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What is Scenario Planner?
Scenario Planner is a forward-looking budget allocation tool powered by Merlin. It models the relationship between media investment and performance outcomes to recommend optimal budget distribution across channels.
It helps teams:
Understand how budget shifts impact outcomes
Identify where incremental dollars drive the most value
Plan across channels with greater efficiency and confidence
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Does Scenario Planner account for brand equity?
Yes.
Merlin learns from historical performance patterns over time. Sustained brand investment influences future outcomes and is reflected in the response curves learned from historical data.
While brand equity is not modeled as a standalone labeled variable, its impact is embedded in:
Long-term performance trends
Spend-to-outcome relationships
Channel response behavior over time
This allows the model to balance short-term efficiency with long-term impact reflected in the data.
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How much historical data is required?
Two years of data.
Two years provides:
Full seasonality coverage
Sufficient variation in spend levels
More stable and reliable response curves
The model can run with less data, but accuracy and confidence improve meaningfully with two years of history.
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Is collinearity between channels a problem?
No.
Merlin is not a traditional regression model that suffers from multicollinearity issues.
Instead:
Each channel is modeled individually
Response curves are learned independently
Joint channel flighting does not distort channel impact
If two channels typically run together, that does not create instability in the model.
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What happens if there are periods of zero spend (“stop-and-go” investment)?
This is not a concern.
Merlin models all available historical data. If a channel has inactive periods:
The model learns from the time periods when it was active
All historical spend contributes to its response curve
For recommendations:
The optimizer primarily looks at the most recent month to determine which channels are currently active
If a channel was live in the most recent month, it will receive allocation recommendations
If there was no recent spend, it may not automatically allocate budget to that channel
However, if historical data exists, you can increase the budget bounds for that channel and the model will re-optimize accordingly.
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How often is the model refreshed?
The refresh cadence is weekly.
The model is updated weekly to incorporate the most recent performance data, ensuring:
Recommendations reflect current trends
Performance shifts are captured quickly
Planning remains aligned with live market dynamics
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What KPIs can Scenario Planner optimize against?
Currently, the default KPI is revenue.
However, the model can support other primary KPIs, including:
App installs
Form fills
Conversions
Other measurable performance outcomes
Scenario Planner can be configured based on the KPI that aligns with the client’s planning objective.
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I have a hard spend requirement for a specific channel (e.g., “We must spend $X on Social”). How do I enforce this?
You can apply constraints directly within Scenario Planner.
To enforce a minimum or fixed investment:
Pin the budget for that specific channel
The model respects all constraints and will optimize the remaining budget to maximize overall efficiency within those parameters.
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What is the default recommendation bandwidth?
The default optimization bandwidth is ±10%.
This means:
By default, the model will recommend budget adjustments within a 10% increase or decrease range per channel
This helps ensure recommendations remain practical and aligned with operational realities
If a more aggressive reallocation strategy is desired, you can expand the budget bounds. The model will respect the updated constraints and re-optimize accordingly, providing recommendations based on the new flexibility provided..