Release date: January 9, 2026

A key benefit of a media planning solution is the ability to deliver creatives and traffic instructions to media vendors.

MediaPlanHQ always provided a tool to generate a professional traffic instructions PDF that you could send to the media vendors.

It also provided basic media delivery numbering & versioning, and audit information of who/when the PDF was generated.

However, the process was largely manual, with no clear way to track the workflow. Your team had to generate the PDF, send it to your media vendor, process adjustments via email, and implement an ad hoc workaround to track the status.

With this release, the media delivery workflow is managed end-to-end.

Your marketing team will be able to:

Set the media delivery frequency on a media insertion enabling multiple deliveries (e.g., annual media insertion with monthly media deliveries)
Prepare/generate the traffic instructions document and upload creative files.
Collaborate with internal/external users through approvals until pending files are ready to send.
Send the traffic instructions and the creative files by email to your media vendor.
Track the status of every media delivery.

Let's see how it works...

Activating the media delivery module

The media delivery module is opt-out, meaning that it is activated by default, but you can deactivate it if you do not intend to use the media delivery features.

Existing users: The media delivery module is activated in your account with a default managed workflow if you generated a traffic instruction PDF or sent a delivery email in the past.

Follow these steps to activate media deliveries:

Step 1: Go to the Administration > Media deliveries module:

Step 2: Click the Activate media deliveries button

This will activate the media deliveries module with the default settings (#1) and workflow (#2) that you can customize to fit your needs:

It also automatically grants access to the Deliveries module (#3) to all users who have the Administration permission. You can customize the permission to access/manage media deliveries in the Administration > Groups module.

Understanding media delivery lifecycle

The lifecycle of media deliveries is closely tied to media insertion and is managed by the system based on the media insertion status and the media delivery frequency.

Media insertion status

The media insertion status defines when to create media deliveries. For example, the system can create the media deliveries when the media insertion is transitioned to the Booked status. This can be customized to fit your needs in Administration > Media insertion statuses:

Let's open a media insertion in the Draft status in the Insertions module:

This will display the Media insertion view with the media delivery information displayed in the Delivery tab:

At this time, no media delivery information is available when the media delivery frequency is None.

Media delivery frequency

The media delivery frequency defines how to create the media deliveries for the period of the media insertion:

None	No media delivery
One time	Create one media delivery that covers the entire media insertion
Weekly	Create a media delivery for each week covered by the media insertion	coming soon
Monthly	Create a media delivery for each standard month covered by the media insertion	coming soon
Monthly - Broadcast	Create a media delivery for each broadcast month covered by the media insertion	coming soon
Quarterly	Create a media delivery for each quarter covered by the media insertion	coming soon
Yearly	Create a media delivery for each year covered by the media insertion	coming soon

Let's select a media delivery frequency in the Media insertion form:

Now, the media delivery is enabled for the media insertion:

But there are still no media deliveries because the media insertion is in Draft status.

Let's transition the media insertion to the Booked status. The system will use the media delivery frequency to create the media deliveries to cover the media insertion:

In this case, the system created a single media delivery (media delivery frequency = One time) for the period dates 10/11/2025 - 5/21/2026 in the Scheduled status.

Automatic transitions

All new media deliveries are created in the Scheduled status by default. This means it's scheduled, but you are not yet expected to work on it.

When the due date is within 31 days, the system will automatically transition the media delivery to the Working status. Now, it's time to work on it.

This allows you to work on media delivery one by one without being overwhelmed by those scheduled for the far future.

Additionally, when the due date is within 3 days, the system will automatically transition the media delivery to the Attention required status.

This allows you to highlight media deliveries that need the be delivered soon or are late.

You can customize the auto transitions in the Administration > Media deliveries > Settings tab:

Activating ad traffic instructions

The Ad traffic instructions section allows you to schedule the ads you want to run for each run date of the media insertion within a media delivery.

As you define traffic instructions, the system validates that all run dates have complete traffic instructions.

It displays Not ready when the traffic instructions are incomplete, with the corresponding warnings.

It displays Ready when the traffic instructions are complete:

Viewing the media delivery

You can view a summary of the media delivery from the Media insertion view > Delivery tab:

You can open the media delivery from the media delivery card. This will redirect to the Media delivery view:

The Media delivery view contains all the information required to prepare the traffic instructions and creative files to send to the media supplier:

Media delivery info: This includes the parent media insertion, the period dates, the media recipient, and the audit information for the most recent email sent.
Ad traffic instructions: This includes the media information and the ad traffic instruction rules for each media insertion included in the media delivery.
Pending files: This includes the files that you've prepared for the delivery but haven't yet been delivered to the media.
Files: All the files linked to this media delivery - delivered and not delivered.
Comments: This includes the comments to collaborate with internal/external users to discuss this media delivery.
History: this includes key events that happened in this media delivery.
Change log: This includes field-by-field changes made to this media delivery.

Preparing the media delivery pending files

Pending files are files that are ready to be sent to the media vendor. Typically, it includes 2 types of files: Ad traffic instructions PDFs, and creatives. But it can include any files you want to include in a media delivery.

Ad traffic instructions

When the ad traffic instructions are Ready in the media delivery, you can click the Generate button to generate the Ad traffic instructions PDF.