What is an advertising plan?

In essence, an advertising plan is a master document that outlines the strategies you intend to use to achieve your pre-determined goals. Messaging, budget, marketing tactics... they're all included in this comprehensive outline.

Having such a plan in place ensures that everyone involved in the campaign is aligned and prepared to execute their portion of the strategy. The more information you can pack in to help guide them—and make sure they stay on the right path—the better.

The same goes for information related to your specific industry. There's a big difference between retail, automotive, financial services, and entertainment marketing—so whether you're engaged with a brand in one of these spaces or launching something else entirely, you'll need a customized approach. Before you dive in, familiarize yourself with industry insights and trends to tailor your marketing strategy to the audiences that are most relevant to your brand.

How to create an advertising plan

There are many different mindsets for creating a winning advertising plan. In addition to setting the tone for your campaign, you'll also want your advertising plan to deliver on six main points:

Target audience

Who's your brand targeting? Be as specific as possible here, and be sure to include demographics like age, gender, and geographic region, as well as psychographics like interests, lifestyle preferences, and behavior. This info can help you create a marketing persona—essentially a fictional representation of your target customer for the campaign—which helps your creative team visualize the people they're speaking to.

Schedule/ timing

When will your advertising campaign run? How long will it last? When and how often does your target audience make a purchase? Answering these questions will help you decide which platforms and formats to choose, how you apply your budget, and what kinds of creative to produce. Researching your audience will help you reach them effectively during seasonal marketing campaigns.

Channels/formats

Whether print, email or digital audio, it's vital to outline the channels you intend to use to reach your desired audience, along with the ad formats you hope to use in your campaign. For advertisers leveraging Spotify, you can specify whether the campaign will use digital audio ads, video advertising, or both. If you plan on using Spotify Ad Studio, our self-serve ads manager, you can use automatic placement to leverage machine learning that determines where your ads will appear—across music and podcasts. Or you could advertise via a sponsored playlist if you're interested in a more custom campaign.

Content

This is the part of your advertising plan that allows you to showcase your strategy for the campaign's creative—the fun stuff like slick design, snappy copy, or compelling audio. Any specific designs or messaging you need to include should go into this section.

Cost/budget

What are the projected costs associated with your campaign? How will you allocate your budget? Without due diligence, you could end up overspending. But through careful consideration, you can arrive at a budget value that makes sense for what you want to achieve and guides your ad-buying decisions throughout the campaign.

Measurement/metrics

No advertising plan is complete without a strategy for evaluating results. Determine your primary success metrics, like whether you're seeking to meet a particular sales goal or achieve an optimal click-through rate (CTR). When it comes to digital audio ad campaigns, Spotify Ad Analytics can be a useful resource for tracking progress toward meeting these goals.

Advertising plan example template

Here's what a sample advertising plan might look like in nine slides. Use a presentation format that works best for you—whether that's a slide deck, a shared document, or a spreadsheet—and make sure that whatever you choose is easily accessible to all campaign stakeholders.

How Spotify fits into your marketing plan

With so many channels and ad formats to choose from, narrowing down your focus can feel like a daunting task—but Spotify should feature in your plan. In 2022, 62% of U.S. consumers listened to audio podcasts.¹ What's more, Spotify research shows that 93% of the brain's engagement with the content transfers directly into ad engagement as the listener moves from their music and podcasts to the ad.²

Whether your goal is to boost brand awareness, increase ad recall, or connect with listeners on a deeper level, digital audio can drive results—even outperforming radio when it comes to audience engagement.³

Ready to start your next campaign with Ad Studio? Read all about how it works today.