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Plan Tactic Constraints

Plan Tactic Constraints

Open Article in Keen Knowledge Base

Optimize or Constrain Any Tactic or Group

The tactic constraints step enables independent settings for each tactic in a plan for both:

  1. Investment Level

  2. Timing

By default, plans will optimize the investment level and timing of all tactics to the highest marginal ROI (mROI).

Investment Options

  • Optimize: (default) Your model determines the optimal level of investment to reach the desired plan objective, based on the marginal ROI of each tactic in each plan period.

  • Fixed Total Investment: The amount you enter will be invested. If you’d like to exclude a tactic/tactic group from a given Plan, set this field to $0.

A recent feature release allows you to easily set a reasonable budget for constrained tactics, by surfacing the YOY investment amount from the model. If the most recent year is partial, it will surface the year before that.

  • Minimum/Maximum Total Investment - Enter the minimum or maximum investment for the tactic and Keen will allocate within that range.

Timing Options

  • Optimize: The timing of investment will be allocated across the plan period based on the weeks (or months, for monthly models) that Keen determines to have the highest marginal ROI.

  • Set Timing: More granular periods can be set within the overall Plan period to constrain the window of investment.

    • Each period defined will receive a percentage of the total investment, based on amounts defined in the text boxes. 

    • Periods not defined will receive zero investment.

      • When timing is constrained, but budgets are set to optimize, the {optimal investment amount} is apportioned to each week based on the period allocations defined.

      • When timing is constrained and budgets are constrained, the {set budget} will be apportioned to each week based on the period allocations defined.

In the example below, 80% of the budget goes to July and will be divided evenly across all the weeks in July.  The remaining 20% of the budget is divided evenly across all weeks from November through May. 

Locked Plan

If you’ve already decided on investment levels for certain tactics, you can select the “Locked Plan” option to enter Individual investments by period. This is similar to the “Forecast a plan” objective, but allows you to set this on a per-tactic basics.

Save

After you've applied your investment level and timing constraints, save your settings. Set investment amounts will show in the constraints table, allowing you to understand the constraints for all tactics at a glance