How teams set holiday forecasts

Cody Plouffe outlines forecasting from historicals, subjective adjustments, and choosing aggressive versus conservative spend plans.

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Episode notes

As we head into the final days before Cyber Five, this episode is all about going from daily pacing to true intraday pacing - the level of granularity operators need when every hour can swing the entire BFCM weekend. We break down how we monitor hourly revenue and ad spend across Meta, Google, and more using tools like Northbeam and Supermetrics, and how we make real-time adjustments when projections drift off target.

We also get into the messy but essential stuff: how inventory, merchandising, and media-mix strategy shape bid caps, channel budgets, and how aggressively you can push during Cyber Five, including the constant tradeoff brands face between maximizing contribution margin dollars and maintaining efficiency. The hosts share real examples of scaling (and protecting efficiency), running holdout tests, understanding incremental lift, and avoiding the overspend horror stories that can tank a weekend.

To wrap up, we talk through team etiquette during BFCM-who’s “on,” how to handle PTO, how the paid teams coordinate in hourly and bi-hourly check-ins, and what it takes operationally to keep a brand performing during the most high-pressure stretch of the year.

If you have a question for the MOperators Hotline, click the link to be in with a chance of it being discussed on the show: https://forms.gle/1W7nKoNK5Zakm1Xv6

Chapters:

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:10:52 - Intraday Revenue Pacing

00:24:39 - Cyber 5 Scale-Up Tests

00:39:07 - Bid Caps and Budget Strategies

00:52:10 - Channel Spend Forecasting

01:02:50 - Scaling Mid-Funnel Campaigns

Motion.

⁠⁠⁠https://motionapp.com/pricing?utm_source=marketing-operators-podcast&utm_medium=paidsponsor&utm_campaign=march-2024-ad-reads⁠⁠⁠https://motionapp.com/creative-trends

Prescient AI.⁠⁠⁠

https://www.prescientai.com/operators

Richpanel.⁠⁠⁠