Plans list and plan results

This page lists what the plans list and the page of one plan show in Media Forecaster. For the settings that make a plan, see Plan settings.

In a label on this page, a word in braces is a value that depends on the plan. For example, the outcome and the metric depend on the goal of the plan.

Plans list

Statuses of a plan

Status	Meaning
Queued	The plan is waiting to start.
Processing	The plan is running in the background.
Ready	The plan finished and the results are available.
Failed	The plan did not finish. The plan page says what happened and how to fix the plan.

Plans list columns

Every column is sortable.

Column	What it shows
Name	The plan name. A lock icon marks a private plan.
Status	Queued, Processing, Ready, or Failed.
Mode	The plan type: Optimization or Forecast.
Goal	The goal that the plan optimizes for.
Date range	The planning period.
Owner	The person who created the plan.
Updated	The date of the last change to the plan.

Rule	Value
Plans per page	15 plans on each page of the list.
Rename and Delete access	The plan owner, or a company admin on a plan that is not private.
Open and Duplicate access	Every person who can see the plan.

Summary cards

The summary cards compare the optimized plan with the baseline and with the actual results to date. A plan with a target goal also has a target card.

Title	Meaning
Target Hit	The optimizer reports that the plan reaches the target.
Target Missed	The plan does not reach the target, or the optimizer found no plan that can.
Target · Directional	The estimate reaches the target at a spend that is more than the models have seen. A line on the card states that the result is directional. The card has no Gap row.
Target	The product has no verdict for the target.

On a plan that ran with Solve for it, the result can measure the target as growth above the outcome with no change. Each title then has the prefix Growth, for example Growth Target Hit, and a line on the card gives the outcome with no change.

Card	What it shows
Period	The planning period and the progress through the period.
Spend	The total spend that the optimized plan recommends, with the subtitle Plan Budget.
Media {outcome} — Optimized	The modeled outcome that the optimized plan delivers, and the lift over the baseline.
Media {metric} — Optimized	The efficiency ratio that the modeled outcome and the spend of the plan imply.
Growth Target Hit or Growth Target Missed or Growth Target · Directional or Growth Target	The same verdict as the title without the prefix. The target is growth above the outcome with no change.

A word in braces stands for a value from your account or your plan.

Tooltips of the summary cards

The table gives the text that the product shows when the pointer is over a summary card. In these texts, the words “your reporting has recorded” apply to the spend. The outcome in Actual to date is a modeled value. See How plans are built.

Card	Tooltip
Spend card	Plan Budget is the total spend the optimized plan recommends across the whole period. Actual to date is the spend your reporting has recorded so far, paced against the {reference} spend.
Outcome card	Modeled {outcome} the optimized plan delivers over the whole period, and the lift that represents over the baseline. Actual to date is what your reporting has recorded so far, paced against the {reference} {outcome}.
Metric card	{Metric} implied by the plan's modeled {outcome} and its spend. Actual to date divides your recorded {outcome} by your recorded spend, paced against the {reference} {Metric}.

A word in braces stands for a value from your account or your plan.

Performance Over Time

Views

View	What it shows
Compare	A chart of the optimized plan against the baseline and the actual values.
Breakdown	A chart split by channel, tactic, or model.
Table	The same values as a table with one row for each period.

The chart series are Optimized, Baseline, and Actual. The breakdown options are Channel Breakdown, Tactic Breakdown, and Model Breakdown.

On a plan that started before the day of its run, a shaded band with the label Actual spend covers the days that were past. In the band, the baseline and the optimized plan are the same, because the two use the recorded spend of those days.

Rule	Value
Period table page size	30 periods on each page.

Media Breakdown

Media Breakdown columns

Column	What it shows
Baseline	The reference-period spend mix, scaled to the plan budget. The starting point before the optimizer moves any budget.
Optimized	What the recommended budget split is modeled to deliver over the same period.
Actual to date	What happened so far in the planning period: the spend that your reporting recorded, and the outcome that your models attribute to that spend.
Spend	The spend of the row.
{outcome}	The outcome of the row. The name depends on the goal of the plan.
{metric}	The efficiency ratio of the row. The name depends on the goal of the plan.
Δ {label}	The change between two column groups, as a percentage or a currency amount.
Allocation	The limit that you set on the row. A row with no limit reads Optimized.
Marginal {metric}	The modeled return from the next unit of spend at the recommended spend. For example, Marginal ROAS or Marginal CAC.

A word in braces stands for a value from your account or your plan.

Allocation column values

Value	Meaning
Optimized	The row has no limit. The optimizer moved the budget of the row freely.
An amount with a Fixed icon	The row is fixed at the amount. The optimizer did not change the row.
An amount with a Max icon	The optimizer could not spend more than the amount on the row.
An amount with a Min icon	The optimizer had to keep the amount or more on the row.
An underlined amount	The optimizer reached the limit, so the limit changed the plan.

Pacing options

Setting	Options
Show actual-to-date columns	On or off.
Compare actual against	Optimized plan or Baseline plan.
Over	Expected to date or Full plan period.

Media Breakdown rules

Rule	Value
Child rows	5 rows show under a parent row. A Show more control reveals the rest.
Campaign tab	Optimization plans only.
Marginal column	On an Optimization plan, the Campaign tab only. On a Forecast plan, the tab that carries the response curves.

Related

• Media Forecaster: the guides and the concepts of the product area.
• Read plan results: the steps to read the cards, the chart, and the table of a plan.
• Manage plans: the steps to find, rename, duplicate, and delete a plan.
• How plans are built: what the baseline, the optimized plan, and actual to date are.