How to Brief a Paid Media Agency

Start with the business decision, not the channel

A useful paid media agency brief explains what the business needs advertising to achieve and what might prevent it. “Manage our ads” leaves too much open: the agency cannot tell whether you need better lead quality, profitable customer acquisition or support for a launch.

Use the sections below as a copy-and-complete template. Keep unknowns visible and distinguish requirements from questions you want the agency to investigate. Give every shortlisted paid media agency the same core information so proposals are comparable.

Define the commercial objective and audience

Describe the product, buying process and business problem before prescribing platforms. Include operational constraints that could make apparent advertising success commercially unhelpful, such as unavailable inventory or limited sales capacity.

Copy into your brief

• **Business context:** [What we sell, where we operate and why we are reviewing paid media now.]
• **Primary objective:** [The commercial outcome advertising should support.]
• **Priority audience:** [Who buys, who influences the decision and who should be excluded.]
• **Offer and differentiation:** [Why a suitable customer would choose us, with supporting evidence.]
• **Buying journey:** [How customers discover, evaluate and purchase the offer.]
• **Constraints:** [Geography, seasonality, stock, service capacity, promotional restrictions and approval requirements.]

State whether channels are mandatory or open for recommendation. A search-led assignment may fit a PPC agency, while a broader brief might require paid social, display or specialist media buying. Ask the agency to justify its channel choices against the objective rather than its preferred services.

Set targets that reflect business value

Choose a primary outcome and supporting diagnostic measures. For ecommerce, explain how you define revenue and handle refunds, discounts and repeat purchases. For lead generation, define a qualified lead and describe how sales acceptance and closed business are recorded.

Google Ads describes conversion tracking as a way to measure valuable actions following ad interactions; your brief still needs to specify which actions matter commercially (Google Ads conversion tracking guidance).

Copy into your brief

• **Primary success measure:** [Metric, definition and system used to verify it.]
• **Business target:** [Desired outcome and deadline, with the rationale behind it.]
• **Historical baseline:** [Relevant results, date range, source and known limitations.]
• **Quality safeguards:** [Margin, lead quality, cancellations or other checks that prevent misleading success.]
• **Forecast request:** [Ask for assumptions, dependencies and scenarios rather than an unconditional promise.]

Label a management ambition as a target, not a forecast. If historical reporting is unreliable, say so and ask for a measurement-validation phase before committing to performance expectations.

Separate media spend from the cost of delivery

Give agencies a spending envelope and explain what it includes. A single total can conceal whether creative production, tracking repairs and management fees must compete with advertising spend.

Use your approved budget rather than an assumed market benchmark. For proposal structure, the guide to paid media agency fees provides a related comparison framework.

Copy into your brief

• **Media budget:** [Available spend, currency, billing period and seasonal flexibility.]
• **Agency compensation:** [Separate allowance or a request for itemised pricing.]
• **Additional costs:** [Creative, landing pages, analytics, feeds, software and external production.]
• **Approval rules:** [Who can authorise reallocations, increases and new commitments.]
• **Billing arrangements:** [Who pays platforms, who receives invoices and how credits are handled.]
• **Commercial boundaries:** [Contract term, termination requirements and work requiring separate approval.]

Ask agencies to show what they would remove if the budget cannot support the requested scope. Do not require a full-channel programme while leaving the resources for it undefined.

Explain data readiness and access rules

Describe the current setup without putting credentials or customer-level data into a tender document. Share aggregated evidence during selection; arrange appropriate account access when there is a clear purpose and an authorised recipient.

Google Ads provides different access levels with different permissions, so specify access by task rather than granting every user administrative control (Google Ads access guidance).

Copy into your brief

• **Account inventory:** [Advertising accounts, analytics, tag management, product feeds, CRM and consent tools.]
• **Ownership:** [The business owner and administrator responsible for each account.]
• **Measurement status:** [Tracked events, known faults, offline outcomes and reconciliation gaps.]
• **Access process:** [Approver, required permission level and onboarding requirements.]
• **Data handling:** [Permitted uses, security review, contractual requirements and removal of access at exit.]
• **Implementation ownership:** [Who approves, builds and tests measurement changes.]

For UK activity, the ICO explains consent requirements and exceptions for cookies and similar technologies; request a review of the proposed tracking against applicable rules rather than assuming an agency's standard setup is compliant (ICO cookies guidance). Identify who is responsible for obtaining legal advice where needed.

Make creative and landing-page responsibilities explicit

Media management does not automatically include new photography, video production, copywriting or website development. List available assets, their usage rights and the person who approves changes.

Copy into your brief

• **Available assets:** [Brand guidelines, approved claims, product imagery, video and previous ads.]
• **Production scope:** [Who develops concepts, writes copy, adapts formats and supplies final files.]
• **Testing process:** [How hypotheses are proposed, approved, evaluated and documented.]
• **Landing pages:** [Who can change them, development constraints and required approvals.]
• **Approval workflow:** [Named decision-maker, expected turnaround and escalation route.]

If substantial concept development is needed, identify whether it belongs with the media partner or a creative advertising agency. If the purchase or enquiry journey needs work, distinguish media optimisation from the responsibilities of a conversion optimisation agency.

Specify reporting that supports decisions

A dashboard is an output, not a complete reporting arrangement. Define what the agency must explain, who attends reviews and which decisions those reviews should enable.

Copy into your brief

• **Reporting cadence:** [Update schedule, review meetings and delivery format.]
• **Required breakdowns:** [Spend and outcomes by relevant channel, campaign, market or product.]
• **Metric definitions:** [Treatment of tax, refunds, currencies, attribution windows and conversion dates.]
• **Reconciliation:** [How platform results will be compared with analytics, CRM or finance records.]
• **Commentary:** [What changed, likely causes, unresolved uncertainty and recommended action.]
• **Escalation:** [How overspend, tracking failures, policy issues and performance concerns are communicated.]

Do not require every reporting system to show identical results. Instead, ask the agency to explain discrepancies and agree which system governs each business decision. Require access to underlying reports and a change log, not just presentation slides.

Request a comparable response and agree launch conditions

Finish by telling agencies how to respond. Ask for their diagnosis, recommended scope, delivery team, itemised costs, assumptions, exclusions and dependencies. Request relevant work examples with enough context to judge their relevance, without demanding confidential client information.

Ask what they would validate before launch and what could delay delivery. The final scope should identify approval owners, measurement checks, asset readiness and budget authorisation. A strong brief does not eliminate uncertainty; it makes uncertainty visible before it becomes a disagreement.