By David Verklin, Tenetic Board Member
It’s a realization that eventually hits every media strategist and planner. The data we used for the pitch was neither accurate, nor predictive, once we’ve won and gained access to the client’s actual data. Like beginning a journey with a compass set slightly off course, the farther you travel, the more dramatically you miss your intended destination.
Modern media planning is very nuanced and increasingly complex. At a good agency, the early meetings with a new client are often a time consuming reset. Or, a bit embarrassing when we see the prior agency’s plan. And if you lost the pitch? Well, you’ll never know what you got wrong.
This raises the question: wouldn’t the marketing services industry be better off if agencies started the media planning and strategy process with better data?
Today, too much foundational planning still relies on point-in-time surveys rather than continuous data collection that reflects fresh and accurate consumer sentiment. An agency’s understanding of consumer sentiments and media usage is key in a pitch and in initial creative development. Yet, nearly half of the data marketers use to drive decisions is incomplete, inaccurate, or outdated. This is especially true outside of the big agencies, where they lack proprietary stacks like Epsilon or Acxiom data and rely on off-the-shelf, syndicated data.
The Data Problem at the Starting Line
The first data used to draw conclusions in a new business presentation can send a media plan in the complete wrong direction and towards the wrong platforms, media mix, budget allocation, and, worst of all, away from real pockets of opportunity in today’s digital media marketplace.
Consider retail media using first-party purchase and shopper data to target audiences with strong purchase intent, allowing advertisers to reach highly qualified consumers based on real buying behavior. For example, dog food ads served only to households that bought dog food in the last eight weeks. These opportunities often remain invisible until after the client becomes a client, which is too late.
The same is true for underutilized reach opportunities in linear TV and streaming. With AI, television in all formats is now accessible to advertisers of any size, national or local. Meanwhile, the marketplace is offering propositions like “If we buy your media, we’ll do the creative for free.” For those of us who’ve been in the business a long time, Hal Riney and David Ogilvy would be spinning in their graves. Yet this is the reality of today’s market.
Getting it wrong in the beginning creates problems down the road.
When Assumptions Become Fact
If you work in activation and buying, you’ve likely seen this first hand. You review a campaign where automated bidding strategies are firing on all cylinders, yet the client’s bottom line isn’t moving. You trace the thread back past execution and channel selection all the way back to day one. Somewhere in the rush to launch, an assumption was treated as fact. From that moment on, every tool in the agency’s tech stack was working overtime to scale a misunderstanding.
As media budgets face increasing pressure, the media planning process has become more complex and consequential. Every decision carries greater weight, and the margin for error has shrunk. This pressure acts as a catalyst, driving many agencies to rush toward activation under the assumption that early planning inputs are solid enough to build upon. Too often, they are not.
AI has raised the stakes even further. What used to be minor planning errors are now systematic liabilities. When used to evaluate platform mix, optimize budgets, and guide activation, AI magnifies whatever it is given. If the foundational planning data is flawed, AI compounds the issue in media plan creation rather than correcting it. What began as a small directional error becomes a significant miss.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong: Validation before Velocity
When misaligned, foundational inputs can cause a ripple effect across the entire media plan. Media dollars are spent inefficiently, and optimization efforts inadvertently reinforce the wrong assumptions. Budgets may shift based on performance signals that appear strong but are ultimately tied to flawed audience definitions.
Creative effectiveness is equally at risk. Messaging may be tailored to audiences that don’t represent the brand’s highest-growth opportunity, while high-potential segments go unnoticed. Over time, this leads to wasted spend and missed market share. Perhaps this is why your agency lost the pitch. Creative was developed for the wrong platforms and opportunities. When the difference between winning and losing a pitch is razor-thin, those flaws matter. I have the scars to prove it.
Eliminate Waste at the Source
To mitigate waste, agencies must make early-stage data validation a standard in their initial planning process. The first step is grounding syndicated insights in reality rather than convenience, outdated techniques, or legacy technology. This starts with the triangulation of multiple known agency data sources, combining first-party, market-level, performance, and behavioral data, whenever possible, even before the pitch.
Additionally, it requires a willingness to slow down at the start. Investigating outliers and inconsistencies can reveal key audiences or channels that might be overlooked in a rushed process. When identified early, these insights can meaningfully reshape strategy before investment decisions are finalized.
AI remains a powerful tool, but its value depends on when it is applied. Once inputs have been vetted, AI can accelerate learnings, scale insights, and optimize towards real business outcomes rather than amplifying errors. Continuous learning loops then help refine early assumptions, ensuring planning evolves intelligently.
The Way Forward
Early-stage data accuracy is becoming the core differentiator in media planning and new
business success in 2026 and beyond. Agencies that build disciplined, data-first foundations will drive more efficient spend and stronger ROI. The most successful teams will be those that merge
validated syndicated insights with powerful tools to ensure strategy and then activation is not only fast,
but fundamentally correct at the onset.
Effective media buying doesn’t start with activation. It starts with the right planning elements combined with up to the minute knowledge of pricing and opportunities in the media marketplace. That means getting the inputs right from the start.
