Where yourmedia moneyactually goes.
Programmatic, social, search, broadcast, and direct, audited independently of the agency running it. We find the waste, the intermediaries, and the overstated credit, then build the plan to replace them with performance.
Agency reporting measures activity. You need to know what the spend did for the business.
A programmatic dollar passes through the agency, a demand-side platform, data partners, one or more exchanges, and sometimes a reseller before it reaches a publisher. Each layer takes a fee. In a recent review we found 53 supply-side platforms routing the same inventory to one advertiser. Nobody at the brand had chosen that.
Attribution compounds the problem. First-touch and platform-reported models routinely overstate what paid media delivered, which drives budgets toward channels that look good in the deck and away from the ones that grow the business.
We audit the whole chain from log-level data and contracts, not from agency decks, and we translate every finding into a dollar figure and an owner.
Supply path & intermediary audit
Log-level analysis of where impressions are bought, through which platforms, at what fee. We identify resellers and duplicated paths adding cost without value and design the curated supply the brand should run instead.
- Log-level supply path mapping
- Platform, data, and technology fee analysis
- Reseller and intermediary identification
- Curated supply and PMP design
- Direct publisher and data partnerships
Attribution & measurement review
We test the attribution model against reality: multi-touch, incrementality where the data allows, and reconciliation across platforms that do not agree with each other. Then we set up a single source of truth.
- Attribution model audit
- Cross-platform reconciliation
- Incrementality and holdout design
- Measurement stack recommendation
- KPI framework tied to business outcomes
Performance & investment reallocation
Channel by channel: what is working, what is saturated, where creative fatigue is dragging efficiency, and where the next dollar should go. Brand versus performance balance against the category’s demand drivers.
- Channel efficiency and saturation analysis
- Creative rotation and frequency review
- Brand and performance balance
- Competitive media benchmarking
- 12-month investment roadmap
Contract & agency terms
Audit rights, log-level data ownership, fee transparency, and rebate clarity written into the agency and platform agreements so the findings stick and the audit does not need repeating in two years.
- Data ownership clause
- Fee and rebate transparency
- Audit rights
- Trading desk and tech fee terms
- Governance cadence
Access and data
Platform seats, log files, contracts, invoices, and plans. Two weeks to a complete picture.
Findings
Ten or so findings, each with a dollar value, evidence, and an owner. Presented to leadership and, where useful, to the agency.
Roadmap
A sequenced 12-month plan: supply, measurement, mix, partners, contracts. Decisions the business needs to make, listed.
Delivery
We run the changes with the agency and platforms and track recovered value monthly.
A $30M programmatic program, sharpened.
A fast-growing B2B software company had scaled programmatic from a $20K pilot to roughly $30M a year. The spend was working. The question was where money was going that it shouldn't.
$4.5M+
Annual efficiency recoverable, no new budget
Straight answers.
Do we need to change agencies to do this?
No. Most audits end with the incumbent agency operating under better terms and a clearer mandate. Replacing the agency is a last resort and a separate decision.
What data do you need?
Platform seat access or log-level exports, the agency and platform contracts, twelve months of invoices, and the media plans. If log-level data is not available, that is itself a finding.
How long does a media audit take?
Four to six weeks for a single-market program, eight to ten for a multi-market or multi-agency one.
Will the agency cooperate?
Almost always, when the audit is positioned as governance rather than blame and the client asks clearly. Agencies that resist transparency are telling you something.
Tell us the size of the media budget.
We’ll tell you in fifteen minutes whether an audit is likely to pay for itself several times over. It usually is.