Media planning
Billboard media planning, from brief to a costed plan.
Tell Billboard Guide where you want to reach people, what the campaign has to do, when it should run and what budget band is realistic. The brief is read against published market and format research, then routed to the planning partner best placed to confirm what is actually bookable.
- Free to send
- No obligation
- Routed within 3 working days
Billboard Guide does not sell billboard space. Availability and final prices are confirmed by the responding partner.
The short answer
What is billboard media planning?
Billboard media planning is the work of turning a campaign objective into a specific out-of-home buy: which markets to run in, which formats to use, how long the flight runs, what it should cost, and how the result will be measured. It happens before any space is booked, and it is the difference between a considered OOH campaign and a rate-card purchase.
Billboard Guide is a research resource, not a media owner. A media-plan request packages your non-personal campaign details into a brief that can be reviewed and routed to a partner who holds or sells the relevant inventory. That handoff is the service — the plan itself comes back from the planner.
- Cost to ask
- Free, with no obligation attached to the response.
- Turnaround
- Media-plan briefs are normally passed on within three working days.
- What to send
- Market, objective, rough timing and a working budget band.
- Who answers
- A media-planning or inventory partner covering what you asked for.
- What Billboard Guide sells
- No media space. It publishes research and routes briefs.
- Where prices come from
- The responding partner. No live rates are published here.
Send the brief
Start your media plan.
Four short steps. Nothing is required that you would not already know at this stage — ranges and “not set yet” are real answers, and the brief is free to send. Chasing a price on one specific site instead? Check availability and request a quote.
What you get back
What a media plan should contain.
A plan that only lists what happens to be available is a rate card. These are the parts worth insisting on.
A format recommendation with a reason
Which formats suit the objective, and which ones were ruled out. A plan that only lists what is available is a rate card with extra steps.
Markets, corridors or named sites
Where the weight goes, down to the commuter and retail routes worth holding rather than a whole-city average.
A flight that fits the live date
How long the campaign runs, which posting cycles it lands in, and whether the date you want is realistic for that format.
Costs split into media and production
Media, production and installation kept apart, so a cheap panel with expensive artwork is not mistaken for a cheap campaign.
Measurement you can ask for
Proof of play, audience figures, CPM assumptions and lift-study options — named before the buy, not after it.
Availability and price to confirm
Every rate, hold, package and discount is confirmed by the responding partner. Billboard Guide does not price other people's inventory.
How it works
Sent, reviewed, routed, answered.
Send the brief
Markets, audience, timing, format preferences, a working budget band and any named sites already under consideration. Four short steps, and "not set yet" is a real answer on every one of them.
Billboard Guide reviews it
The brief is read against the published city and format research, so it goes out with the market context already attached rather than as a bare enquiry.
It is routed, not broadcast
The brief goes to the partner best placed to answer it — the one that actually covers the markets and formats you named. It is not sent to a list.
A planner follows up
Media-plan briefs are normally passed on within three working days. Availability and final pricing are confirmed by the responding partner.
What to provide
A useful brief can be short.
Six answers is enough to get a plan rather than a price list. Nothing here has to be final.
Send your brief- Market, city, country or named siteA country is a starting point. A city, a corridor or a named board gets a specific answer.
- What the campaign has to achieveAwareness, footfall, a launch and a recruitment drive do not lead to the same formats.
- The audience or journey you want to reachCommuter, retail, night-time and airport audiences are bought in completely different ways.
- Preferred formats, or whether the format is openSaying it is open is useful. It lets a planner propose the cheaper equivalent of what you had in mind.
- A working budget band and flight lengthA band gets you a plan. No band gets you a rate card.
- Live-date window and any immovable deadlinesInventory sells in cycles. The date decides what is even available to propose.
Formats
Which format families a plan can draw on.
