campaign-planner-slider

Digital Control

Your Campaigns at your Fingertips

End-to-End Campaign Management – Integrated into the world’s marketing ecosystem

The Paid-Media Ecosystem for Planning, Activation and Reporting

Digital Control's Paid Media Ecosystem: Media Desk for Paid Media Execution, Intelligence Qube for Reporting & Analysis and Finance Desk for Billing & Controlling, working together

For media planners All campaigns, channels and clients in one workflow — from briefing and booking to pacing and reporting. No system switches, no parallel tracking.

For management & C-level Live KPIs and budget overviews without waiting on agency reports — all spend, all channels, available anytime.

For finance & controlling Invoice reconciliation based on the media plan, e-invoicing (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung) and automated ERP handover — DATEV, SAP, Salesforce, Aprimo.

For clients & stakeholders Transparent dashboards and audit-proof documentation of every plan version — available anytime, without manual preparation.

Trust you can measure — since 2011.

ISO 27001 certified. Over 1,000 active users. The leading solution for cross-channel advertising — confirmed by current OMR Reviews.

15+years of
market presence

1,000+active
users

26%freed
resources

ISO
27001certified

Recognised on OMR Reviews

Current OMR Reviews confirm: Media Desk is the leading solution for cross-channel advertising — Top Rated and Leader in Q1 and Q2/26, rated by verified users from media agencies and in-house teams.

OMR Reviews — Media Desk Top Rated Q1/26

For agencies, advertisers and in-house teams

Digital Control adapts to the structure of your organisation — as a media agency with multiple mandates, as an advertiser with your own media budget, or in a hybrid in-house model.

Media agencies

All mandates, all channels — one system

A multi-client platform with a central media database, agency-wide benchmarking and a consistent workflow from briefing to final reporting.

Solution for agencies →

Advertisers

Full transparency over your media spend

See budgets, prices and performance across all agencies — independent of agency reporting. Your data stays permanently in-house.

Solution for advertisers →

Media Inhousing

A structured path to your own media team

A step-by-step takeover of planning and booking — with the platform, training and a clear rollout model. The agency remains a strategic partner.

Discover Media Inhousing →

Retail Media

Manage retail media campaigns professionally

Plan, book and report on retail media activities using the same workflows as every other channel — integrated into the existing media plan.

Discover Retail Media →

Three products, one ecosystem

Digital Control’s Campaign Management Platform consists of three natively connected products — usable individually or as a fully integrated ecosystem.

Media planning and activation at its best: Automates the majority of process steps in the value chain from planning, buying to reporting. Supports decisions and negotiations algorithmically, eliminates manual sources of error.

Collects, aggregates and normalizes data from all advertising media, marketing and tracking systems. Analysis and optimization in a central data hub. Basis for all machine learning and modelling. Saves several man-days for reporting.

Optimizes accounting and controlling with a focus on operational finance processes. Automates job management, invoicing and document entry. Seamless API integration with tools such as Media Desk, SAP, DATEV, Salesforce and more.

Conventional media planning

Strategy

15%

Consulting

27%

Act. Briefing

Planning

19%

Buying

Reporting

15%

Optimisation

12%

With the Paid-Media Ecosystem

Strategy

15%±0

Consulting

27%±0

Act. Briefing

2%−2%

Planning

12%−7%

Buying

3%−5%

Reporting

11%−4%

Optimisation

4%−8%

▲ Total freed resources: 26% ≈ 40 hrs/month

Remaining effort

Saved by the ecosystem

* Illustrative model calculation to demonstrate the relief effect. Actual working-time distribution varies by agency size, channel mix and individual setup. Strategy and consulting work remain unchanged — only operational effort is reduced.

No more spreadsheets — as a measurable competitive advantage

Operational tasks that create manual effort or require maintenance-heavy interfaces between standalone systems arise across the entire media planning process chain. Digital Control eliminates these tasks — planners spend more time on strategy and client consulting, less on booking routines and spreadsheet upkeep. The media budget managed per person rises significantly: a concrete advantage in your next fee negotiation.

Additional cost savings arise from better negotiation outcomes thanks to a complete deal database and significantly reduced error rates in operational execution. The ISO 27001 certified infrastructure ensures that media plans, purchase prices and client data are processed to the highest security standards.

No Bullshit — Guaranteed

No empty promises. Digital Control is used by over 1,000 active users who manage nine-figure media budgets through it every day. Getting things done, without monkey work.

Overview: savings potential through Digital Control in media planning

What this means for your team

Calculate your time savings

26% freed resources is the average figure from our client projects. What this means for your specific team size and task split, you can calculate right here: adjust the sliders and see instantly how many hours per month are freed up for strategy, consulting and client relationships.

Savings Calculator

How much time will you win back?

