Media buying and planning, compared on published evidence

Agencies with a verified published price

How to buy media planning and buying with the money visible

1. Separate the plan from the buy in the proposal. Ask for planning to be quoted as its own deliverable with its own price, and buying to be quoted as a fee or commission against spend. Bundled into one figure they cannot be compared between agencies, and you cannot tell whether you are paying for thinking, for execution, or for a percentage of a budget you set yourself.
2. Ask how the agency is compensated on every channel. Flat fee, hourly, percentage of spend, publisher commission, or a marked up resale rate. Ask specifically about rebates, volume incentives and preferential rates from any platform or media owner, and require disclosure in the contract. The question is routine for firms that operate transparently and awkward for firms that do not.
3. Require post buy reconciliation, not just a plan. The plan says what should have run. Reconciliation shows what actually ran, at what rate, with what delivery shortfall and what make goods were issued. Ask to see a sample reconciliation report from a real campaign before signing, since firms that do this well produce it routinely and firms that do not will offer a dashboard instead.
4. Agree who owns the accounts, the data and the creative. Platform accounts set up under your own billing, historical performance data exportable at any time, and creative assets licensed to you rather than to the agency. Write it into the contract. A change of supplier should be an access change rather than a rebuild of everything you have paid for over the last two years.

What we record about the agencies here

Our index records what each firm publishes about itself, with the date checked: stated channels and service lines, published starting prices and minimum spends where they exist, disclosed minimum engagements, and named clients. Where nothing is published on price, we record the absence rather than estimating it, because an invented number would make this comparison less useful rather than more.

Media firms publish price less often than specialist digital shops, largely because their fee depends on the size of the budget being managed. That makes minimum spend the more informative published figure in this category. Where a firm states one, it is doing you a favour: it tells you in one line whether a conversation is worth booking.

Where cost hides in a media engagement

Three places, consistently. First, the gap between what the agency paid for inventory and what it charged you, which only exists in resale style arrangements and is invisible unless you ask for pass through pricing. Second, production and trafficking fees for creative versions, which are often quoted per asset and multiply quickly across formats. Third, verification, data and technology fees, frequently presented as optional and then quietly dropped when budgets tighten, which is precisely when inventory quality falls.

None of these are scandals on their own. They become problems when they are not disclosed, because you end up comparing one agency's transparent fee against another agency's fee plus an undisclosed margin and concluding the second is cheaper. Ask every candidate to state total cost as a share of your budget, including everything, and to confirm in writing that no other compensation reaches them from any media owner.

Judging whether the plan was any good

Set the measurement before the first insertion order. For response driven activity, agree what counts as an enquiry, track calls as well as forms, and require source level reporting rather than a blended total. For brand activity, agree in advance which measure you will accept, whether that is reach against a defined audience, prompted awareness from a survey, or search demand for your brand, and accept that it moves slowly.

Then hold the review at a date fixed in the contract, with the reconciliation report in front of you. The two questions worth asking are simple: did the media that ran match the media that was planned, and did the audience the plan named actually get reached. An agency that can answer both with evidence has earned the next quarter, and one that answers with a dashboard screenshot has not.

Questions people actually ask

Can we buy planning without buying the media through the same firm?

Yes, and it is a good discipline when you can afford it, because the planner has no financial interest in which channels are recommended. Expect to pay a real fee for the plan, since the firm loses the commission it would otherwise earn. Make sure the plan is detailed enough for another party to execute from.

Is percentage of spend a bad model?

It is common and workable, but it rewards larger budgets rather than better outcomes, so pair it with a cap or a step down at higher spend levels. If most of the work happens at setup and the campaign then runs steadily, a flat management fee usually serves you better and is easier to compare between firms.

What minimum budget do most media agencies accept?

It varies widely, and firms that publish a minimum spend save everyone a call. Where none is published, ask directly in your first email. It removes more names from a shortlist than any other question and the reply takes a line.

Who should own the creative produced for a campaign?

You should, with clear rights to the assets and to the underlying licences for stock, music and talent, including the term and territory. Talent and music licences expire, and discovering that after a campaign has been running for a year is an expensive surprise. Ask for the licence terms alongside the files.

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