Meta is reportedly encouraging holding companies to buy media in bulk and resell it to clients at a markup. For the holding groups, it’s an opportunity to lock in discounts. For Meta, it’s an easy way to secure upfront spend. For advertisers, the implications are more complex.
The move is designed to “protect a sizable and growing share of ad revenue” while turning holding companies into an “extended salesforce,” reports Digiday. In other words, Meta gets guaranteed income and the agency networks take on the risk of shifting the inventory — often via plans that are no longer shaped by what works best, but by what’s already been bought.
While that may suit the giants buying in bulk, it leaves a bigger question for mid-market brands, who neither control these deals nor benefit from their perks.
This piece isn’t here to mourn the end of transparency. That ship’s been taking on water for years. We’re more interested in the ripple effects for marketers in the middle — those with seven-figure media budgets and no margin for wasted spend.
“They're protecting their income stream”
Meta’s move into principal media buying shouldn’t come as a surprise. It’s not a platform innovation but rather, a revenue strategy. “They’re protecting their income stream,” says Ben Foster, chief digital officer at The Kite Factory. “There’s an awful lot of senior people at Meta who’ve had roles in big, broadcast TV or OOH, who will have spotted the threat and moved to protect their interests.”
If it feels familiar, that’s because it is. Principal or proprietary media — where inventory is bought in bulk and resold at a margin — is how TV worked for decades. But it’s a very different offer when it comes from Meta. It’s not like buying a package of prime-time TV spots; the rules are fuzzier, the value isn’t always visible and the power dynamic is reversed.
David Lucy, managing director at december19, sees the model as less of a radical shift and more of an evolution. “There’s always been various ways to unlock more value through slightly opaque practices,” he says. “Ten years ago, you might pre-commit 40% of your TV budget with Channel 4 to unlock value. Proprietary media is just the latest iteration of that.”
It’s also a harder model to justify when the media isn’t finite. Unlike linear TV, Meta’s inventory doesn’t run out. So the only reason to buy in bulk is to lock out others and make the agency beholden to what’s already been committed. That’s not media planning — that’s stock shifting.
A tidy model with messy outcomes
Meta’s version of principal buying turns agencies into something closer to commercial partners than client advisors. It’s a neat way for Meta to lock in spend, but it muddies the waters for advertisers expecting independent advice. And when the agency becomes both the buyer and the seller, the question isn’t just what works best — it’s what needs moving.
“People need to consider the consequences,” Lucy warns. “If your agency has pre-bought a load of inventory that they need to sell, then you have to consider what impact that might have on how agnostically they approach your plan.”
Matt Whelan, managing partner at The Specialist Works describes what this looks like in practice: “When I’ve seen this done by agencies, they’ll have a pot of media and just say, ‘you’re accessing this pot. We’re not going to tell you what it is. We’re not going to tell you what you’re getting, or why you’re getting it.’ and they balance their trading across that pot. It doesn’t lend itself to transparency.”
Lucy agrees. “The amount that the agency is going to make will be undisclosed, and the full supply chain is opaque,” he says. For large advertisers buying broad and deep across channels, that may still work. For everyone else, it’s harder to justify.
Mid-market brands feel the squeeze
Ben Shepherd recently wrote that principal media “makes total sense, until you realise it makes no sense at all.” The logic only holds if you ignore the third party in the transaction — the media owner — who’s left footing the margin loss. “Talk about a win-win,” he writes. “Client = $15 better off. Agency = $10 better off. No losers at all, as long as you ignore the media company that used to get $100 for something but now gets $75.”
“For the idea that principal media is ‘the same but cheaper’,” he continues, “you have to also accept that this practice will basically destroy local media and their margins in order to improve the margins of the middleman.”
Whelan agrees that the model doesn’t hold up for most advertisers. “The whole inventory media perspective is built up because large networks are able to take a large chunk of the media,” he says. “But the bottom half of their clients are losing. The law of averages says only half of it is good value.”
That trade-off might work for global advertisers with volume and leverage. But for mid-market brands, the calculation looks different. Budgets are significant but finite. The margin for inefficiency is slim — and yet, inefficiency is often hidden behind the illusion of value.