How do the working days of one employee break down per month?

Media Planning5 days

Planning · Booking & buying · Briefing · Plan & spreadsheet upkeep

Reporting3 days

Reporting · Data prep & integration · Optimisation · Dashboards

Financial2 days

Invoice capture · Invoice verification & reconciliation · Billing

Together ≈ 10 of 20 working days per employee.

Time each employee
wins back per month

≈ 42 h

≈ 5 working days per month

This time flows back into strategy, consulting and client relationships.

Handled by the products

Media Desk ≈ 23 h Intelligence Qube ≈ 12 h Finance Desk ≈ 7 h

Across your team

For a team of employees at € per hour:

Across the team (10 employees)

≈ 420 h / month

Financial equivalent

≈ 25.200 € / month

≈ €302,400 / year

Illustrative model calculation based on average values from our clients (20 working days or 160 hours per employee per month; 1 working day = 8 hrs). Strategy, consulting and client contact remain untouched — only manual routine is freed up. Media Desk takes on the largest share.

Curious what the savings path looks like for your organisation? Request a live demo →

What makes Digital Control unique

AI-powered media planning

Plan IQ bundles the planning and performance knowledge of your entire campaign history into an AI agent. Smart placements, price benchmarks and what-if analyses — straight from your data, across channels, in minutes instead of hours. Available from Q3 2026.

Real performance analysis

Intelligence Qube connects all data sources — walled gardens, ad servers, tracking, brand safety — and turns raw data into real performance analysis: identify efficiency gaps, optimise budgets, make data-driven decisions. Connects to Looker Studio, Power BI and your own BI systems.

Digital finance processes

Finance Desk closes the gap between media planning and accounting: e-invoices, OCR document capture and automated payables reconciliation. DATEV and SAP interfaces included — no manual transfers.

Get free consultation

Ready to go in four weeks: the structured rollout process

Analysis

We understand your processes before we start — system landscape, roles, use cases and roadmap are worked out together.

Requirements analysis Roles & rights Roadmap

Setup

Technical setup, all integrations to ad servers, DSPs and finance systems — supported by power-user training and go-live.

Ad servers & DSPs Finance integration Going live

Rollout

Ongoing requirements management, feature expansion and individual customisation — as you grow, Digital Control grows with you.

Ongoing support Feature expansion Customisation

What you can do with Digital Control

Plan across channels Display, video, social, programmatic, TV, print, OOH and retail media — all channels in one plan, with a consolidated budget overview.

Plan with your own actuals CTR, CPM, viewability and conversion from completed campaigns remain in the system as a planning basis — no industry averages.

Manage approvals and versions Multi-stage approval workflows, audit-proof versioning — stakeholders are notified automatically as soon as action is needed from them.

Ad management at the push of a button API push into Adform, Adition, Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn and other DSPs — bookings, optimisations and cancellations directly from the system.

Monitor pacing in real time Delivery of every placement tracked against the media plan — media planners are notified automatically when there’s a deviation.

Connect all your data sources Google, Meta, LinkedIn, Amazon DSP, TikTok, tracking and brand-safety tools — harmonised, connectable to Looker Studio or Power BI.

Fully digitise finance processes E-invoicing (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung), OCR document capture, automated payables reconciliation — DATEV and SAP interfaces included.

Invoice reconciliation between Media Desk and Finance Desk Incoming invoices are automatically reconciled against the media plan — discrepancies visible immediately, no manual comparison.

See it live

Conventional media planning vs. Digital Control compared

Criterion	Without Digital Control	With Digital Control
Planning	Spreadsheets, manual upkeep, high error rate, no version control	Fully digital planning with audit-proof version management — approval workflows controllable directly in the system.
Bookings	Email or fax, no automatic confirmation	One-click directly from the system — all booking orders generated and sent, status log and mail log documented centrally.
Ad management	Manual booking into ad servers and DSPs — time-consuming and error-prone	API push directly into ad servers and DSPs — bookings, optimisations and cancellations at the push of a button.
Pacing control	No central overview — manual review by media planners required	Real-time pacing overview of all placements — media planners are notified automatically of any deviation.
Budget overview	Manually compiled, often outdated	Live — available anytime to all stakeholders, including publisher commitments and discount agreements.
Invoice reconciliation	Manually match publisher invoices, actual-vs-plan comparison in separate spreadsheets	Incoming invoices are automatically reconciled against the media plan — discrepancies visible immediately. Quotes and order confirmations can be generated directly from the plan.
Reporting	Manually consolidated across several systems, delayed	All campaign data from Media Desk is instantly available system-wide — live KPIs like ROI and CPC available anytime, without manual consolidation.
Data ownership	Data scattered across tool silos — hard to aggregate, often not portable	Data guarantee: all campaign data, prices and analyses remain permanently yours — fully exportable, forever.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions about Digital Control

What is Digital Control’s Paid-Media Ecosystem?

