➕ Add spend on top of your current budget

Let’s say you have a current budget. This could be the latest iteration of your budget during planning, or it could be your current budget in-period. You can use the optimizer to optimally allocate extra budget to specific channels or a group of channels.

For example, you might have an extra $2m. Learn how to optimally allocate this on top of your budget.

Alternatively, during the period, you might realize that you need to spend more to reach your goal for the period. In this case, you can first use the optimizer to Determine how much you will have to increase your spend to hit your goal, and then learn where and when to allocate this budget.

Once you have a value for how much you want to increase your budget, you can begin.

Set up the Optimizer

1. Download your original budget in a CSV format.
   • If you have a goal for your current plan, you can download your plan from the goals tool. Otherwise, download your plan from your last (plan) forecast of your planned budget.
2. Navigate to the optimizer and select your objective.
   • If you are making changes to your current plan, this should be the same as the objective you were initially optimizing for. This will help you compare the effectiveness of your current budget and the optimized budget.
3. Input your goal for the plan period.
4. Input the start and end dates of your planning period in the constraints section.
5. Click “add constraint” to place additional constraints on different time frames.

Add the Additional Spend

Once you have set up the optimizer, it is now time to add in your additional spend. In the constraints box, you should see a list of all your upper funnel channels.

1. Drag and drop all the channels you want to allocate extra spend to into a constraint.
   • You can choose to have a group of channels ‘compete’ for a sum of spend by adding multiple channels to one constraint group. If you know you want to allocate a particular sum to a certain channel, then make sure this channel is in a separate constraint group.
2. Enter the amount up to which you would like to increase spend for channels in each constraint group into the ‘maximum’ box to the left of the channels.
   • Recast will optimally allocate up to this value across all the channels in the constraint group.

3. If you do not want to change the spend in any of your channels from your original budget, leave these channels out of your constraints. This will maintain the original spend from your uploaded budget.
4. Click edit next to each channel to enter committed spend or drop days for each channel.
   • Committed spend is how much you have already committed to spend in this channel during the period. For example, if you have a TV contract that you buy in advance, you can put the value in here. Drop days is the cadence at which the budget is spent (e.g., every 3 days). This helps the optimizer give you more realistic recommendations.
5. Upload your current budget at the bottom of the optimizer page

Finally, run the optimization. The output should give you a recommended budget with the additional spend optimally allocated across the channels you specified, as well as flighted optimally throughout your plan period.