We work with a lot of Series B startups at Division of Labor. Often, we buy the media for the campaigns we create. And we get a fee for the service. Often we work with outside media companies and they get a fee for the service. But occasionally, clients choose to buy media themselves. Maybe to save some money. Maybe because they think it’s easy. And nearly every time, they regret it. 

So if you’re thinking of just having someone in your company reach out to sales reps, media companies, outdoor companies and digital networks to get some placements, please finish reading this first.

Make your ad agency buy your media

When companies come to us for strategic direction and creative campaigns but not media we always explain the benefits of having us handle the media:

• We’ve done it hundreds of times

• We know the market, locations, placements 

• We know the reps at all the companies

• We get better deals

• There are no screw ups, ever.

Many established companies have good internal media departments that have bought a ton of media and know what they’re doing as well as anyone. But series B startups are usually just beginning to invest in marketing and they do not have the personnel or the experience to handle a media buy.

And if you’ve never bought media, you don’t know what questions to ask when media reps are presenting options. You don’t know what to demand from them. And you, really, don’t even know what could go wrong. 

So what can go wrong?

We’ve seen our work end up in horrible media positions, near content you don’t want to be near. Especially outdoor. We’ve seen San Francisco locations that are barely in San Francisco and certainly not where our target exists.

We’ve seen airport postings placed in front of large windows so they’re heavily backlit and unreadable. We’ve had clients who expected their billboards to be up by a certain date when that date was, actually, just the target first day of a posting window.

And, often times, clients are buying media by themselves for specific events and if the posting window is missed, the buy is a total failure.

Saving money costs money.

We completely understand why a client would want to avoid paying an agency commission. If they can do it themselves, they save money, right? But they don’t. Because ad agencies, even small ad agencies, have multiple clients, so they can buy more media for less money. Plus we have relationships with reps so we can secure deals that a single buyer cannot. In the end, what a client doesn’t pay in commissions they pay in higher costs.

Now factor in the time and cost of screwing things up. Delivering your final files is difficult and time-consuming, even if you’ve done it hundreds of times. Delivery specs for each asset can be different. File formats vary across digital assets and posting instructions are never unified.

And dates, dates, dates. They all mean different things. The delivery date is not the posting date. The first extension is not the last extension. The date assets are requested is not the date they’re due. It’s enough to make my head spin just writing about it.

Finally, when the client buys the media, they dictate the communication strategy and that stops the agency from presenting ideas that might be better at reaching the target audience. Our media people have options you might not be aware of. Creatives get paid for ideas; stunts, activations, promotions, mobile ideas, digital platforms, all kinds of things you, perhaps, didn’t consider.

Bottom line, if you’re gonna work with an ad agency, get everything out of them you can. Take their thinking. Take their experience. We agency people are not very good at many things. But it’s worth your while to let us do the few things we know best. 

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The Small Agency Blog is produced by Division of Labor; a top San Francisco ad agency and digital marketing firm that’s been named Small Agency of the Year twice by Ad Age. The award-winning creative shop services clients on a retainer or project basis. They also offer brand consulting services and hourly engagements for startups and smaller brands. Click here for a free consultation.