Write the measurement plan before the media plan.

Media planning is the fun part: audiences, platforms, creative ideas. Measurement planning feels like admin. But without it, every result can be read three ways, and the loudest person in the room picks one.

What a measurement plan contains

• The business outcome. Revenue, profit or new customers, with a number and a date.
• The leading signals. The metrics that predict that outcome early, and where each one comes from.
• The judge. Which number decides: store revenue, blended ROAS, cost per new customer. Not whatever each platform reports about itself.
• The tests. For the biggest budget lines, a way to prove cause, not just correlation: a holdout, a pause, a geo split.
• The meeting. Who looks at the dashboard, how often, and what decisions they can make.

Writing this first changes the media plan. Some channels turn out to be unmeasurable at your budget. Some bets need a test built in from day one. Some targets turn out to be wishes.

The uncomfortable part

A good plan says, before the money is spent, what result would make you stop. Agreeing on that in advance is awkward. It is also the single most useful conversation you can have with your agency, including us.