• by Joe Mandese , June 1, 2026

The good news is the percentage of advertisers concerned about the "transparency" of their media agencies has gone down, albeit marginally (see chart above) since the Association of National Advertisers first benchmarked that question in 2014. The bad news is it remains a significant level of concern and has been growing not just because of agency rebates and kickbacks, but because of principal media-buying (see chart below).

The new data, which was released this morning as part of a special ANA webinar revisiting more than a decade of media transparency benchmarking, reporting and ongoing discussions. If anything, participants say the shift toward agency media "arbitraging" has grown, not decreased over the period, taking on new forms and requiring advertisers to have even greater oversight, especially in their media contracts with their agencies.

Most positive of all, the ANA found that more than half -- 56% -- of its members have updated their media agency contract in the past year, and 70% have updated it within the past two years (see chart at bottom).