Your advertising budget is bought at a known rate and checked after it runs.
Gully Sales decides how much of your budget each medium deserves, negotiates the rates and slots with publishers, platforms and vendors, and reconciles what you paid against proof that the advertising appeared.
- A written media plan showing where every rupee goes, and why.
- Rates, positions and terms negotiated with vendors in your name.
- Proof of delivery collected before any media invoice is passed.
Gully Sales Private Limited plans and buys media for businesses across India, and keeps the orders, contracts and rate history in your name.
In one paragraph
What is Media Planning and Buying Services in India?
Media planning and buying decides where your advertising money goes and then purchases that space at a defensible rate. Gully Sales sizes the budget by medium, sets reach and frequency targets, negotiates with publishers, platforms and vendors, issues orders in your name, and reconciles every invoice against evidence that the advertising actually ran.
The problem
Every vendor's proposal sounds reasonable on its own.
Most owners never decide a media budget in one sitting. A newspaper representative calls in April. A hoarding falls vacant in June. A trade portal offers a package before its financial year closes. Each one is affordable, each one sounds sensible, and each is signed separately. By March the money has gone to nine places, none of them chosen against the others, and nobody in the business can say which of them a customer ever saw. This is not carelessness. It is what happens when buying is reactive and nothing is written down first.
You will recognise it as
- Your media spend was decided by whoever called, not by a plan written before the year began.
- You cannot say what rate you paid per insertion, per site or per thousand people reached.
- Nobody checks the paper, the site or the hoarding afterwards to confirm the booking appeared.
- Vendor invoices are passed because the amount matches the quotation, not because delivery was proved.
- The same buyer sees you eleven times in one week and then not at all for two months.
- Your agency's income is buried inside the media cost, so you cannot see what advice is costing you.
What it costs the business
- Budget goes to the media that sell hardest rather than to the media your buyers actually use.
- You pay published card rates while larger advertisers in the same publication pay far less.
- Missed insertions, wrong dates and unlit hoardings are paid for in full because nobody looked.
- Results cannot be read at the end, because the plan behind the spending was never written down.
- Each medium is defended by the person who booked it, so nothing is ever stopped.
Why it persists. Media buying rewards people who buy often. Rates are negotiable, discounts follow volume and relationship, and none of it is published. A business that advertises twice a year has no way to know the going rate and no reason to be offered it. The work that fixes this is also unglamorous — schedules, orders, material deadlines, voucher copies, reconciliation — so it is the first thing dropped when the team is busy selling. Nobody wakes up wanting to own it.
If it stays unresolved. Spending continues at roughly the same level each year, and each year the owner concludes that advertising does not work for this kind of business. That conclusion is usually wrong. What did not work was buying nine unrelated things at retail prices, in no particular order, and never checking whether they ran.
What changes
What changes once someone plans the buy and then verifies it.
In the first weeks
- One media plan replaces a folder of unrelated vendor quotations.
- You see the rate you are paying next to a comparable rate for the same weight.
- Every booking has a date, an owner, a material deadline and a way of being answered.
In how the work runs
- Orders, deadlines and creative versions sit on one schedule instead of in people's inboxes.
- No media invoice is passed until delivery has been evidenced against the order.
- Vendor conversations start from your plan rather than from their available inventory.
In sales and marketing
- Budget shifts toward media that produce enquiries and away from media that only produce impressions.
- Negotiated rates and bundled buying reduce what the same weight of media costs you.
- Short delivery is claimed back as replacement weight or a credit note rather than absorbed.
In what management can see
- One report shows spend, delivery and response by medium, in a form your accountant can follow.
- You can tell which insertion, site or slot produced an enquiry, not just which month did.
Over the longer term
- A rate history builds up, so each year's negotiation starts from what you actually paid.
- Media decisions survive a change of marketing staff, because the plan and the contracts are yours.
Gully Sales controls the plan, the negotiation, the orders and the verification. Whether well-bought media produces enquiries also depends on your offer, your creative and your sales follow-up, so delivery and commercial response are reported separately and never merged into one flattering number.
