☕️ The Hidden Fees No One Mentions in Media Plans
A veteran’s guide to spotting the markup before it bites your budget
In 40 years of agency life, one rule has never changed: if you don’t know how your money moves, someone else may be profiting from your blind spot.
For small advertisers, “media transparency” can feel like a buzzword reserved for global brands with auditors and procurement teams. But the questions that keep the big players honest are the same ones small businesses should be asking, just simpler, sharper, and more human.
🧾 1. Ask for markup visibility, not mystery
You’re not asking to see the agency’s lunch receipts, just what’s baked into the buy.
Every media dollar can be split three ways:
Working media — what dollars actually go towards impressions.
Non-working costs — fees, tech, data, creative support.
Hidden markups (or undisclosed discounts) — platform credits, volume rebates, barter deals.
Good partners will explain how those pieces interact. If they can’t, that’s your first signal.
💬 2. Ask for the actual flight log
You’d be amazed how often “the campaign ran as planned” really means “we adjusted it halfway through and didn’t tell you.”
Request the platform delivery report, straight from the ad system, not a reformatted PDF. Look for:
Start and end dates per channel
Actual spend vs. planned
Any budget reallocation notes
If you’re paying for agility, you deserve visibility.
🎯 3. Ask who controls the switches
If your agency holds the ad accounts, you’re renting visibility. If you hold them, you own your data.
For small teams, a shared-access model works best:
Agency builds and manages
You keep admin control
That way, your data history travels with you, not with your agency, should you part ways.
🧠 4. Ask what was optimized, and why
Transparency isn’t just about dollars, it’s about decisions.
When someone says “we optimized for performance,” ask:
“Which variable, on what date, and what changed because of it?”
A partner confident in their strategy will love that question. It turns vague success claims into teachable moments.
🧩 5. Ask for learning continuity
Even small advertisers deserve institutional memory.
Each campaign should leave behind:
One slide of takeaways
The next test plan
Clear tracking setup (UTMs, naming conventions)
Transparency isn’t a quarterly audit, it’s a culture of openness that compounds value.
👉📕 See our blog on a comprehensive but simple campaign report at this link.
