Paid Media Is Not a Commodity

Somewhere along the way, “paid media” became a checkbox.

Agencies talk about it the same way they talk about creative, brand, or social. It sits neatly on the capabilities slide. It’s bundled into the retainer. It feels contained.

But paid media, especially programmatic, isn’t a channel. It’s infrastructure.

And infrastructure is complicated.

Most brands and full-service agencies whose resources are divided aren’t asking for ads.txt audits. They’re not reviewing sellers.json files. They don’t know those files exist. And they shouldn’t have to. A CMO or a creative and brand agency shouldn’t need to understand exchange mechanics any more than a homeowner needs to understand how municipal water pressure is regulated.

That’s the media partner’s job.

The challenge is that many agencies positioning themselves as “paid media” partners are relying heavily on third-party reseller environments to execute at scale. Not because they’re malicious. Because it’s efficient. It allows broad coverage without building deep supply relationships. It makes it possible to offer paid media as a service line without investing in the infrastructure literacy that comes with it.

Resellers are part of the ecosystem. They aggregate inventory. They simplify activation. They package complexity.

And candidly, we should probably thank them.

We earn meaningful business from agencies we partner with and brands that start there. Not because campaigns fail. Often performance looks strong. Dashboards behave. CPMs are efficient. The narrative works. But eventually, a brand grows. Budgets expand. Questions deepen. Someone asks a version of, “Can you walk us through exactly how this all works?”

That’s where specialization matters.

Because paid media is not just targeting and bidding. It’s supply chain governance. It’s knowing whether you’re buying directly from publishers or through layered intermediary pipes. It’s understanding what that means for cost structure, transparency, publisher economics, and increasingly, carbon footprint.

When agencies treat paid media as a generalized capability, it’s easy to default to reseller-heavy environments that abstract away the complexity. The pipes stay hidden. The economics stay bundled. The distinction between direct and intermediary blurs.

For many brands, that’s fine until it isn’t.

The point isn’t that resellers are bad. They serve a function. They create efficiency. They provide scale.

The point is that opacity should never be the default.

If you’re going to call yourself a paid media agency, the standard should be higher than activating inventory and optimizing performance. It should include the discipline to inspect the supply chain behind the results. To understand ads.txt and sellers.json relationships. To explain why certain intermediaries are present and whether a direct path exists.

Brands and creative agencies don’t ask for that because they don’t know to ask.

That’s precisely why specialization matters.

Paid media isn’t just distribution. It’s stewardship. And stewardship requires more than a dashboard. It requires someone in the room who understands the pipes even when no one else knows they’re there.

All of this to say that if you’re an agency or brand leader who wants real media strategy behind your spend, we’re here to help. We’ll make sure your investments aren’t just performing - they’re structured the right way.