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<\/a><\/p>\nThat means comprehensive media planning software is important for staying on top of what you\u2019re doing and determining how it works.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
<\/a> <\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>Free<\/p>\n HubSpot’s paid media template<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 get your copy now<\/a>.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Small teams and solopreneurs who want an easy-to-use document to plan and report on efforts.<\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>$995\/month for up to 5 users<\/p>\n Bionic has some of the best media planning tools. They offer companies flowcharts, IOs and RFPs, trafficking, reporting, and dashboards about clients.<\/p>\n With regular updates, agencies using the software are provided with up-to-date planning tools to run and organize their campaigns.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Agencies and mid-sized organizations with complex advertising needs.<\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>Contact for pricing<\/p>\n 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\u2019t able to demo this specifically, but it consistently receives high rankings.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Agencies and larger organizations who use lots of different ad placements and channels.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>30-day free trial; $45\/user per month (minimum of 3 users)<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n What\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>There\u2019s a lot to like here. Coming from an agency world, I love that it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Small creative teams or departments and agencies.<\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>Contact for pricing.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>The platform is efficient, easy to understand, and easier to use than other media software \u2014 it\u2019s intuitive and provides a centralized place to manage media data.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Mid-size companies with a variety of complex advertising needs.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: 30-day trial; Contact for pricing<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Getting started is easy \u2014 a credit card is not required to set up an account. Their intuitive platform walks you through the process step by step.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>Quantcast is fantastic for understanding your audience\u2018s 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\u2019ll appreciate.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Marketing pros who want to simplify their existing media planning martech suite.<\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>Contact for pricing<\/p>\n Basis Technologies offers an all-in-one advertising platform that optimizes media planning, execution, and analysis. It\u2019s a great solution for teams who want to be more efficient and strategically focused without getting bogged down in tedious tasks.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Marketing pros who want to simplify their existing media planning martech suite.<\/p>\n Price:<\/strong> Contact for pricing<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Since we\u2019re focused on media planning and marketing primarily, I\u2019m focusing on the solution for media buyers, which is designed to improve reach by creating predictive audiences that don\u2019t require personal identifiers.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Growing organizations with significant advertising needs and advertising agencies.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Price<\/strong>: Contact for pricing<\/p>\n 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\u2019s pretty much a media planner\u2019s powerhouse, making it easier to gain an all-encompassing view of your audience.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n 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\u2019ve focused exclusively on Nielson\u2019s media planning solutions.<\/em><\/p>\n What I like:<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Large organizations.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Price:<\/strong> $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).<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Small businesses and solopreneurs, especially those using HubSpot as a CRM.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>Contact for pricing<\/p>\n Scarborough is another name from Nielsen in media planning. It\u2018s a media planning tool that helps you get more hyper-focused on audience insights from locals from your area. It\u2019s perfect for region-specific ads and promotions.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>You\u2018ll be able to profile consumers much more than with standard demographics. You\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Local businesses or businesses advertising in specific geographic markets.<\/p>\n Source<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n Price:<\/strong> Contact for pricing<\/p>\n 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:<\/p>\n Companies using MRI-Simmons include Spotify, Coca-Cola, Dell, and more.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>Mid-size to enterprise-level companies.<\/p>\n Price: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 and that\u2019s the tip of the iceberg.<\/p>\n Some ways that it could be used for your media planning include:<\/p>\n Because Monday isn\u2019t specifically designed for media planning per se, it\u2019s important to go into it with a solid understanding of what you want it to do for you. It\u2019s an incredibly powerful and versatile tool \u2014 however, without a solid plan, it can be overwhelming.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s templates and use it as a starting point.<\/p>\n Key Features<\/strong><\/p>\n What I like: <\/strong>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\u2019s support, automations, and the aid of outside generative AI, I\u2019ve found that it can do just about anything you need.<\/p>\n Best for: <\/strong>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.<\/p>\n HubSpot Academy’s paid media course is a great introduction to media planning software.<\/p>\n It’s perfect for all budgets and can allow you to develop paid media strategies<\/a> and use media through the consumer’s journey.<\/p>\n1.<\/strong> HubSpot Media Planning Template [Featured Resource]<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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2.<\/strong> Bionic Media Planning Software<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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3.<\/strong> SRDS Media Planning Platform<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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4.<\/strong> Media Plan HQ<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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5.<\/strong> Mediatool<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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6.<\/strong> Quantcast<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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7.<\/strong> BasisAutomate<\/a><\/strong>+<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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8.<\/strong> Proximic by Comscore<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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9.<\/strong> Nielsen<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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10.<\/strong> HubSpot Social Media Software<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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11.<\/strong> Scarborough from Nielsen<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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12. <\/strong>MRI-Simmons<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
![\"catalyst](\"http:\/\/nurseagence.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/03\/media-planning-tools-14-20250304-3748945.webp\" "\\"\\"")
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13.<\/strong> Monday.com<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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Bonus Resource:<\/strong> HubSpot Academy’s Paid Media Course<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
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