The true cost of ‘black box’ media is catching up

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The true cost of 'black box' media is catching up

April 16, 2026

The programmatic ecosystem just got a reality check. The four biggest holding companies in the world are now openly questioning how programmatic fees actually work.

Publicis Groupe told its clients it will no longer recommend The Trade Desk. The findings from its independent audit were specific and damaging: fees applied to other fees, clients auto-enrolled into tools without consent and unanswered questions about whether media costs carried hidden markups.

And they aren't alone. Within a week, Omnicom announced its own audit. Dentsu and WPP had already quietly exited The Trade Desk's OpenPath supply chain.

This month's Media Pulse looks at two things coming out of that moment. The first is what a more transparent buying model actually looks like. The second is how the role of an agency changes when clients start asking super technical questions.

Trend 1: The transparency reckoning is here

Programmatic has always been complicated. Data costs, platform fees, partners taking a cut at every layer. Clients mostly accepted it because performance looked fine on the dashboard.

That tradeoff is getting harder to justify.

The ANA's most recent transparency benchmark put a number on it: $26.8 billion in global programmatic media value is lost to inefficiencies every year, up 34% from two years ago. Of every dollar entering a demand-side platform (DSP), only about 36 cents reaches a consumer in the form of a quality impression. The rest gets eaten by transaction costs, low-quality inventory and the kind of layered fees Publicis just exposed.

Meanwhile, private marketplace (PMP) transactions now make up over 90% of all programmatic spend. The open exchange is losing its default status, and it is happening because clients are finally asking where their money actually goes. Wild phenomenon, I know.

The Pulse

• Audit your DSP fees before someone else does it for you. If you cannot explain every layer of cost in your programmatic stack, that is the gap Publicis just exposed.
• Treat the open exchange as a choice, not a default. The 90% number is not a fluke. PMPs and direct deals are where the smart money is going because they answer the questions everyone is finally asking.
• Transparency is now a buying criterion, not a reporting line. Platforms that cannot show their back-end math will keep losing budget, regardless of how their performance benchmarks look.

OUR TAKE

If your media plan still treats the open exchange as the default and PMPs as the upgrade, you are probably already behind. The shift Publicis just made public has been quietly underway for a while. The brands that move first on transparency are not just saving on fees. They are building the kind of relationship with their partners that pays off the next time a platform tries to bundle something opaque into the cost of doing business.

Trend 2: Agency value is moving upstream

As more spend moves into private marketplaces and direct deals, what clients need from an agency changes too.

The old model was operational. Run the platforms, manage the partners, optimize the campaigns, report the numbers. That is still part of the job. But it is no longer the part that gets clients to sign on - or to stay.

You become sticky when you make hard recommendations and know the back end well. The ANA recommends that brands work with five to seven supply-side platform vendors. Currently, many agencies and brands are working with up to 19, up from 14 the year before. So everyone says they want consolidation, and almost no one is actually doing it. That gap is where agency value lives now. Not in adding more partners to the plan but in making the call about which 12 to cut.

Clients need a media partner who can make clear, confident calls and explain the decision.

The Pulse

• Know what to cut: Adding line items is easy. Telling a client which two channels are not earning their place is the conversation that builds trust.
• A strong POV is the new performance metric. Anyone can run the platforms. What's harder to find is a partner who will tell clients what they actually think and stand behind it.

OUR TAKE

There is a real temptation in our industry to build plans that cover every base. Every channel represented, every partner included, every option preserved. It feels safe. But safe is not the same as effective, and clients are starting to notice the difference.

The plans that work right now are the ones built around fewer, sharper choices. Fewer partners. Clearer rationale for each one. And a willingness to say out loud what is not in the plan and why. That kind of focus is harder to build and harder to defend. It is also what actually moves the needle.

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About the authors

Ashley Blais co-leads FINN Paid Media, our global team of experts who live and breathe today's fast-paced - and fast-changing - media landscape.

Harry Drake is an Associate Media Director at FINN Partners, who oversees day-to-day campaign management, a group that spends most days navigating the fast-paced, fast-changing media landscape and figuring out what actually works.

The team delivers a full suite of services, including omnichannel planning and buying, performance media strategy and management, and comprehensive measurement, resulting in award-winning campaigns that drive client success.

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POSTED BY: Ashley Blais, Harry Drake