When Media Match Maker reached out, the ask was pretty specific: help them spend less time creating media plans. They're a video advertising agency that specializes in campaign strategy and execution, and a big chunk of their pre-sales work involved putting together detailed media plans for potential clients. The problem was that the whole process was almost entirely manual - and it was eating into time that should have been spent on actual sales conversations.
This is one of those cases where the solution wasn't about replacing what they had. It was about building on top of it.
What Their Process Actually Looked Like
Media Match Maker's media plan creation had about five steps, and almost all of them required someone to do things by hand:
- Create a spreadsheet for a specific project.
- Manually input advertising cost data for every ad format and country.
- Format everything correctly.
- Prepare the data for upload to a static HTML page.
- Add the data to the site, review it, and publish.
Each plan took way too long. And beyond the time cost, the end result had real limitations:
- Static output. The published plans were HTML pages that couldn't be updated without a technical person stepping in. Any client request for an adjustment meant going back to the spreadsheet and rebuilding.
- No multi-currency support. International campaigns required manual currency conversions with exchange rates fixed at creation time - potentially weeks out of date by the time a campaign actually launched.
- No visualization. Plans showed numbers but couldn't show where ads would actually appear, making it harder for clients to understand the strategy.
- No room to grow. Everything was built around spreadsheets and CSVs. Adding new features or capabilities on top of that wasn't realistic.
Put together, these limitations affected more than just efficiency. They limited the kind of sales conversations Media Match Maker could have. Instead of walking a client through a dynamic, visual media plan, they were sharing static pages and talking through spreadsheet data.
Understanding What They Actually Needed
started by interviewing Michael, their COO, to understand the full process end to end. And honestly, one thing caught me off guard - an agency of their caliber was copy-pasting data from spreadsheets to build static HTML pages. That was the client-facing deliverable. Static HTML. For a video advertising agency selling campaign strategy.
Once I understood the full picture, a few things became clear:
- The biggest problem wasn't just the time it took. It was what the client saw at the end. A static HTML page doesn't let a sales person adjust anything during a call. Compare that to a clean, branded interface where you can change countries, currencies, and ad formats while the client is watching - that's a completely different conversation.
- They needed multi-currency support with the ability to set custom CPMs per client, and a way to choose from pre-set countries without manually looking up rates every time.
- They also had sitelists - lists of websites where client ads would run - that existed only as CSV data. No visuals, no way for a client to actually see what those sites looked like. The team wondered if it was possible to turn those CSVs into something more visual and interactive. That turned out to be one of the most interesting parts of the build (more on that below).
Media Match Maker was already using Airtable as part of their tech stack, which turned out to be a big advantage. It meant I could build on something the team already knew instead of introducing an entirely new system.
The Solution
Rather than introducing new systems, I built the solution on top of three tools - Airtable for data and input, Softr for the client-facing presentation, and Make for the automations connecting everything together. Each one handled a different layer of the problem.
Airtable as the foundation. Since the team already knew Airtable, I built custom interfaces that simplified data input while keeping the flexibility they needed. No spreadsheets - just clean, structured pages where anyone on the team could enter campaign data without worrying about formatting or formulas.
Softr for the client-facing side. Softr automatically generates branded media plan pages from the Airtable data. Each plan maintains consistent visual standards while adapting to the specific campaign parameters. And here's the part the team liked most - you don't need to visit Softr at all. Once a media plan record exists in Airtable, a formula auto-generates the shareable link. The person creating the plan can share it with a client the moment they finish entering the data.
Make for the extra functionality. I could have stopped at Airtable and Softr and it would have been a solid improvement. But the more I talked with the team, the more features surfaced that would make the whole system significantly more useful. So I added:
- Real-time currency conversions through an API - no more manual rate checking or outdated budgets
- Automatic pulling of Hubspot deal data so the sales person doesn't need to switch between tools
- Support for multiple ad formats and pricing structures in one place
- Automated budget and results calculations in various currencies
- Custom pricing adjustments for specific clients
And then there was the sitelist feature, which deserves its own mention. The team showed me how they handled sitelists - basically CSV files with website names and URLs. No visuals, nothing a client could browse through. They asked if there was a way to make that data look better.
I figured out a way to automatically download featured images from each website in the CSV, generate individual site records with previews, and organize them into categorized, interactive dashboards on Softr. So instead of a client staring at a spreadsheet of URLs, they could actually see the sites where their ads would appear - with images, categories, and an internal scoring system. If you tried to do that manually for several hundred websites, you'd easily spend hours just on the image downloads alone. With this setup, you upload a CSV, wait for processing, and assign the sitelist to a media plan. Done.
One thing worth mentioning - the system ended up serving two purposes I didn't fully plan for at the start. The same Airtable data feeds both client-facing Softr presentations and internal planning views for team discussions. With the old system, that would have meant publishing two separate sites or falling back to spreadsheets. And I think that list of automations will keep growing - one of the biggest benefits of building this way is how easy it is to add new features on top of what already works.
How the Project Came Together
The project didn't start with a full spec. It grew step by step, which I think worked well for this kind of build.
Discovery. The first phase was about understanding not just the technical requirements but how different team members would actually use the system day to day. A tool that only the technical people can operate defeats the purpose if your sales team needs to generate plans independently.
Core build. I set up the connection between Airtable and Softr first and made sure data flowed correctly and consistently. Getting this foundation solid mattered more than adding features early.
Adding features as they proved valuable. Some of the best additions came out of testing and conversations during the build, not from the original brief. The ability to show actual ad placement examples alongside metrics, the one-click CSV-to-Softr-page feature, the Hubspot integration - all of these emerged because I kept the conversation open about what would actually help the team.
Results
Here's what changed compared to their old process:
- From 1-2 hours to about 10-15 minutes. That's the full process - creating the plan, choosing countries and formats, entering CPMs, uploading sitelists. Each plan gets its own unique URL the moment the data is in Airtable.
- Non-technical team members can generate plans on their own, without waiting for someone technical to step in.
- Real-time adjustments during client meetings. Different country, different currency, different CPMs - all while the client is looking at the same page.
- Consistent branding across all materials, automatically.
- Multi-currency built in. Client-facing plans display in the client's currency with rates that update automatically, while internal calculations stay in EUR.
Something I didn't fully expect: two other agencies in the same space reached out after seeing Media Match Maker's setup. They want something similar built for their teams. That's probably the best validation a project like this can get.
We collaborated with Jacek to develop a media plan generator for MediaMatchMaker, using Airtable and Softr as the foundation. Working with him was an absolute pleasure. His technical expertise and deep understanding of the tools were evident from the start.
He was highly responsive, efficient in communication, and always quick to grasp our needs and translate them into practical solutions.
The entire process was smooth and productive, and we’re extremely happy with the results. We highly recommend working with Jacek!
What I'd Approach Differently
Looking back, the project went well - but there are a couple of things I'd think about doing differently in a similar situation.
I'd push for a more structured discovery phase at the start. I figured out a lot of the best features during the build, which worked out fine, but a more thorough upfront mapping of all team members' workflows might have surfaced some of those ideas earlier and saved a round or two of iteration.
I'd also spend more time on documentation from day one. When you build a system that non-technical people need to use independently, having clear step-by-step guides for each workflow matters. I handled it, but earlier attention to this would have made the handover smoother.