79 format guides across 12 families. Each row links to the research behind it, so you can arrive at the brief already knowing what you want to rule out.
| Format family | What it does in a plan | What to confirm | Guides |
|---|---|---|---|
| Place-based OOH | A defined audience in a specific environment rather than a whole city. | The network footprint, and whether the venue list is fixed or rotates. | |
| Street furniture | Street-level frequency against pedestrians in dense urban areas. | Panel counts, network minimums, and whether paper and digital are sold together. | |
| Transit advertising | Repeat exposure across commuter journeys, inside and outside the vehicle. | Operator approval times and how long production and installation take. | |
| Roadside billboards | Broad market coverage and repeated exposure along driving routes. | Illumination, board size, and whether the site sells by posting cycle or by week. | |
| Retail media | Proximity to the purchase decision, close to the shelf or the till. | Retailer approval, category exclusivity, and creative rules. | |
| Digital OOH | Short flights, dayparting, and creative that can change mid-campaign. | Share of voice, loop length, and whether proof of play is included. | |
| Specialty OOH | Standout executions where a standard panel would not register at all. | Feasibility, permissions, and how much of the budget goes to production. | |
| Building-scale media | Landmark impact and press value from a single large site. | Permits, structural surveys, and how far ahead the site is held. | |
| Mobile OOH | Targeting a route, an event or a competitor location rather than a fixed panel. | Routing plans, dwell time, and local rules on stationary parking. | |
| Street-level media | Dense, low-cost coverage concentrated in specific neighbourhoods. | That the sites are legal, and how the posting is verified afterwards. | |
| Venue media | Audiences that are already gathered and already paying attention. | Event calendars, exclusivity, and rights restrictions on the creative. | |
| Transport and travel media | High-dwell audiences held in airports and travel hubs. | Terminal and zone availability, and the booking lead time. |
Compare every format guide, or name the format in your brief and let the planner propose the equivalent that fits the budget.
Markets
Markets with published research behind them.
30 city guides across 16 countries. A brief for a market that is not listed is still read — the guides are where the context comes from, not the limit of what can be routed.
United States
Australia
Brazil
Canada
France
Germany
Hong Kong
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
Singapore
South Korea
Spain
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
Budgets
How a planner reads a budget band.
Directional planning guidance, not quotes. What a band buys moves with market, format, season and how much of it production takes. Nothing here is a price for any specific site.
Estimate a budget band- Under $10,000
- Usually one market, one format and a short flight — street furniture, a small digital package, or a single roadside board. Production comes out of the same number.
- $10,000 - $25,000
- One market with enough panels to build frequency rather than a single sighting, or a short digital flight with a real share of voice.
- $25,000 - $50,000
- A single market covered properly, or two markets run against each other as a test. Room to add a second format.
- $50,000 - $100,000
- Multi-market, or one market plus a landmark site to anchor it. Measurement starts to be worth paying for at this level.
- $100,000 - $250,000
- National or multi-city plans with mixed formats, and a planned sequence rather than one undifferentiated flight.
- $250,000 - $500,000
- Sustained multi-market activity, premium sites, and production budgets that allow special builds.
- Over $500,000
- Always-on or campaign-of-record scale, usually with a dedicated planning and measurement workstream alongside it.
- Not set yet
- Still worth briefing. Say what the campaign has to achieve and the plan can come back with the band it would need.
Lead times
When to brief, by format.
Lead time is the constraint that quietly decides the plan. If your live date cannot move, say so in the brief — it changes which formats are worth proposing at all.
- Digital OOH and programmaticThe shortest route to live. Unsold digital inventory can turn around quickly, which is why it absorbs most late briefs.
- Classic roadside and street furnitureSold against posting cycles. Brief well before the cycle you want rather than before the date you want.
- Transit and airportLonger, because operator approval, production and installation all sit in front of the live date.
- Landmark and building-scale sitesThe longest of all. Premium sites are frequently held months ahead, and permits are their own timeline.
- Seasonal peaks and major eventsAssume the best inventory went early. A brief that lands late gets what is left, not what was planned.
Independence and disclosure
Research stays separate from lead routing.
