Yesterday, in a call with an agency president she said, “media planning in Excel is a fool’s errand.” This got me thinking about all the ways a purpose-built media planning tool like Bionic’s Digital Media Planner system gives a media planner a competitive advantage over those still using Microsoft Excel.
Here’s the list of the advantages (I’m sure I missed a few!):
| Advantage | Microsoft Excel |
Bionic Planner |
| Year built | 1985 | 2013 |
| Create your media plan | YES | YES |
| Purpose-built for digital media planning | no | YES |
| Built-in media-specific calculations | no | YES |
| Easy one-screen interface | YES | YES |
| Modern user interface | no | YES |
| Media planning dashboard | no | YES |
| Clone previous media plans | YES | YES |
| Clone rows in a media plan | YES | YES |
| Easily import Research from comScore and other tools | no | YES |
| Find media programs with search tool | no | YES |
| Save time with type-ahead | no | YES |
| Get media ideas via suggestion tool | no | YES |
| Supports IAB standards | no | YES |
| Perform what-if analysis | no | YES |
| Link to Publisher data including placements, rates, inventory, and sales contact | no | YES |
| Link to comScore data including audience trends, profiles, and cross-visiting | no | YES |
| Send Requests for Proposals (RFPs) | no | YES |
| Track RFP status online | no | YES |
| Receive and manage proposals online | no | YES |
| Receive Requests for Consideration (RFCs) | no | YES |
| Accept proposals into your plan with a button click | no | YES |
| Share your media plan online | no | YES |
| Lock your plan while you are working on it | no | YES |
| View a full history of changes to your plan | no | YES |
| Compare to a prior versions of your plan | no | YES |
| Revert to a prior version of your plan | no | YES |
| Export Media Authorization | no | YES |
| Export Insertion Orders | no | YES |
| Export to Google DFA and other ad servers | no | YES |
| Integrate with other media tools via APIs | no | YES |
| Streamline your media planning process | no | YES |
| Get better insights | no | YES |
| Position yourself for the future | no | YES |
Learn more about Bionic Planner at
