Paid media agencies: fees, spend, and handoffs

Media spend is what the platforms bill (Google, Meta, LinkedIn, etc.). The agency fee pays for strategy, setup, optimization, reporting, and often creative direction — not the ads themselves. Common models: percent of spend, flat retainer, or hybrid. Compare proposals on senior time, channel scope, and what is excluded (creative production, landing pages, analytics), not the fee percentage alone. A low fee on messy tracking usually costs more in wasted spend.

Bring paid in-house when monthly spend and channel complexity justify at least one dedicated owner, and you already have creative supply, clean conversion tracking, and a decision rhythm marketing can run without agency scaffolding. Stay with an agency (or hybrid) if you are still proving offer–channel fit, entering new platforms, or lack bench depth for vacations and experiments. Many teams keep strategy/buying external while owning brand and creative internally.

Before anyone leaves: confirm your org owns the ad accounts, billing profiles, pixels/tags, audiences, and creative assets — not the agency’s MCC alone. Export change history, naming conventions, budgets, and conversion definitions; verify admin access for your team; and run a 30-day performance + tracking checklist (fires, attributions, exclusions). Document who can pause campaigns. If ownership or exports are fuzzy, treat that as a hiring red flag for the next partner.

It depends on channel CPMs and how much room you leave for learning. As a rough floor, many shops want enough spend that tests can finish in weeks — often several thousand dollars per active channel — plus a fee that funds real management time. If your total budget barely covers one experiment cycle, fix offer and tracking first or start with a narrow pilot SOW.

Usually yes. Paid outcomes hinge on offer, creative, seasonality, and attribution — agencies that guarantee ROAS without controlling those inputs are selling certainty they cannot deliver. Prefer partners who commit to a measurement plan, test cadence, and stop/continue rules tied to your unit economics.