Billboard Guide's current editorial policy states that it does not take a commission on media a reader buys. If that business model changes, affected pages and this disclosure should be updated before launch. Read the full commercial disclosure.
What Billboard Guide does
- Read the brief against the published market and format research.
- Route it to a partner that actually covers the inventory you named.
- Say plainly when a brief is too small, too late, or in a market nobody sells the way it has been described.
- Point you at the guide, calculator or format research that answers part of it for free.
What it does not do
- Sell billboard space, or hold any inventory of its own.
- Publish invented rates, or quote a price for a site it does not sell.
- Sell, rent or publish your contact details.
- Let partner routing decide editorial rankings, inclusions or conclusions.
FAQ
Media planning questions.
What is billboard media planning?
Billboard media planning is the work of turning a campaign objective into a specific out-of-home buy: which markets to run in, which formats to use, how long the flight runs, what it should cost, and how the result will be measured. It happens before any space is booked, and it is the difference between a considered OOH campaign and a rate-card purchase.
Is it free to request a billboard media plan?
Yes. Billboard Guide's enquiry policy is that it is free to send a brief, and there is no obligation attached to receiving a response. There is no fee at any point in the routing process.
Does Billboard Guide sell billboard space?
No. Billboard Guide is a research resource and does not present itself as a media owner. It publishes independent guides and routes campaign briefs to partners. Availability and final prices must be confirmed by the relevant owner, seller or planning partner.
How long does it take to get a response?
Media-plan briefs are normally passed on within three working days. The follow-up itself comes from the responding partner, so the speed of a full plan depends on how much of the requested inventory they have to check.
What information do I need before I can send a brief?
The markets you want to reach, what the campaign has to achieve, roughly when it needs to be live, and a working budget band. Formats, named sites and exact dates are useful but optional — "not set yet" is an accepted answer on every field in the form.
Do I need to know my budget before requesting a plan?
No, but a band changes the answer you get. A brief with a budget band and a start window comes back as a plan; a brief without one usually comes back as a rate card. If you need a band first, the Billboard Guide cost estimator produces an illustrative range you can brief against.
What does a billboard media plan actually include?
Typically a format recommendation with the reasoning behind it, the markets or named sites the weight should go to, a flight length that fits the live date, costs split between media and production, measurement options to request, and availability and pricing to be confirmed by the responding partner.
Can Billboard Guide give me a price on this page?
No. Live media costs are not published here as invented prices. Any rate, hold, package, discount, production fee or availability window has to be confirmed by the relevant seller before you commit to it.
Who will contact me after I send a brief?
A relevant media-planning or inventory partner, when they are the one best placed to answer the brief. Briefs are routed rather than broadcast to a list. Press and editorial enquiries are kept separate from commercial lead routing.
Can a campaign be too small or too late to plan?
Yes. Very small budgets, urgent live dates, unusually specialised formats, restricted creative categories, and markets without suitable inventory all limit what can be planned. Where that is the case you should be told plainly rather than passed on regardless.
Can I request a specific named billboard?
Yes. Add it to the brief and it is carried through with the rest of the request. Whether that specific site is bookable for your dates, and at what price, is confirmed by whoever sells it.
What happens to the information I send?
It is stored so the brief can be acted on, and a campaign brief is shared with the planning partner best placed to answer it — that is what the consent box on the contact step covers. Contact details are not sold or rented, and the newsletter is a separate opt-in you can decline.
Campaign planning
Ready to turn research into a plan?
Send the brief now, or use the estimator first if you still need a working budget band. Free to send, no obligation, normally passed on within three working days.
Free tool
Billboard Cost Estimator
Put an illustrative range around a market, format and flight length before you brief anyone.
Markets
City Guides
Inventory, pricing factors, key districts and local buying rules, market by market.
Formats
Format Guides
Costs, specifications, buying routes and creative rules for every format above.
Sites
Location Guides
Site-level detail on the landmark boards brands ask for by name, including who sells them.
Written and reviewed by the Billboard Guide editorial desk. Page last reviewed 2026-08-11.