What is Media Fund Management?
Imagine you’re buying your first home. Would you hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars directly to the seller and hope everything goes smoothly? No, you’d use escrow—a trusted intermediary ensuring the funds are only released when all conditions are met.
At MediaVault, we believe the same safeguard should exist in the advertising industry, which sees billions of media dollars pass from advertisers through agencies to publishers every year.
That’s why we’re introducing a new category: Media Fund Management.
What is it?
Media Fund Management (MFM) helps ensure that advertisers’ media budgets are safeguarded and only used as intended. With this approach, an intermediary secures media funds in client-dedicated bank accounts, providing full visibility into how and when those funds are deployed.
What does it give advertisers and their agency partners?
Peace of Mind. Similar to escrow, MFM provides confidence that budgets get spent according to plan.
Focus. With the right solution, MFM gives stakeholders transparency into the state of the budget: what’s been spent, where it’s been deployed and the balance remaining to cover placements through the end of the year. This confidence frees up the combined advertiser/agency team so they can spend their time and energy on creative strategy, campaign activation, analytics and optimization. They leave the accounting to the MFM partner.
Supplemental Media Funds. Rather than sitting idle, prepaid media funds held in the advertiser’s MFM account earn interest, giving more buying power to the brand.
How does it work?
The short answer: very simply. MediaVault’s MFM solution requires no technical integrations and fits into existing advertiser/agency routines without interruption. These are the components of our solution:
Dedicated Account. Pass-through funds are secured in the advertiser’s account at our FDIC-insured partner bank. MediaVault handles the timely invoicing and disbursement of funds between advertiser and agency.
Media Authorization Form. The agency submits the month’s media schedule through this standardized document. A secure signature tool gives the advertiser an efficient way to approve the schedule, triggering MediaVault to disburse funds to the agency. Alternatively, with MediaVault+ we handle all of the invoices, paying publishers directly once we receive approval.
Dashboard. Allowing transparency across the advertiser and agency teams, as well as stakeholders in the Board Room, our dashboard offers a view into funds deposited and disbursed, interest earned, and activation by channel.
Together, these components form a simple solution that adds control, transparency, and peace of mind to pass-through media funds.
Escrow transformed real estate by adding security to high-value transactions between buyers and sellers. We believe Media Fund Management will become the norm in the advertising industry by removing the confusion of pass-through accounting, letting advertisers and agencies focus on growth.