“You might save 5% on a headline fee, but would that 5% offset not being in the ideal environment?” Lucy asks. “Or could you have slightly more effective advertising losing out on the 5% headline fee, but in places that are 10% more likely to reach your audience?”
Foster agrees that false economies are rife. “I’m having to buy media at a slightly higher cost than a big network, but because I’ve planned it out more precisely, it’s still going to net a better result than if you bought in bulk.”
Advice from the indies
So what can mid-sized advertisers actually do? All three agencies we spoke to offered the same first step: scrutinise the plan.
Foster urges advertisers to ask better questions. “Ask why X% of your budget is going to Meta. Ask what else is being tested, ruled out, performing better. If the performance doesn’t correlate to the spend, as a client, you have to question that.”
For brands without internal media expertise, cost can be an easy proxy for performance. But without transparency into how the plan was built, that’s a risky assumption.
“Knowing what works for them and knowing what their allowable CPMs, CPCs or whatever bidding metric they use is going to be more important than ever,” says Whelan. “If you want to work in Meta's ecosystem, you've got to understand what and where your allowables are. Then, just like you do with any new platform, be able to go in and try and test different ways of buying across it.”
It also means asking tougher questions about your agency’s incentives. “The difference between an indie and a holdco is that indies work in that agile way — doing what’s best for the client and with transparency at the core,” says Foster.
Whelan is more direct. “We would simply not sign up to agency-level share deals that dictate where our clients have to spend their money. That would exclude us.”
Lucy was cautious not to paint this as a good-agency/bad-agency binary. “You’ll find network agencies trying to plan agnostically, and some independents exploring alternative trading models,” he says. “But the agencies that prioritise trust, openness and transparency — that’s where I think we’ll see momentum shift. For some advertisers, the added value will be worth it. For others, the relationship itself might start to matter more.”
Lucy also points to the industry’s endorsement of principal media models in certain contexts. “I think the IPA's response to ISBA's media services framework was that it can be beneficial for all parties. The media owners get value committed up front, the agencies make some additional money and it gets some more value for advertisers. But that’s not right for all advertisers. And I think that's what we need to get people more aware of and thinking about the consequences of.”
“It’s fine if all you’re doing is buying eyeballs,” Whelan adds. “But if you want performance and contextual advertising, it’s going to be much harder to achieve in this model.”
The gap between what’s bought and what’s best is widening
This shift from agency-as-agent to agency-as-dealer marks a bigger philosophical break than the headlines suggest. Because it’s not just about how media is bought; it’s about what’s prioritised, what’s sacrificed and whose outcome the model is optimised for.
“It’s the latest evolution of other things,” reiterates Lucy. “If this is the currency people are looking to trade more value in, then it’s likely more people will adopt and investigate its benefits. I just think people need to be prepared to question the costs cheaper media comes with.”
As holding companies chase bigger margins, the pressure on other platforms to offer comparable deals will only intensify. “Once Meta does it, the other big platforms are going to worry,” Foster predicts. “Especially if you’re a challenger.”
That may make economic sense in the short term, but it’s a strategy built on shaky foundations. “Our industry is already in a race to the bottom,” he adds. “In the UK, there’s so little value put on proper planning or senior expertise. So if Meta shows up offering a million-pound rebate? Of course that’s going to influence decisions.”
Whelan, however, sees Meta’s shift as a strategic misstep. “I think it’ll turn off the long tail of their advertisers,” he says. “Maybe all they want is the big brands and the large spenders — and maybe that’s the plan. But they’ll lose the thing that made Facebook work: that base of mid-market, performance-driven spenders.”
It’s not just a philosophical concern. “Facebook used to be the hardest working thing on the plan from a performance buyer’s perspective,” he continues. “It definitely won’t be anymore. And if it gets more expensive, it’s still not going to be.”
For mid-market brands, the solution won’t come from yelling louder, but knowing what to ask. From demanding clarity and being willing to challenge the plan, even if it’s cheaper on paper. Because if principal buying becomes the norm, the only way to stay competitive is to understand — and interrogate — the rules of the game.
Natasha Randhawa, newsletter editor.
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