What Is A Media Agency?

A media agency helps businesses execute and manage marketing plans to accomplish their goals. These agencies promote services and products, as well as run paid media campaigns aimed at increasing market share and brand awareness to generate more revenue. 

Before deciding to engage a media agency, it’s important to understand what they are, what exactly they offer, the different types of media agencies, and why you would want to hire one. 

You should also consider if it’s better to hire a media agency, or a creative agency. If you’re unsure of the differences you can click here to learn what is a creative agency and a media agency?

Media Agency Explained

A media agency is a company composed of advertising experts who know how to plan, place, and track the results of advertising campaigns across different mediums. Media outlets can include everything from traditional radio, print, and television formats to modern mediums, such as paid-search, email, and social media.

Media agencies typically help digital marketers determine how and where they should spend their advertising budget. You can learn more about this form of marketing by clicking here to discover some of the best digital marketing podcasts.

Also, media agencies offer information on where to buy advertisements, where to place those advertisements, and how much money to spend on each platform. They also help startup investors and digital marketers measure the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns they run.

Media agencies exist because they can offer expert and specialized advice about how to market products or services, and how to plan advertising campaigns that maximize their return on investment. A media agency acts as an extension of a business and as consultants or advisors that help a company market its products and services in the most efficient way possible. Media agencies employ a number of creative techniques to achieve their results, and this is exactly what helps to give them an edge. Click this link to learn more about the importance of being creative. 

Types Of Media Agencies

If you’re considering hiring a media agency, it’s essential to note that there are several different types. These include digital, traditional, and integrated media agencies, each of which specializes in different types of marketing.

Traditional media agencies focus primarily on more established advertising strategies, such as radio, television, and print advertising, while digital media agencies focus primarily on digital and online advertising. Integrated media agencies leverage both traditional and digital marketing strategies.

Traditional Media Agency

Traditional agencies specialize in established, non-digital marketing channels, such as newspapers, print, radio, television, and billboards that are not typically based on the Internet.

Traditional media agencies excel at local advertising approaches where businesses want to reach specific, targeted audiences through newspaper advertisements, direct mail, billboards, and other types of advertising channels that are aimed at a geographical area rather than a demographic audience.

Although many traditional media agencies have closed, downsized, or gone digital over the last few years, there is still a vast market for traditional media services. 

Digital Media Agency

Digital media agencies focus on the internet and digital-based advertising that market primarily through mobile devices and computers. 

Digital advertising strategies are popular because they offer more advanced targeting capabilities and have more sophisticated reporting and analytics capabilities than traditional advertising strategies. Digital advertising campaigns can target audience segments based on a wide range of data points, including their mobile device type, location, behavioral patterns, and even demographic information. 

Integrated Media Agency

Integrated media agencies are the most effective types of media agencies because they offer both digital and traditional advertising services.

Because integrated media agencies combine media planning and media buying services across both digital and traditional platforms, they have access to bigger data sets and larger budgets. This allows integrated media agencies to generate better insights on how to run effective advertising campaigns.

Integrated media agencies often work with clients with larger advertising budgets who want access to modern and sophisticated tools, research, and support systems, such as powerful analytics channels.

This gives integrated media agencies an edge over traditional media agencies and digital media agencies, allowing integrated media agencies to plan better, implement and manage their campaigns effectively than an agency that focuses only on one type of platform.

Benefits Of Working With A Media Agency 

A media agency can also handle sales phone calls. When you partner with a media agency, the agency becomes the point of contact for all media sales representatives so you’re not stuck on the phone talking over one-day deals and can focus on the more important matter of running a business.

By working with a media agency, you'll tap into their professional negotiation skills. An individual company might not have the buying power of a media agency. That’s because a media agency can leverage the cumulative marketing budgets of all their clients to the benefit of individual clients. This buying power can help your advertising campaigns get better positioning at a lower cost. Buying media ads in bulk is one of the best ways to make sure an advertising budget stretches as far as it can.

A media agency can provide an unbiased and fresh perspective on advertising goals. Most will have no bias toward a particular channel, which allows them to give arms-length advice based solely on advertising goals; which means they will do extensive research to get you what you need, when you need it, and at a price that you can afford.

Does Your Business Need A Media Agency?

The answer is quite simple. If you have a large advertising budget and are looking for cross-channel performance metrics and to maximize your return on investment—or you’re overwhelmed by all the marketing opportunities available in the market—it’s time to outsource your marketing efforts to a media agency. 

A media agency exists for one primary purpose—to generate a better return on advertising investments. That’s why a media agency is staffed with experts who focus on core services ranging from deciding where and when to run ad campaigns to providing analytics and reporting. They’ll also take care of other aspects of the advertising process that can make a substantial difference in the overall effectiveness of your campaign.