An advertising campaign consists of the message and its distribution. The former is created by a creative agency, the latter is planned by a media house – it determines where, when, and for how much the ad will reach the recipient. According to Publicis Groupe, the net value of the advertising market in Poland in 2025 was nearly PLN 14 billion, with a significant portion of this amount channeled through media houses.
What is a media house? Definition and place in the market
A media agency is a company that plans and purchases advertising space on behalf of an advertiser across media outlets: television, radio, the internet, press, cinema, and outdoor media. The product they offer isn't a single spot or banner, but a media plan—a document defining the channels, timing, and intensity through which a campaign should reach a selected target group.
Where did media houses come from and who dominates the market today?
Media agencies diverged from advertising agencies in the 90s, when media buying began to require separate teams, research tools, and negotiating power. Today, most large entities operate within global holding companies such as Publicis Media, WPP Media (formerly GroupM), Dentsu, Omnicom Media Group, and Havas Media. By pooling budgets across multiple clients, they negotiate terms with broadcasters that are unavailable to a single brand. Independent agencies and digital agencies operating exclusively online channels operate alongside these agencies.
What does a media house do on a daily basis?
To briefly answer the question of what a media house does: it transforms advertising budgets into reach, and reach into measurable business results. In practice, a media house's work consists of four areas. The first is media strategy, or the analysis of the target audience and their media consumption, and deciding how to allocate the budget among channels and what level of reach is needed to achieve the goal. The second is planning, or translating the strategy into specific stations, services, formats, and broadcast dates. The third is media buying, or negotiating prices, discounts, and packages with broadcasters, publishers, and platforms. The fourth is research: media houses purchase access to telemetry panels, internet research, and econometric modeling tools, which allow them to estimate how much sales each channel has generated.
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Managing digital channels is becoming an increasingly important part of the workload. According to the IAB Polska/PwC AdEx study, the value of online advertising in Poland in 2025 will reach PLN 10,9 billion, a 14,6% year-on-year increase. According to the IAB Polska Strategic Report, the internet captured over 60% of the total advertising market value in the same year. Therefore, a media agency that wants to maintain its position must be as adept at purchasing airtime as it is at running campaigns in Google Ads, Meta Ads, and programmatic models.
Media house tasks – from brief to report
A media agency's work flows through a repetitive process, beginning with a brief from the client or creative agency. This brief includes the campaign objective, target audience description, budget, timeframe, and completed or planned advertising materials.
Based on the brief, the media agency prepares a strategic recommendation, and after its approval, a detailed media plan with a cost estimate and forecasted metrics such as reach, number of contacts, and cost per thousand (CPM). The next step involves purchasing and reserving space, preparing technical specifications for the materials, and coordinating their delivery to the media.
What happens to the campaign during and after it ends?
During broadcast, the team monitors the campaign: on TV, they verify whether ad blocks have achieved their projected reach, and on the internet, they continuously optimize bids, creatives, and audiences. Upon completion, the client receives a report comparing metrics with the plan, analyzing channel effectiveness, and drawing conclusions for further action. The media house's responsibilities also include ensuring brand safety and monitoring the visibility and quality of traffic, which is particularly important for programmatically purchased advertising.
Media house and advertising agency – what are the differences?
This comparison can be boiled down to a division of roles: the agency answers the question of "what to say and how to show it," while the media agency answers the question of "where, when, and to whom to show it." The advertising (creative) agency develops the communication concept, slogans, ad scripts, layouts, and materials for all channels. The media agency does not create these materials, but decides on their distribution and purchases the space in which they will appear.
Differences are also evident in the remuneration model. Creative agencies typically charge per project or monthly service fees. Media agencies charge a commission calculated as a percentage of the media budget, a flat fee, or a combination of both, and increasingly, part of the remuneration is dependent on achieving established metrics.
The structure of the teams is also different: in an agency, copywriters, art directors and brand strategists dominate, while in a media house – planners, negotiators, data analysts and specialists for individual channels.
Advertising agencies and media houses – what does cooperation look like?