Who it is for
This is for businesses already spending real money on media.
The businesses it suits
- Businesses advertising across more than one medium and unsure how the split was ever decided.
- Owners approached regularly by newspaper, radio, hoarding, magazine and portal representatives.
- Companies planning a launch, a season or an exhibition where several media must run together.
- Manufacturers and distributors buying trade press and dealer media alongside digital platforms.
- Businesses whose agency buys on their behalf and who want that buying independently reviewed.
- Firms whose budget is now large enough that the rate paid matters as much as the creative.
- Multi-location businesses where each branch books its own local media without any common rate.
What usually prompts the call
- The annual budget is being set and last year's split cannot be justified to anyone who asks.
- A vendor has offered a large discount that expires this week and you cannot judge whether it is one.
- Two agencies have quoted for the same schedule and the two numbers are not comparable.
- A season, festival or product launch needs several media live within the same fortnight.
- You have found an advertisement you paid for that did not run, or ran on the wrong date.
- A long-standing annual contract is up for renewal and nobody has tested it against the market.
What Gully Sales does
The work, component by component.
Objective, offer and budget frame
We turn the commercial objective into a media task: how many of which people must see the message, how often, in which weeks, carrying what offer, and what the business can afford to spend to make that happen. The budget becomes a working frame with a reserve held back for the media that prove themselves, rather than one figure that must be exhausted.
- Why it matters:
- A media plan with no stated task becomes a list of things somebody was willing to sell you.
- You receive:
- Media objective note with the offer, market priorities, budget frame, reserve and spending calendar.
- Business value:
- Every later proposal can be accepted or refused against a written standard instead of a mood.
Audience and media consumption map
We describe the buyer in the terms media are actually sold in — geography down to pin code, language, trade, income band, time of day, publication, station and platform — and record where those people spend attention, using your own customer and enquiry records alongside published readership, footfall, listenership and platform data for your markets.
- Why it matters:
- Media are bought by audience, and an audience described only as 'our customers' cannot be bought against.
- You receive:
- Audience definition and a media consumption map by market, language and buyer type.
- Business value:
- Vendors are judged on whether they reach your buyer, not on how well their representative presents.
Media mix and weight plan
We split the budget across media and set the weight each carries: reach and frequency targets, continuity against bursts, share of voice against the competitors you name, and the order in which media enter the market. The mix is shown as two or three options at the same budget, so you can see what a heavier print plan costs a digital one.
- Why it matters:
- The split between media decides most of the result long before anyone writes the advertisement.
- You receive:
- Media plan with mix options, a weekly flowchart, weight per medium and reach and frequency estimates.
- Business value:
- You choose the shape of the spending yourself, with each trade-off visible and priced.
Rates, negotiation and orders
We take the selected plan to publishers, platform sales teams, hoarding owners, cinema chains, radio networks and portals, collect comparable quotations, and negotiate rate, position, dates, bonus weight and payment terms. Orders are then issued in your name with the deliverables and make-good terms written into them.
- Why it matters:
- Card rates are an opening position, and a business that buys once a year is rarely offered anything better.
- You receive:
- Comparative rate sheet with card rate, negotiated rate and cost per thousand, plus signed orders per vendor.
- Business value:
- The same weight of media costs less, and what was promised is on paper before money moves.
Creative specification and trafficking
Each booking carries technical requirements: size, bleed, duration, file weight, resolution, safe area, language versions and material deadlines. We write the specification sheet, collect material from your designer or ours, check it against the requirement, and deliver it to every vendor ahead of the deadline with written confirmation of receipt.
- Why it matters:
- A missed material deadline forfeits the slot and the money, and no discount recovers a lost insertion.
- You receive:
- Creative specification sheet, adapted version list and a trafficking log with vendor confirmations.
- Business value:
- Bookings run on the dates you paid for, in the format each medium actually requires.
