Post-buy — reconciling actuals against the plan

Post-buy is the after-the-campaign analysis: the ratings and airings actually delivered, checked against what the media plan promised. It answers one question — did the advertiser get what they paid for.

What gets reconciled

• Actual GRP and wGRP against planned
• The number of airings, their dates and times, against the media plan
• Actual CPP against the calculated figure
• Reach and frequency against target

The actuals come from the measurement provider and from the broadcaster's broadcast certificates.

What happens on a shortfall

If the delivered rating came in below what was promised, the channel usually makes up the difference with extra airings in the next period. How and by when is a matter for the contract rather than for custom, and it is worth writing down before the campaign rather than after.

Why the timing matters more than the analysis

A post-buy that arrives a month after the campaign is a report for the archive: there is nothing left to influence, the money is spent, and the next campaign gets planned on the same intuition. The same analysis in the second week of the flight is a chance to move budget out of slots that are not working and into ones that are.

Manual reconciliation nearly always lands in the first category — collecting certificates, matching them to the plan and computing variances is days of work. In OpenMediaLogic the reconciliation runs automatically off actual airings, so a variance is visible while the campaign is still on air.