Media-buying software: Ad agencies’ secret growth weapon

Advertising agencies are scrambling for relevance and survival. The 2025 headlines about WPP’s struggling fortunes have brought into focus the need to tighten belts and, perhaps even more importantly, to modernize.

Increasingly savvy clients want more control and transparency around how they are spending their budgets, with many contemplating whether they could run their own advertising operations. Meanwhile, advertising agencies are discovering that killer creative is no longer the save-all benefit it once was. If it's not underpinned by an efficient way of proactively monitoring campaigns, non-working media will still consume client spend.

There is a clear way out of this pinch point. It involves offering clients a new kind of agency partnership built on value, transparency and differentiation. Counterintuitively, this can all be delivered without expensive armies of headcount.

How to grow advertiser relationships using technology

An agency can deliver this new partnership to brands by augmenting their adtech stack with media-buying and planning software. Turning to market-leading adtech solutions doesn’t just give agencies a way of improving the cost structure for client brands, or doing more with less. It can allow agencies to lift the lid on what clients see as a black box of budget-eating costs.

Instead of clients querying how campaigns are being managed and optimized, agencies can give those clients direct access to their media-buying and planning software, so they can gain visibility of the ad-buying operation right down to the line item. The best part? This tech-enabled approach allows agencies to provide visibility without relinquishing control of the advertising operation and client’s account.

It’s great news for agencies living in fear of those dreaded words: “in house” – one of the client trends that has hit WPP hard this year. But even if clients do start taking on more ad ops themselves, advertising agencies can still keep their foot in the door by offering tech that a brand can use with the agency’s guidance and support. For example, the brand might want to start managing social activation, which the agency can facilitate through its media-buying and planning software. Meanwhile the agency continues providing strategic and creative expertise across the rest of the client’s account.

This kind of partnership allows agencies to flexibly meet clients’ evolving needs. And even if the advertising operation becomes distributed across client and agency borders, agencies can still keep it together. They just need the right media-buying software by their side.

Consolidated media-buying software helps relationships evolve

Many agencies have already started thinking about what the shifting advertising landscape means for their tech stack. Others have far less perspective.

‍As I’ve argued previously, a large cohort of agencies today don’t have a tech stack to speak of. So if they wanted to share their advertising operation with brands, they’d have to corral spreadsheets or present a patchwork of point solutions.

This is why a consolidated media-buying and planning solution is more than beneficial for many advertising agencies. It’s essential to meet brands’ evolving demands. The right solution means advertisers no longer have to take on the role of hapless sheepdog, trying in vain to herd campaign insights and data points from across their vast field of ad servers and campaign management interfaces.

An operating system for media-buying drives agencies’ day-to-day efficiency and productivity by streamlining all the admin, while bridging systems and preventing leapfrogging. Bigger picture, it opens up a totally new business opportunity.

A new pitch: expertise and cutting-edge technology

As agencies increasingly win and lose RFPs based on the sophistication of their tech stack, leveraging media-buying software as part of a go-to-market strategy can help win new clients. The agency can pitch expertise plus cutting-edge technology that enables superior management, optimization, speed to activation, and data integrity, so brands have a better handle on their overall campaigns.

This approach also helps increase the ROI of agencies’ tech investments. Rather than a niche tool, the media-buying platform becomes an invaluable business-wide investment that helps secure the agency’s longevity in a precarious climate. At this make-or-break time for advertising agencies, a complete solution for media planning, buying, optimization, and financial reconciliation is a foundation on which to build a modern agency and develop new, more profitable partnerships with brands.

‍Get in touch with the Placements.io team to find out how we can help elevate your agency’s tech stack, while giving you a compelling tech story to tell clients.

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