Response path and enquiry capture
Every medium gets its own way of being answered and counted: a dedicated number, a short link or QR code, a landing page, a WhatsApp keyword or a coupon code. Enquiries land in one place with the source attached, and a simple follow-up sequence keeps people warm who responded but were not ready to buy that week.
- Why it matters:
- Media that cannot be answered separately cannot be judged separately, and end up judged by opinion.
- You receive:
- Response mechanism per booking, tracking numbers and codes, one enquiry log and a follow-up sequence.
- Business value:
- Response is attributed to a specific insertion, site or slot rather than to a whole month of spending.
Delivery verification and post-buy audit
We collect the evidence that each booking ran: voucher copies and tear sheets from publications, dated photographs for hoardings and site media, broadcast logs for radio and cinema, and delivery reports for digital placements. Each is compared against the order, and anything short-delivered goes back to the vendor for replacement weight or a credit note before the invoice is passed.
- Why it matters:
- Short delivery is common, and it is almost never reported by the party that short-delivered.
- You receive:
- Verification file per vendor and a post-buy audit comparing what was bought with what was delivered.
- Business value:
- You pay for what appeared, and vendors learn that this advertiser checks every time.
Optimisation, reconciliation and reporting
While the campaign is live we watch response by medium and move weight while the money can still move: a site dropped, a slot extended, an edition changed, a renewal renegotiated. At the close we reconcile orders, delivery, invoices and payments, and set delivery against response for every medium in one report.
- Why it matters:
- A plan that cannot change mid-flight is a budget being spent rather than a campaign being run.
- You receive:
- Weekly delivery and response note, a change log with reasons, closing reconciliation and post-campaign report.
- Business value:
- Next year's plan is built from your own recorded rates and results, not from a fresh guess.
What you will have at the end.
- A written media objective note stating the reach, frequency and market coverage the budget must buy.
- An audience definition and media consumption map, expressed in the terms media are actually sold in.
- A media plan with mix options, a weekly flowchart and reach, frequency and share-of-voice targets.
- A comparative rate sheet showing card rate, negotiated rate and cost per thousand for every vendor.
- Release and insertion orders issued in your name, with deliverables and make-good terms written in.
- A creative specification sheet and a material deadline calendar covering every booking in the plan.
- A trafficking log recording what was sent to which vendor, on what date, and who confirmed receipt.
- A response mechanism per booking — number, code, short link or landing page — feeding one enquiry log.
- A verification file of voucher copies, dated photographs, broadcast logs and platform delivery reports.
- A post-buy audit comparing what was bought with what was delivered, with shortfalls claimed.
- A closing reconciliation of orders, invoices and payments, with delivery and response shown by medium.
- An anonymised sample plan and rate sheet at proposal stage, so you see the format before committing.
How it runs
The engagement, step by step.
- 1
Brief and budget frame
We sit with you and turn the commercial objective into a media task: which markets, which buyers and which weeks matter, what the offer is, and what the business can afford. We also go through what you spent last year, on what, and at what rate, so the new plan starts from your own history rather than from a blank page.
- You provide:
- Last year's media invoices and booking confirmations, your sales calendar, and the offer the advertising will carry.
- We produce:
- A media objective note with market priorities, timing, offer and a budget frame with a reserve.
- Done when:
- You approve the objective, the markets and the budget frame in writing.
- 2
Audience and media study
We define the audience in buyable terms and map where it consumes media, using your customer records, your sales team's knowledge of where enquiries come from, and published readership, footfall, listenership and platform data for your markets. Where the data is thin for a small town or a narrow trade, we say so rather than assume.
- You provide:
- Customer and enquiry data, dealer or branch lists, and a short session with your sales team.
- We produce:
- An audience definition and a media consumption map by market, language and buyer type.
- Done when:
- The audience definition is agreed and the shortlist of candidate media is fixed.
- 3
Plan options and selection
We build two or three plan options at the same budget, each with a different shape — broad reach against tighter frequency, continuity against bursts, one heavy medium against several lighter ones — and show what each is expected to buy in reach, frequency and share of voice, along with what it gives up.
