Understanding the Hive9 hierarchy: Plans, Campaigns, Programs, Tactics, Line Items

Short Description Hive9 organizes marketing work in a five-level hierarchy. This article explains what each level is for and how they relate.

What this article answers

The five levels and what each represents.
How costs and performance flow up the hierarchy.
Where Line Items fit in.

The five levels

Level	Typical use
Plan	Annual or multi-year marketing plan for a business unit, region, or product line
Campaign	A coordinated push (product launch, seasonal campaign, ABM motion) within a Plan
Program	A specific initiative within a Campaign (webinar series, ad campaign, content track)
Tactic	An individual activity within a Program (one webinar, one ad set, one piece of content)
Line Item	A cost component of a Tactic (allocated by time period or category)

Your organization may use slightly different terminology — Hive9 admins can rename the levels (singular and plural). Ask your admin if your instance uses different names.

How the levels nest

Each Plan contains one or more Campaigns. Each Campaign contains one or more Programs. Each Program contains one or more Tactics. Each Tactic has one or more Line Items.

You don't have to use every level — some teams plan at the Tactic level under a single "Default" Campaign and Program. The hierarchy supports your structure, not the other way around.

How costs and performance roll up

Numeric values entered at lower levels roll up automatically:

Line Item totals sum to their parent Tactic's Planned Cost.
Tactic Planned Costs sum to their parent Program's total.
And so on up to the Plan level.

The same applies to performance metrics — responses, MQLs, deals, pipeline — and to many custom attributes. See How does Hive9 calculate roll-up across the hierarchy? for details.

Where Line Items differ

Line Items are different from Plan/Campaign/Program/Tactic in two ways:

They're attached to one Tactic — they don't have their own children.
They split a Tactic's cost across time periods or categories, depending on the allocation method (Custom, First, Last, or Evenly).

You'll use Line Items when you need to:

Spread a Tactic's cost over multiple months.
Tie costs to specific Finance Budget lines.
Track partial payments or accruals against a Tactic.

See How do Line Items work? for the allocation mechanisms.

Practical example

A B2B software company's Q3 plan might look like:

Plan — "FY26 North America Marketing Plan"
Campaign — "Q3 Product X Launch"
Program — "Q3 Product X Digital Ads"
Tactic — "LinkedIn Sponsored Posts — Product X"
Line Items — Jul: $10K, Aug: $15K, Sep: $15K

The Tactic's total Planned Cost is $40K (sum of Line Items). That rolls up to the Program, Campaign, and Plan totals.

Common questions

Can I skip a level — for example, have a Tactic directly under a Plan? The hierarchy requires intermediate levels. Some teams create a single "Default Campaign" and "Default Program" placeholder when they want a flatter structure operationally.

Can a Tactic belong to multiple Programs? No — each Tactic has one parent Program. If you need a tactic to count in multiple contexts, see How do I relate tactics and plans together?

How many years can a plan span? Up to 10 years. See How do I work with multi-year tactics? for details.