Planning Engine
The Zitcha Planning Engine is the central workspace for planning, managing, and reporting on retail media campaigns across all channels. This guide introduces its purpose, components, and supporting features.
The Zitcha Planning Engine simplifies media planning and execution by centralizing campaign management, workflow automation, and performance reporting.
It provides networks and advertisers with a single platform to connect strategy, collaboration, and delivery across all retail media channels.
Overview
The Planning Engine is the one-stop shop for planning, managing, and reporting on all retail media activities within your network. It brings together tools that help retailers and advertisers:
- Align media investments with business goals
- Streamline approval and budgeting workflows
- Enable flexible campaign planning and execution
- Report on performance in real time
With configurable workflows, joint business planning, and dynamic budgeting, Zitcha bridges the gap between planning and execution, helping networks deliver tailored and efficient media solutions for every advertiser.
Getting Started
To access the Planning Engine, you’ll need:
- An authenticated Zitcha user account
- At least one assigned role and team within your organisation
Learn more in Identity and Access Management.
If you need access, contact your organisation administrator.
Explore the Planning Engine
The Planning Engine lets you focus on outcomes instead of manual coordination. It combines an intuitive interface with built-in transparency and ownership controls.
Plans
Plans provide a structured framework for aligning advertising initiatives with business objectives.
They can represent an ad hoc campaign or an entire annual JBP (Joint Business Plan) with a plan now, execute later approach.
Each plan may contain multiple ad sets.
Ad Sets
Ad sets group ads based on shared properties such as schedule, placement, and media type.
This grouping allows for efficient budget management, optimization, and tracking across related ads.
Ads
An ad represents the creative unit served to the consumer.
Ads inherit their ad set’s settings and may include additional elements such as images, SKUs, or text.
Multiple creative variations can be tested within the same ad set.
Wallets
Wallets are shared financial resources between networks and advertisers, serving as the budget foundation for planning.
A valid wallet must exist between linked organisations before creating a plan, ad set, or ad.
See What Are Wallets and Why Do They Matter?
Key Features
Discounts
Networks can define and apply discounts directly within the planning flow, making pricing transparent for advertisers.
Discounts can be applied across:
- Entire plans
- Media types or placements
- Specific ad sets or schedules
Discounts apply only within planning workflows, not in orders.
Clash Management
Clash Management ensures inventory isn’t double-booked for fixed tenancy media.
When multiple ad sets request the same inventory, Zitcha flags a Clashed state for resolution by the network.
Advertisers never see clashes; they only view a Pending Approval state until resolved.
Inventory Management
Inventory represents the combination of schedule, media type, and placement.
Zitcha maintains inventory definitions (availability, pricing model, price) to ensure ads are booked only when capacity exists.
Ad Set States
Ad sets move through defined statuses that represent their lifecycle within planning.
From Draft to Live, each state signals progress and delivery readiness.
| State | Description |
|---|---|
| Draft | Created but not yet submitted. Visible only to the creator. |
| Pending Approval | Submitted and awaiting network approval. |
| Reserved | Approved and inventory locked. |
| Scheduled | Ready for future activation. |
| Live | Actively delivering media. |
| Ended | Stopped manually before end date. |
| Delivered | Completed at the scheduled end date. |
Calendar Periods
Some media types operate on fixed calendar periods (e.g., monthly, quarterly).
These schedules standardize availability windows across inventory types and pricing models.
Calendar periods are configured by Zitcha. Networks cannot self-manage setup.
Auditing
Every change to a plan, ad set, or key resource is recorded for transparency and compliance.
Audit logs capture user actions, old and new values, and timestamps.
Logs are internal and viewable via the Admin Panel for authorized users.
Media Type Builder
The Media Type Builder (MTB) allows Zitcha to define and validate all available media offerings, ensuring consistency across configurations.
It supports a wide range of validations (date, format, required fields, etc.) to maintain accuracy.
The MTB is managed by Zitcha and cannot be configured directly by customers. Work with our Solutions team to configure.
Updated about 1 month ago