- You provide:
- A decision on which option to take, and any market or vendor you want included or excluded.
- We produce:
- Plan options with a weekly flowchart, weight per medium, reach and frequency estimates and cost per thousand.
- Done when:
- One option is selected and becomes the buying mandate.
- 4
Negotiation and buying
We go to market with the selected plan, collect comparable quotations, and negotiate rate, position, dates, bonus weight and payment terms with each vendor. Orders are then issued in your name with deliverables, dates and make-good terms written into them, and every document is filed where you can reach it.
- You provide:
- Authority to negotiate on your behalf, billing entity details, and approval of the final rate sheet.
- We produce:
- A comparative rate sheet, negotiated terms and signed release or insertion orders for every booking.
- Done when:
- Every booking in the plan is confirmed in writing at an approved rate.
- 5
Material and trafficking
We issue the technical specification for each booking, collect artwork, films and files from your designer, check them against the specification, and deliver them to each vendor before the material deadline with written confirmation of receipt. Language versions and size variants are tracked separately so none is missed.
- You provide:
- Approved creative in editable form, brand assets, and sign-off on each adapted size or language version.
- We produce:
- A specification sheet, an adapted material list and a trafficking log with vendor confirmations.
- Done when:
- Every vendor holds correct material ahead of its own deadline.
- 6
In-flight monitoring
Once the campaign is live we check appearance against the schedule and read response by medium each week. Weight is moved while the money can still move: a site dropped, a slot extended, an edition changed, a digital placement paused. Every change is logged with the reason and the cost effect.
- You provide:
- Access to the enquiry log or CRM, and a half-hour each week for decisions that need your approval.
- We produce:
- A weekly delivery and response note, and a change log recording the reason for each shift.
- Done when:
- Decisions are being taken weekly on evidence rather than at the end of the campaign.
- 7
Verification and make-good
We collect proof of delivery for every booking and compare it with the order: insertions that did not run, hoardings pasted late or left unlit, spots aired outside the agreed band, digital placements short of committed delivery. Shortfalls go back to the vendor for replacement weight or a credit note before payment is released.
- You provide:
- Nothing beyond holding vendor payment until verification is complete.
- We produce:
- A verification file per vendor and a claim note for each shortfall, with the credit or make-good obtained.
- Done when:
- No invoice is passed for media that cannot be evidenced.
- 8
Reconciliation and close
At the end of the flight we reconcile orders, delivery, invoices and payments, and report delivery against response for every medium, recording the rates paid for next year's negotiation. The plan's assumptions are compared with what actually happened, and the differences are explained rather than smoothed over.
- You provide:
- Accounts team access to confirm what was invoiced and what was paid.
- We produce:
- A closing reconciliation, a post-campaign report by medium and an updated rate history for your business.
- Done when:
- You hold a complete record of what was bought, what ran and what it produced.
Ways to work with us
Ways to work with Gully Sales on media.
Media plan only
We study the audience, build the plan options and hand over the rate expectations and the buying mandate for you or your existing agency to execute. Suitable when you have people who can run a buy but nobody who decides it.
Plan and buy
We plan, negotiate, issue orders in your name, traffic the material and verify delivery for a defined campaign or season, closing with a reconciliation and a post-campaign report by medium.
Retained media management
An ongoing arrangement covering the annual plan, quarterly revisions, all buying, trafficking and verification, and a monthly report. Suitable for businesses advertising continuously across several media.
Media audit
A review of media already bought, or of an agency's proposal: rates against comparable rates, delivery against what was ordered, and whether the mix reaches the audience you sell to. Delivered as a written opinion.
Negotiation support
We are brought in for one negotiation or renewal — a large annual contract, an exhibition package, a hoarding renewal — and represent your side on rate, position, terms and deliverables.
Why Gully Sales
What you are actually choosing when you choose us.
The buy is made in your name.
Orders, contracts and platform accounts stay with your business. If you stop working with Gully Sales, you keep the vendor relationships, the negotiated rates and the record of what you paid for what.
