What is media buying? And do you need a media buying agency?

Media buying meaning

"Media" is anywhere an ad can run: a website, a video, a podcast, a newspaper, a TV slot. Media buying is the job of getting your ads into the right ones at a good price. It covers:

• finding placements that reach the planned audience;
• negotiating price, dates and terms, or setting bids;
• booking the placements and sending the creative;
• checking the ads actually ran where and when agreed;
• reporting results and moving money to what works.

Media buying vs media planning

In a small business, one person does both. The order matters more than the titles: decide who you want to reach before you shop for space.

Programmatic vs direct buying

Programmatic buying uses software to buy ads, often impression by impression. Google's Display & Video 360 is one such tool: it lets teams plan campaigns, manage audiences and buy inventory from publishers and broadcasters, including through negotiated deals. Programmatic comes in grades:

• Programmatic guaranteed: negotiated with the publisher the same way as a preferred deal, but guaranteed, and delivered through the software.
• Preferred deals: in Google Ad Manager, a fixed price and a first look at the inventory, with no obligation for the buyer to take it.
• Private auction: invited buyers bid on one publisher's inventory.
• Open auction: any eligible buyer bids, view by view. Google notes that inventory a preferred-deal buyer passes on can move to private auctions or the open auction.

Direct buying is agreeing a placement and price with the publisher: this page, these dates, this price. The Google News Initiative describes direct as selling and fulfilling campaigns "without a third party", and reports that on average direct ads sell for two to four times the price of programmatic ones. The higher price buys certainty: you know the page, and the publisher knows the advertiser. The full comparison is in direct vs programmatic advertising.

What a media buying agency does

A media buying agency plans and buys media for clients. Typical work: building the plan, running programmatic platforms and ad accounts, negotiating with publishers and networks, sending the creative, checking delivery and reporting. Agencies that buy at volume bring relationships and buying power a single advertiser doesn't have.

How they're paid varies by agency and contract: a share of the media spend, a flat retainer or project fee, an hourly fee, a bonus tied to results, or a mix. Ask any agency to show its fee and the media cost separately, so you can see how much of the budget reached the publishers.

Agencies also buy through ad networks, which bundle many sites into one buy. Ask which sites and pages your ads actually ran on.

When you don't need an agency

• Your audience is specific. If you can name what your buyers search for, you can find the pages they read without a plan built for mass reach.
• Your budget is small. An agency's fee is easier to justify at scale than on a first test.
• You want to see every placement. Buying direct shows you the exact page and its traffic, not a report summarising thousands of sites.
• You want to learn what works. Running a few direct buys yourself teaches you which audiences convert before you hand anything over.

An agency earns its fee on national TV, large multichannel launches, or programmatic spend big enough to need daily management.

Direct media buying on AdSworn

AdSworn is direct buying, one page at a time. You describe what you sell, see the pages whose readers search for it, and book. Every listing shows its traffic read from Google Search Console and Google Analytics, and the Google searches that bring its readers, so the audience is checked before the money moves.

• Sponsored post: a briefing about you inside an existing article that ranks, labelled "Sponsored post" in the page's HTML, checked daily. Orders from $75 for 12 weeks or $150 a year; each page has its own price from its real traffic, at a starter rate of $20 per 1,000 page views over a year.
• Sponsored page: a whole new page about you on a site that ranks for what you sell, live at least 12 months, from $1,000.
• Sponsored video: your line and link on a YouTube video, from $25 per video.
• Nothing on top: advertisers pay the listed price. AdSworn takes 8% from the sale and the publisher keeps 92%. Payment is held until the ad is verified live, with a full refund if it never runs.

Straight answers

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