A media plan template for a full launch: site, SEO, paid search and Telegram
A media plan is not a spreadsheet of annual figures. It is a tool that answers, every month: what are we doing, at what cost, and what do we expect from it.
Document structure
Five sheets: summary, work calendar, budget by channel, plan versus actual metrics, and assumptions and risks. More sheets go unfilled; fewer, and the document stops answering questions.
The summary carries only the outcome: launch date, total budget for the period, expected number of enquiries, and the key assumption the whole plan rests on. The owner reads this page; the rest are for the team.
The calendar: sequence, not parallel
The usual mistake is launching everything at once. A realistic sequence: months one and two, site build and baseline analytics; month two, paid search onto finished pages; months two through six, SEO; the Telegram channel starts alongside advertising, not after it.
Within each month, break work into weeks and name an owner. Without a name next to a task, the SEO block traditionally becomes 'something is being done'.
Record technical dependencies on their own line: paid search cannot be evaluated properly without conversions configured, and SEO content cannot be written before the site structure is approved.
Budget by channel
Split the budget three ways: one-off investment, monthly work, and media spend. One-off covers the site, design and initial analytics. Monthly covers SEO, campaign management and content. Media is the ad spend that goes to the platforms.
A reference point for small business in Uzbekistan: a brochure site or landing page from 8M UZS, a corporate site from 20M UZS; monthly SEO from 5M UZS; paid search management from 3M UZS plus the ad budget itself, which rarely makes sense below 5M UZS a month.
Do not spread media spend thinly across every channel. One channel with sufficient budget beats four token efforts: below a threshold, paid search produces no data to optimise on.
The plan versus actual sheet
Columns: metric, monthly plan, actual, variance, comment. Rows: impressions, clicks, cost per click, sessions, enquiries, cost per enquiry, sales, cost per sale — one block per channel.
Track Telegram separately: subscribers, post reach, clicks to the site, and direct message enquiries. That last metric is the most valuable and almost never appears in off-the-shelf media plans.
Do not expect forecast accuracy in the first two months. The opening plan is a hypothesis; its purpose is to give you something to compare the actuals against a month later.
Assumptions and risks
Write the assumptions into the document: site-to-enquiry conversion rate, mobile traffic share, average cost per click in the niche, how fast the sales team responds. When actuals diverge, you investigate the assumption instead of arguing about the outcome.
Typical risks for a local launch: content delayed by the client, no Uzbek version at launch, Telegram enquiries left unanswered outside working hours, and seasonal demand.
Give each risk a short response. For example, if the Uzbek version is not ready when advertising starts, Uzbek-language campaigns simply do not launch rather than pointing at a Russian page.
Maintaining the document
Update the media plan once a month on the same date, no more often. Daily fiddling with numbers creates the illusion of control and hides the trend.
In month three, rebuild the plan entirely from your own data rather than market benchmarks. From that point the media plan works as a planning tool rather than a sales promise.