At some point in every media company's growth journey, the leadership team confronts a fundamental question about its technology infrastructure: should we build our own system, buy a commercial platform, or take an existing platform and bend it to fit our needs? It is a question that has no universally correct answer, but it is one where the wrong decision can be enormously costly — in money, in time, and in opportunity.
The build option is perennially attractive. It offers complete control, perfect alignment with business requirements, and no dependency on an external vendor. For media companies with strong engineering teams, the appeal of a bespoke system tailored precisely to their operation can be irresistible. And in fairness, there are cases where building makes sense — typically where the business has a genuinely unique operating model that no commercial platform can accommodate, and the resources to sustain a permanent internal development team.
But the build path carries risks that are frequently underestimated. The initial development cost is usually higher than projected, because media ad operations is more complex than it appears from the outside, and the detailed requirements only emerge once development is underway. More importantly, the ongoing maintenance cost — bug fixes, feature enhancements, security updates, regulatory compliance changes, staff turnover in the development team — accumulates relentlessly. A media company that builds its own order management system is, whether it intended to or not, also running a software business. Every hour of developer time spent maintaining the internal system is an hour not spent on the company's actual product — its media content and audience.
The total cost of ownership for a build approach is almost always higher than the proponents anticipate, and the timeline to reach feature parity with commercial platforms is almost always longer. Five years after beginning an internal build, it is not uncommon for the system to still lack capabilities that a commercial platform offers out of the box, while having consumed millions in development and operational costs.
The buy option — purchasing a commercial platform — offers a faster path to a comprehensive feature set, with the vendor bearing the cost of ongoing development and maintenance. The trade-off is that the platform may not perfectly match every aspect of the business's operation, and the company is dependent on the vendor for product direction and support. The risk with buying is not typically the platform itself — good commercial platforms are proven and well-supported — but rather the fit between the platform and the business.
This is where rigorous evaluation matters. A media company that selects a platform designed for a different type of media business, or for a different market segment, will find itself fighting the platform's assumptions rather than benefiting from its capabilities. The key is to choose a platform that was built for your type of business — one where the vendor's assumptions about how the industry works align with your operational reality.
The bend option — taking an existing platform or general-purpose tool and customising it to serve as an order management system — is perhaps the most common approach and also the most dangerous. Enterprise CRM systems, ERP platforms, and even sophisticated spreadsheet-based solutions are frequently pressed into service as ad-tech infrastructure. They can be made to work, after a fashion, through extensive customisation, bolt-on integrations, and manual workarounds. But they were not designed for the specific demands of media ad sales, and their limitations become increasingly apparent as the business grows.
A CRM system can track client relationships and pipeline activity, but it cannot manage broadcast scheduling, enforce separation rules, calculate complex rate packages, or generate invoices based on actual delivery data. An ERP system can handle financial transactions, but it does not understand the concept of perishable inventory, makegood obligations, or daypart-based pricing. The cost of bending these systems to approximate the functionality of a purpose-built order management platform is significant, and the result is typically a fragile, complex configuration that is difficult to maintain and impossible to upgrade cleanly.
The decision framework should centre on three questions. First, does our operation have requirements that are genuinely unique — not just specific, but unique — in ways that no commercial platform can accommodate? If the answer is yes, and the uniqueness is a source of competitive advantage, building may be justified. If the requirements are specific but not unique, a well-configured commercial platform will serve the business better.
Second, what is the true total cost of ownership over five to seven years, including development, maintenance, opportunity cost, and risk? This analysis almost always favours buying over building, but it should be conducted rigorously rather than assumed.
Third, does the vendor understand our industry? A platform built by and for media companies — not adapted from another industry, not a generic tool with media terminology applied to it — will deliver a better outcome than a theoretically superior platform from outside the industry.
adserve studio is a purpose-built media order management system. We exist so that media companies do not need to build their own, bend a generic tool to fit, or compromise on a platform designed for a different industry. Our investment in the product is our clients' investment in their own capability — without the overhead, risk, and distraction of running a software development operation alongside a media business.
Was this useful?