“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half,” bemoaned John Wanamaker* back in the early 1900’s. It’s taken a minute, but we’re finally solving Wanamaker’s dilemma.
The Bionic for Agencies media planning and media buying system makes it easy to analyze your media spending patterns from every possible angle.
Where is all the money going?
Have you ever spent hours gathering and organizing data to answer a basic question about how an advertising budget was spent (or will be spent)?
One of the biggest problems with a Microsoft Excel-based media planning “system” is your media plan data is locked up in disparate spreadsheets scattered throughout your organization.
So, your advertising spending data isn’t readily available for analysis.
When your client asks you a perfectly reasonable question like, “how much did we spend by channel in 2023 across all our campaigns?” it might literally take you days of searching for spreadsheets and copying and pasting from one worksheet into another to answer that simple question.
Besides a monumental waste of your time, it’s embarrassing not to have the answer at right your fingertips as your client would expect. After all, they trust you with a significant advertising budget.
Bionic solved the problem of scattered data with the introduction of its cloud-based media planning software that securely stores your media plan data in a structured private database. Now, Bionic is taking it to the next level by giving you powerful advertising spending analysis tools on top of your advertising spending database.
How to unravel your advertising spending mysteries…
The new Bionic gives you instant answers to questions such as:
- How much did my client spend by channel in their western region in the second half of 2023?
- How much did we spend with our top 10 vendors across all clients in 2023?
- What does the advertising flowchart look like for my client for all the campaigns across all media channels in the second quarter of 2024?
- How much did our top international advertisers spend with us with all currencies exchanged into Euros?
- How much agency compensation is planned for 2024 shown month by month?
- Who were our most profitable clients in 2023?
You can now instantly answer these questions and hundreds more with the latest version of Bionic for Agencies.
You’ll love the power you feel by having all this information at your fingertips. You’ll impress your clients with your prompt and confident answers to their questions. You’ll gain a competitive advantage over other media planners whose time and energy are being wasted chasing spreadsheets.
Here’s a peek at the new tools
You’ll love having easy access to hundreds of configurable reports that instantly answer your advertising spending questions:
Bionic Planner gives you and your clients a 360-degree view of advertising expenditures. You see all your spending across all media channels in one place:
You can create custom reports that show your clients how they are spending against their proprietary objectives:
You can set custom reporting time frames based on the standard (Gregorian) calendar or the broadcast calendar:
Your accounting department will love Bionic’s reporting. It’s fully internationalized and follows the strictest accounting rules in doing the complex currency exchange calculations that enable you to report your spending reports in any major currency:
When you notice something interesting that warrants further analysis, the supporting campaign details are only one button click away:
Your clients will love the fact that you can now give them reports that match their organizational budgeting. Many advertisers organize their budgets into various “buckets” that roll up to bigger and bigger “buckets” that finally roll up to the corporate level. For example, a quick serve restaurant like McDonald’s might have store advertising budgets, regional advertising budgets, and a corporate advertising budget. With the latest version of Bionic, you can report on spending at any level of the advertising budget hierarchy:
… and a whole lot more!
Here’s how to get it
If you’re still media planning in Excel or using a system that does not enable you to easily understand how you are spending the advertising budgets entrusted to you, maybe it’s time to consider Bionic for Agencies as your media planning system.
If you’re already using Bionic, here’s some great news: you get this upgrade for free as part of your basic service. To access the new features, simply log into your account. Your account has already been upgraded as part of our ongoing commitment to deliver you continuous innovation. If you have any questions about using these new features, contact Bionic’s client success team for assistance. We’re happy to help you get the most from Bionic!
* Historical note: there is some controversy over the attribution of this quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” If you live in the United States, you probably attribute it to John Wanamaker. If you live in Europe, you probably attribute it to William Lever. If you’re a millennial, you probably attribute it to Don Draper. Still others attribute it to Henry Ford or J.C. Penney.