Media is bought against a plan, not against a pitch.
Every vendor conversation starts from a written plan with a stated audience and weight. That is what makes it possible to refuse a good-sounding offer that does not fit, without arguing about it.
Somebody checks that it ran.
Verification is part of the work, not an extra line. Proof of delivery is collected for every booking, and shortfalls are claimed as replacement weight or credit before your invoice is passed.
Media sits inside your wider revenue system.
Gully Sales also works on sales process, CRM and follow-up, so enquiries a media plan produces are traced through to what your sales team did with them, instead of being left at the count.
What we earn is visible.
Our fee is stated separately from media cost. Discounts and rebates obtained from vendors belong to you and are shown in the reconciliation, so nobody has a reason to recommend expensive media.
Indian market realities are assumed, not discovered.
Regional editions, language versions, festival calendars, dealer catchments, small-town outdoor and trade press are ordinary parts of a plan here, and are treated that way rather than as complications.
Where it applies
The same service, in different businesses.
Industrial manufacturing
- The situation:
- A pump manufacturer sells through distributors in four states and advertises in two trade magazines, because it always has.
- How it applies:
- Audience mapped to specifying engineers and distributors, trade press bought against a defined reach, and exhibition and trade portal weight added in the buying season.
- Likely benefit:
- Spending moves to the media specifiers read, and every booking carries its own enquiry number so response can be told apart.
Multi-speciality hospital
- The situation:
- A hospital advertises in the local paper every Sunday and holds two hoardings on annual contracts, with no way to compare the three.
- How it applies:
- Catchment mapped by pin code, newspaper editions narrowed to that catchment, hoarding sites reviewed against where patients actually come from, and radio added for a specific camp.
- Likely benefit:
- The same annual budget covers the catchment more evenly, and each camp's response is countable on its own.
Real estate development
- The situation:
- A developer launching a project must be visible across print, outdoor, cinema and digital within the same four weeks, with material deadlines falling on different days.
- How it applies:
- A launch flowchart with weight by week, orders placed together for negotiating leverage, material deadlines tracked centrally, and site enquiries attributed by source.
- Likely benefit:
- The launch reaches the market as one campaign, and cost per site visit is known medium by medium.
Education and training
- The situation:
- An institute buys admission-season media every year and finds each season quoted higher than the last, with no explanation offered.
- How it applies:
- Rate history rebuilt from past invoices, comparable quotations collected across publications and stations, and the whole admission season bought in one negotiation.
- Likely benefit:
- Season media is bought at a rate the institute can defend, and enrolment enquiries are traced back to source.
Multi-store retail
- The situation:
- A retail chain funds local advertising from head office, but each store books its own newspaper, radio and local outdoor separately.
- How it applies:
- One plan with a common negotiated rate across markets, local flexibility inside agreed weights, and a single verification and reporting process for all stores.
- Likely benefit:
- Local relevance is kept while head office finally sees one rate, one schedule and one report.
Packaged food brand
- The situation:
- A regional food brand spends on digital platforms and on festival van campaigns, but the two are planned by different people who do not compare notes.
- How it applies:
- A single flowchart covering platform weight and festival activity, coordinated timing across markets, and one mechanism for tracking enquiries and retail offtake.
- Likely benefit:
- Festival weight lands together instead of in pieces, and platform spending supports the retail push rather than competing with it.
Building materials distribution
- The situation:
- A distributor is offered dealer-board, hoarding and trade magazine packages by three vendors within the same month and cannot compare them.
- How it applies:
- All three quoted against a common audience and weight standard, cost per thousand calculated for each, and only the ones that clear the standard bought.
- Likely benefit:
- Two proposals are declined with a reason on paper, and the money goes into the one that reaches contractors.
Questions buyers ask
Before you enquire, the answers you will want.
What is the difference between media planning and media buying?
Planning decides what to buy: which audience, which media, how much weight in which weeks, and what that should produce. Buying executes it — collecting quotations, negotiating rate and position, issuing orders and confirming dates. Gully Sales does both, and will do planning alone if you already have someone to execute. The two are reported separately, so you can see what the plan assumed and what the buying achieved.
