Live budget pacing, not end-of-month surprises.
Medusa is campaign budget pacing software that tracks planned versus actual spend across every connected paid channel. Overspend and underspend are flagged the moment drift appears, while there is still time in the campaign window to act.
Illustrative demo data
ChannelDayTactic
Thu 22 Oct, all channelsvs plan
- Spend$5,212 of $6,607 planned79%
- Impressions486K of 590K planned82%
- Conversions118 of 141 planned84%
At a glance
- What it is
- A paid media budget tracker that compares live spend, impressions and conversions against the plan, by channel, day or tactic.
- Who it is for
- Planners and agency teams running always-on or campaign budgets across Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn and DV360.
- What you put in
- Your media plan (built in Medusa or from an uploaded brief) and OAuth connections to your ad platforms.
- What you get out
- A daily-refreshed pacing view of actual versus planned per channel, drift alerts for over- and under-pacing lines, and one-click reallocation suggestions to recover.
How it works
From your inputs to a working plan, in 5 steps.
Set the plan as the baseline
The budgets, channels and flighting in your Medusa plan become the pacing target. No separate tracker to maintain.
Connect your platforms
OAuth into Meta, Google, TikTok, LinkedIn and DV360. Live spend, impressions and conversions flow in without CSV exports or screenshots.
Watch actual versus planned
Pacing refreshes daily and rolls up by channel, day or tactic, so you can see at a glance which lines are on track, ahead or behind.
Get flagged on drift
When a line starts over- or under-pacing, Medusa flags it immediately and quantifies the gap, rather than letting it surface in the end-of-month reconciliation.
Fix it with one click
Each alert comes with a suggested reallocation to recover by end of month. Approve it, adjust it, or dismiss it.
What pacing in Medusa gives you
Overspend and underspend alerts
Drift is flagged per line with the size of the gap and a suggested fix, so an under-delivering channel never quietly burns the flight.
One screen for every campaign
Agencies see pacing across the whole book of business in a single view - the account drifting today, not the one that drifted last month.
Channel, day and tactic granularity
Roll pacing up for the client summary or drill into a single tactic's daily delivery when something looks off.
Plan and pacing on one object
Because pacing reads directly from the plan, there is no version mismatch between what was promised and what is being tracked.
Illustrative demo data
Tactics by channelW1–16
Programmatic · DV360, Xandr
Video & CTV · YouTube, BVOD
Delivery against the plan, day by day.
Medusa pulls platform data every day and shows actual against planned, by channel, day or tactic.
- Spent to date
- $399K of $665K
- Pace
- 60%
- Planned to date
- 60%
Three channels are drifting more than 10 points from plan: DV360 18 behind, Meta 14 ahead, Google 21 ahead.
| Channel | Budget | Share of plan | Spent to date | Planned to date | Pace | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DV360, Programmatic | $185K | 28% | $77.7K | $111K | 42% | Drifting, 18 pts behind |
| YouTube, Video and CTV | $148K | 22% | $81.4K | $88.8K | 55% | 5 pts behind |
| Meta, Paid social | $136K | 20% | $101K | $81.6K | 74% | Drifting, 14 pts ahead |
| Google, Paid search | $111K | 17% | $89.9K | $66.6K | 81% | Drifting, 21 pts ahead |
| TikTok, Paid social | $60K | 9% | $37.2K | $36K | 62% | On plan |
| LinkedIn, Paid social, B2B | $25K | 4% | $12.5K | $15K | 50% | 10 pts behind |
| All six | $665K | 100% | $399K | $399K | 60% | Drifting: DV360 18 behind, Meta 14 ahead, Google 21 ahead |
Medusa versus a spreadsheet pacing tracker
| Dimension | Spreadsheet tracker | Medusa |
|---|---|---|
| Data entry | Manual exports pasted in from each platform, when someone remembers. | Pulled automatically from connected platforms, refreshed daily. |
| Drift detection | Spotted whenever someone opens the tracker and reads the numbers. | Flagged automatically the moment a line starts drifting. |
| The fix | A judgement call, argued over email. | A quantified reallocation suggestion attached to the alert. |
| Coverage | One tracker per client, each formatted differently. | Every client and campaign paced the same way, on one screen. |
FAQs
Related
What is campaign budget pacing?
Budget pacing is tracking how actual campaign spend and delivery compare with the plan over the flight. Good pacing catches overspend and underspend early enough to reallocate, rather than discovering the gap after the campaign ends.
How does Medusa detect overspend and underspend?
Medusa pulls live spend, impressions and conversions from each connected platform and compares them against the planned line, day by day. When actuals move ahead of or behind plan, the line is flagged with the size of the drift and a suggested reallocation.
How often does pacing data refresh?
Daily. Each refresh updates actual versus planned across every connected channel, so the view you defend in a client call is at most a day old rather than a month old.
Which ad platforms can I pace against?
Meta Ads, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, LinkedIn Ads and DV360 connect via OAuth today, with Amazon DSP coming soon. Connections are token-based and revocable at any time.
Can I still export pacing for client reporting?
The pacing view is built to be shown live, and the same actual-versus-planned data feeds Medusa's analytics, so reporting draws on the identical numbers rather than a re-keyed copy.
Your next media plan starts in five minutes.
Connect a platform, upload a brief, and watch Medusa do the bit you used to dread.
Brief, Personas, Allocation, Flighting, Pacing, Approval