marketing agency — and that’s the tip of the iceberg.

Some ways that it could be used for your media planning include:

Campaign planning and management. Content and asset audits and cataloging. Media buying and budgeting. Task management. Media schedule tracking. Reporting — internally and for clients. Automations. Integration with media tools.

Because Monday isn’t specifically designed for media planning per se, it’s important to go into it with a solid understanding of what you want it to do for you. It’s an incredibly powerful and versatile tool — however, without a solid plan, it can be overwhelming.

If you opt for this one, make sure to map out how you see it working and then work with Monday or even outline your use case with generative AI for advice on how to structure your boards. Additionally, you can choose one of Monday’s templates and use it as a starting point.

Key Features

200+ integrations 200+ templates across a variety of categories, including marketing, sales, and more. A centralized hub for data Comprehensive automations Multiple views, including table, calendar, Gantt chart, and more. Forms for data entry and marketing/media requests Customizable dashboards

What I like: It's an affordable media planning tool. Major companies like Hulu, Canva, and NHL use it, to name a few. I love how easy it is to use and customize. And between Monday’s support, automations, and the aid of outside generative AI, I’ve found that it can do just about anything you need.

Best for: Businesses of all sizes from solopreneurs to enterprises who do not need the audience development and targeting aspect and/or have a separate department for those lists.

Bonus Resource: HubSpot Academy's Paid Media Course

HubSpot Academy's paid media course is a great introduction to media planning software.

It's perfect for all budgets and can allow you to develop paid media strategies and use media through the consumer's journey.

Planning Your Media Strategy

While I found that many of these media planning tools hide demos and pricing behind their sales team, this article should help you narrow them down by capabilities and simplify your decision-making process.

As for where to go next? First, decide which channels you want to use — from traditional advertising to social media. Second, think about your media planning goals — do you need a tool to help you stay on top of multiple moving parts and dates, or do you want in-depth audience insights (or both)?

Using those decisions as a lens, I recommend revisiting the media planning tools above to choose which best aligns with your plan, and either take their free trials for a spin OR schedule demos with their sales teams.

Whatever media planning platform you choose, it should make your life easier and allow you to focus more on strategy and less on busy work.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2020 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.