Digital Control’s Paid-Media Ecosystem is an integrated platform that brings together media planning, activation, data analysis and financial processing in one system. It consists of three natively connected products — Media Desk, Intelligence Qube and Finance Desk — and covers the entire paid media value chain: from the first briefing through booking, ad management and live reporting to automated invoice reconciliation. The company has been developing this platform for professional media organisations since 2011.

What tasks does the ecosystem cover specifically?

The platform maps all operational steps of paid media work: cross-channel media planning using your own actuals as a planning basis, structured briefings with versioning and multi-stage approvals, automated booking orders to publishers, one-click ad management via API push into ad servers and DSPs, real-time pacing with automatic notifications, publisher commitments and discount agreements managed centrally, live reporting, and e-invoicing (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung), OCR document capture and interfaces to DATEV, SAP, Salesforce and Aprimo.

Which channels and media types can be planned?

The platform covers all relevant paid media channels in one unified system: digital IO (display, video, audio, native), programmatic advertising with DSP connections, social media advertising (Google, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok), retail media, and classic media such as print, TV, out-of-home and radio. All channels are managed in parallel within the media plan — with a consolidated budget overview and cross-channel reporting.

Which products are part of the Paid-Media Ecosystem?

The Campaign Management Platform consists of three natively connected products: Media Desk is the end-to-end tool for planning, booking and ad management. Intelligence Qube is the ecosystem’s performance system — it harmonises all data sources and provides the basis for data-driven decisions, far beyond classic reporting. Finance Desk automates finance processes including e-invoicing (ZUGFeRD, XRechnung), from document capture to the outgoing invoice. The products can be used individually or as an integrated ecosystem.

How does the ecosystem integrate into an existing system landscape?

The platform has an extensive proprietary API and native interfaces to ad servers (Adform, Adition, Google Ad Manager), DSPs, walled gardens (Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, Amazon DSP, TikTok), tracking and brand-safety tools, and to finance and CRM systems such as DATEV, SAP, Salesforce and Aprimo. The data-share function lets you pass data to Looker Studio, Power BI or your own BI systems. If an API interface is missing, the platform works with email import, file upload or FTP.

What does the ecosystem deliver in practice — and what changes in day-to-day work?

The biggest lever is eliminating duplicate work. Data is created once and available everywhere — for planning, booking, reporting and finance. On average, users free up 26% of their operational resources, equivalent to around 40 hours per month per employee. The biggest savings arise in planning (from 19% to 12% of working time), buying (from 8% to 3%) and reporting (from 15% to 11%). This time flows into strategy, consulting and negotiations — and shows up directly in campaign quality. For an individual estimate, this page includes an interactive savings calculator that lets you calculate the freed-up hours for your own team size and task split.

How is the ecosystem used — and which organisations is it suited for?

The ecosystem is used for different purposes. Media agencies use it to manage all mandates, channels and campaigns in one system. Advertisers use it to gain full transparency over their media spend — independent of agency reporting. In-house teams use the platform to gradually take over media planning themselves, while external agencies remain strategic partners. Hybrid models and retail media setups can also be mapped via the rights and roles concept. The rollout follows a structured three-stage model and is straightforward and low-effort for a typical team.

Is Digital Control an established and secure solution?

Digital Control has been on the market since 2011 and is ISO 27001 certified. Over 1,000 active users manage nine-figure media budgets annually with the platform. Current OMR Reviews confirm Media Desk as the leading solution for cross-channel advertising. The platform is GDPR-compliant and supports e-invoicing formats under EN 16931.

What our clients say

Slide

Das sagen unsere Kunden - Sven Stuehmeier

VODAFONE

„Automation, Transparenz und Kontrolle sind bei einem Inhousing-Prozess ein kritischer Erfolgsfaktor. Dank Media Desk von Digital Control können wir die gesamte Paid-Media-Wertschöpfungskette initiieren, beobachten, analysieren, kontrollieren und steuern.“

Sven Stühmeier

Team Leader Digital Communication & Technology Vodafone GmbH

Slide

EMBRACE Agency

„Die Implementierung von Media Desk hat vor allem unsere Agenturprozesse im Bereich Paid Media effizienter gestaltet. Durch die Automatisierung von Datenerfassung, Kampagnenüberwachung und Reportgenerierung sparen wir Zeit, senken Kosten und verbessern die Analysepräzision. Mit unserem unternehmensübergreifenden Fokus auf HR Tech ist dieses Tool ein weiterer Meilenstein für unsere Agentur.“

Manuela Ebbes-Barr

CEO EMBRACE Agency