What information do you need from us to start?
Last year's media invoices and booking confirmations, your sales calendar, customer or enquiry addresses so we can see where demand actually sits, and the offer the advertising will carry. If an agency buys for you now, we also need the rate sheets they worked from. Where records are missing we say so and build the baseline from the first flight rather than assuming numbers that suit us.
How much of our team's time does this take?
Less than most owners expect. A working session at the start to agree the objective and budget, one session with your sales team on where enquiries come from, a decision on which plan option to take, and roughly half an hour a week while a campaign is live. Creative approval takes whatever your own sign-off usually takes. Negotiation, orders, trafficking and verification are ours to carry.
How long does the engagement take?
The plan itself takes a few working sessions once last year's records are in hand, and buying begins as soon as you approve an option. After that, length is set by the flight you are buying: a launch, a season, or a year of continuous media. We do not quote a fixed number of weeks before seeing how many markets, media and vendors are actually involved.
Do you take commission from the media we buy?
You pay Gully Sales a fee agreed in advance. Where a publisher, platform or vendor offers a discount, rebate or bonus weight, it belongs to you and appears in the reconciliation rather than in our income. This matters more than it sounds: a buyer paid out of media cost has a quiet reason to recommend expensive media, and we would rather not have one.
We only advertise on Google and Meta. Is this service for us?
Probably not yet. Where all the spending sits inside self-serve auction accounts, the work is account operation, and our performance marketing page covers it properly. Media planning and buying earns its place when you are also buying newspaper space, hoardings, radio, cinema, trade press, exhibition stands or portal packages, where rates are negotiable and delivery has to be checked by a person.
How do you know a hoarding or an advertisement actually ran?
We collect evidence for every booking: voucher copies or tear sheets from publications, dated photographs from the site for outdoor, broadcast logs for radio and cinema, and delivery reports for digital placements. Each is compared against the order. Where something ran late, ran small, ran unlit or did not run at all, we claim replacement weight or a credit note before your invoice is passed for payment.
How is success measured?
Against the baseline agreed before buying starts. We report delivered against ordered, reach and frequency achieved, cost per thousand, and negotiated rate against card rate. Then response, qualified leads, cost per lead, pipeline and conversion by medium. Media delivery and commercial response are shown separately, because a well-bought plan can still be let down by a weak offer or slow follow-up.
4 more questions
What is excluded from the scope?
We do not write or design your advertising unless creative work is added separately, and we do not run your sales follow-up. Public relations, on-ground sponsorship activation and event execution are their own services. Media payments are made by you directly to the vendor rather than routed through us, unless you specifically ask otherwise and we agree it in writing beforehand.
Can you review what our current agency is buying?
Yes, that is the media audit. It compares the rates you are paying with comparable rates for the same weight, checks whether delivery matched what was ordered, and asks whether the mix reaches the audience your business actually sells to. You receive a written opinion. Some audits conclude that the agency is buying well, and we say so plainly when that is what we find.
Our budget is small. Is a media plan worth the effort?
It depends on how the budget is spent, not on its size. If it all goes to one medium every month, a plan adds little. If it is being split between four or five vendors who each approached you separately, the plan usually pays for itself in what it stops you buying, before any negotiation begins. Tell us the number and we will tell you honestly.
Do we have to change our existing vendors?
No. Most plans keep the vendors that genuinely reach your buyers and simply buy from them differently: better rate, better position, dated orders, verified delivery. Vendors that survive a comparison stay. Those bought only because somebody called are dropped. Relationships that matter to you can be protected, provided the rate still stands up next to a comparable one.
Talk to us
Ask us to audit what you bought last year and what actually ran.
Bring last year's media invoices and one recent vendor proposal. The free audit looks at what you paid, what it reached and whether any of it can be evidenced, and tells you plainly whether a planned buy would save you anything.
- No obligation and no sales script
- A reply from someone who does the work
- Your details are never sold or shared