Media buying agreements for agencies, brands and campaign partners

Problems often start when the commercial deal is agreed in principle but the operational detail is left vague. Common flashpoints include who can authorise spend changes, whether media is booked as principal or agent, what reporting is expected, who owns creative assets and what happens if campaign performance falls short of expectations. A written agreement helps record those points before money is committed. It can also clarify whether third-party platform terms sit alongside your contract, which is often important in digital advertising work.

It will usually cover the campaign scope, booking responsibilities, budget and invoicing structure, approval workflows, reporting obligations, deliverables, timing, use of subcontractors or third-party platforms, intellectual property rights, confidentiality, liability and termination. Some arrangements also need clauses about account access, audience data, cancellation charges or unused media credits. The right drafting depends on the factual context and the documents already in play, especially if the campaign involves several suppliers, a creative agency and a separate media buyer.

That usually turns on how the campaign is actually run. For example, the agreement may need different wording depending on whether you are an agency buying on a client's behalf, a brand engaging a specialist buyer, or a creator-led business coordinating paid placements. We also look at how approvals happen, who holds platform accounts, whether audience data is shared and how creative assets are licensed. The wording should reflect the information your business collects, the reasons it is used and the parties it is shared with, not just the campaign brief.

A template may cover broad contract headings, but it often misses the commercial mechanics that matter in paid media. It may not deal properly with booking authority, overspend risk, cancellation rules, platform access, reporting standards or ownership of campaign assets created by different parties. Those gaps can create disputes even where everyone agrees on the marketing objective. This service You will get a clear view of the legal issues and the next steps that matter. especially where platform decisions or campaign performance sit outside the contract itself.

The timeframe depends on whether you need a fresh agreement or a review of an existing draft, and on how complex the campaign structure is. A straightforward engagement with settled commercial terms will usually move faster than a multi-party arrangement involving layered approvals, data-sharing issues or detailed IP provisions. After we receive your instructions, we prepare the draft or review comments and then work through the included revisions. If the matter expands into negotiations or additional documents, we can scope that separately before going further.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Media Buying Agreement service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.