Advertising agencies and media houses work on the same campaign in parallel, so advertisers should establish the framework for exchanging information between them from the outset. Typically, the client defines the business objective, the agency proposes the concept, and the media house verifies whether the selected formats and channels will allow for its implementation within budget. Sometimes, the order is reversed, with the media recommendation being developed first, and the agency designing materials tailored to the designated media. Problems arise when each party receives a different brief or when schedules are out of sync – a spot completed a week after the booked broadcast date means a loss that cannot be recovered. For this reason, large brands organize joint briefing workshops and designate a single person to coordinate the activities of both partners.
Media house – benefits and limitations for the advertiser
Thanks to the scale of their purchases, media houses negotiate rates unavailable to individual advertisers, and the difference can be so significant that the media house's fees are recouped from the negotiated discounts alone. A second benefit is access to research and tools that would be economically unviable for a single company to purchase. A third benefit is experience across multiple industries and a single point of contact instead of separate negotiations with each broadcaster and publisher.
What should you watch out for before signing a contract with a media house?
However, collaboration has its limitations. Media agencies focus on large budgets, so some apply minimum service thresholds below which collaboration becomes unprofitable for either party. The commission model is sometimes criticized for encouraging increased spending rather than optimizing it. Transparency in purchasing—especially in programmatic—requires the client to carefully read contracts and reports to understand how much of the budget goes to broadcasting and how much goes to technology fees and intermediary margins.
Is a media house the only way to effective media buying?
The market offers advertisers several options. Large brands with budgets spanning television and outdoor typically require the full services of a media agency, as the scale of their purchases directly translates into pricing. Companies operating primarily online can rely on a digital agency or their own team supported by selected partners. Automated, real-time advertising space purchasing, previously reserved for holding companies, is now also available to mid-sized businesses – you can learn how this model works in Verseo's programmatic marketing offerings . Regardless of the chosen route, the principle remains the same: the message and its distribution must be planned together, and the media partner should be accountable for the outcome, not just the funds spent.
Frequently asked questions about the media house
The core of the offering is media strategy, ad planning, advertising space purchasing, and research that demonstrates sales generated by each channel. This is also complemented by campaign monitoring, performance reporting, and monitoring of brand safety and traffic quality. Increasingly, media houses also run digital campaigns, including Google Ads, Meta Ads, and programmatic models.
No. The creatives, including slogans, spot scripts, and layouts, are prepared by an advertising (creative) agency. The media agency decides where, when, and to whom to present the finished message, and then purchases the space in which the message will appear. It also handles the technical specifications of the materials and coordinates their delivery to the media.
Yes, and the internet is taking up an increasingly large portion of its work. In addition to television airtime, media houses run campaigns in Google Ads, Meta Ads, and programmatic models. According to the IAB Poland Strategic Report, the internet will account for over 60% of the total advertising market's cash value in 2025, making efficient management of digital channels a necessity today.
Most often, they charge a commission calculated as a percentage of the media budget, a flat fee, or a combination of both. Increasingly, part of the fee is dependent on achieving specific metrics. Therefore, it's worth carefully reviewing the terms of the contract before launching the campaign.
Starting with a brief, a document containing the campaign objective, target audience description, budget, timeframe, and advertising materials, either completed or planned, the media agency then presents a strategic recommendation, and upon approval, a detailed media plan with a cost estimate and forecasted metrics such as reach and CPM.
Not always. Full-service media agencies are primarily profitable for large brands with budgets that include television and outdoor, where the scale of their purchases directly translates into higher prices. Companies operating primarily online can start with a digital agency or an in-house team, and some media agencies still impose minimum service thresholds.
Summary
The above article covers the following topics:
- The definition of a media house, its role in the advertising market and the history of the emergence of such companies.
- Four areas of daily work of a media house: strategy, planning, media buying and research, as well as the growing importance of digital channels.
- The campaign process from briefing, through media planning and space purchase, to broadcast monitoring and reporting.
- The division of roles between a media house and an advertising agency and the differences in the remuneration model and team structure.
- Principles of cooperation between an agency and a media house on a single campaign and problems resulting from inconsistent briefs and schedules.
- Benefits and limitations of working with a media house from an advertiser's perspective.
- Alternatives to full media house services: digital agency, in-house team and automated media buying.
