Principal media: when agencies buy ad inventory for themselves and resell it to clients
· 31m ago · Originally reported by PPC Land
The piece explains the principal media model, in which an agency purchases media inventory on its own account rather than as an agent, then resells it to clients at a price that is not disclosed. This shifts the agency from an advisory role to that of a reseller with a direct financial stake in the inventory.
Why it matters
The model blurs the line between trusted advisor and vendor, raising transparency questions about how much clients pay versus what the agency paid.
Explain it like I’m new here
It's like your shopping helper buying the gift first and selling it to you at a secret markup instead of just telling you the price.
Terms in this story
Principal-based buying
Principal-based buying is when an agency buys media for its own account and resells it to clients at a price it sets, instead of buying at cost as the client's agent.
Ad inventory
Ad inventory is the total amount of advertising space a publisher has available to sell, usually counted in impressions across its ad slots, pages, apps or screens.
Agency
An agency is a company that plans, buys, creates or manages advertising on behalf of advertisers, in exchange for fees, commissions or a margin on the media it buys.
Reseller
A reseller is a company authorised to sell a publisher's ad inventory through an ad system account that it controls, rather than the publisher's own account, and labelled RESELLER in ads.txt.
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