Best Media Buying Agencies in Chicago, Sorted by Type of Buyer

Chicago is one of the few cities where a brand can hire a global media network, a decades-old independent and a lean performance team without leaving the Loop.

Two of Publicis Media's largest agencies are headquartered here, and so are independents that have bought Chicago broadcast and out-of-home for decades.

That range makes shortlisting harder.

Directory lists mix media buyers with PR firms and web studios, and they rarely say whether an agency works from Chicago or simply lists the city on a location page.

We’re here to help.

Every agency below plans and buys paid media as its main service, and each one carries a label for its Chicago presence.

Disclaimer: 9AM publishes this article and appears in the list. The groups and entries are not ranked.

Chicago Media Agencies at a Glance: Presence, Channels and Budget Fit

The table shows how each agency is present in Chicago, which channels it buys, and the budget it is built for. Budget is the fastest filter, since holding-company agencies are built around multi-million-dollar accounts.

How Each Agency's Chicago Presence Was Checked

Every agency here was checked on its own website, recent press releases and trade coverage, and labeled by the strongest presence it can show. The label tells you who can sit in your planning meetings in person. It says nothing about buying quality.

We used three labels:

• Chicago HQ: the company's main office is in Chicago, confirmed by its own site, press releases or business registration data

• Chicago office: a staffed office in the city, with an address or named local leadership

• Serves Chicago: a city service page and Chicago-relevant work, but no local office listed

The scoring follows the 9AM ranking methodology: channel depth, in-house creative capability, measurement maturity, a track record across more than one account, and fit for a stated budget.

Best Media Buying Agencies in Chicago by Type of Buyer

The list starts with four performance and digital buyers, moves to three Chicago independents and ends with four network-owned agencies.

Performance and Digital Media Buyers in Chicago

9AM

9AM runs media buying, creative testing and measurement as one team, so budget moves toward the ads and channels that lower acquisition cost. Its Chicago media buying service covers search, social, connected TV and programmatic, retail media and out-of-home.

The model holds at scale: NIQ cut acquisition cost by 65% while recruiting panelists in 17+ countries, and EVRY Jewels sustained 7×+ ROAS on more than $1M a month. Genomelink reduced CAC by 77% over three years with about 70 new ad assets a month, and Hurom grew revenue four times with a 70% lower CPA.

• Address: No Chicago office; New York HQ at 90 Broad St.

• Best for: Consumer brands whose growth depends on a steady supply of new ad creative, judged on CAC and revenue.

Accelerated Digital Media

Accelerated Digital Media (ADM) is a Chicago-headquartered performance agency founded in 2017 by a former member of Google's Accelerated Growth Team. Most of its roughly 30-person team works remotely. ADM buys search, shopping, paid social, programmatic and podcast media, with a focus on direct-to-consumer health and ecommerce.

Its case study library includes Nurx, where condition-level keyword expansion and Google Shopping lifted monthly patient requests 70% year over year in Q4.

• Address: 161 N. Clark St., Chicago

• Best for: Telehealth brands that need ad tracking built to HIPAA rules, a service ADM lists under its analytics practice.

Wpromote

Wpromote is an independent performance agency headquartered in El Segundo, California, with a Chicago office. It plans and buys full-funnel paid media alongside creative and measurement services. Ad Age named it 2025 Performance Marketing Agency of the Year, and in late 2025 it acquired creative agency Giant Spoon, forming an agency of more than 700 people branded Wpromote x Giant Spoon. 

The Chicago page features work for Chicago-based Coyote Logistics and TransUnion, plus Whirlpool. In 2026, Sweetgreen named Wpromote its paid media AOR.

• Address: 125 S. Wacker Dr., Suite 1800, Chicago

• Best for: Enterprise brands that need to show leadership what brand campaigns add to revenue, which Wpromote measures with its Care Index.

Performics

Performics is Publicis Groupe's performance marketing agency, and its global headquarters is in Chicago, where it was founded in 1998 as a search and affiliate specialist. It passed through DoubleClick and Google before Publicis acquired it in 2008. Today it plans and buys search, social, programmatic and commerce media, working as an agency of record for performance-led brands and as the performance arm for other Publicis Media agencies.

That gives clients holding-company data and buying scale from a team organized around conversion goals. Performics' own site confirms Chicago as its headquarters, with offices across the US and abroad. In September 2026, Spanish bank Unicaja ran its first ChatGPT ad campaign with Performics.

• Address: 35 W. Wacker, Floor 15, Chicago

• Best for: Brands already working with another Publicis Media agency that want a dedicated performance team inside the same network.

Independent Media Agencies in Chicago

Kelly Scott Madison

Kelly Scott Madison (KSM) was founded in Chicago in 1966 and has stayed independent since. It works as an integrated media agency across planning, investment, digital and analytics. In April 2026, BODYBAR Pilates named KSM its agency of record for national growth and franchise expansion, citing its hyperlocal approach.

KSM's strength is local investment, meaning it knows how to buy markets one by one for franchises and regional brands. Trade coverage also lists Tito's Handmade Vodka as a media planning client, and the Cayman Islands Department of Tourism named KSM its US media services agency.

• Address: 303 E. Wacker Dr., Chicago

• Best for: Brands that need national awareness and market-by-market weight from one independent team, such as a franchise entering new cities or a destination marketing to US travelers.

Empower

Empower describes itself as the largest woman-owned media agency in the US. It was founded in Cincinnati in 1985, opened its Chicago office in 2019, and CEO Ashlee Clarke became majority owner in 2023. In September 2025 it merged with Ocean Media to form Empower Ocean Media Group, which manages $1.5 billion in combined billings from offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.

Both agencies keep their own teams and share technology, negotiation and procurement. The group's clients include PetSmart, Sprouts Farmers Market, Tempur-Pedic and Whataburger.

• Address: 444 N Michigan Ave, Suite 3500, Chicago

• Best for: Retail, restaurant and home brands that want the buying power of a $1.5 billion independent group.

Fusion92

Fusion92 is an independent marketing agency headquartered in Chicago, with an office in Detroit. It plans and buys omnichannel media, including programmatic, TV, social and search, and keeps strategy, creative and analytics in-house. In 2023, Heartland Dental named Fusion92 its agency of record for media strategy, planning, buying and analytics, alongside creative work.

The agency has made four acquisitions since 2022, including search agency Big Footprint and audience-modeling platform TRAK Data, and has been backed since 2021 by private equity firms Serata Capital Partners and Landon Capital Partners.

• Address: 440 W. Ontario St., Chicago

• Best for: Multi-location service businesses, such as dental or healthcare groups, that want audience modeling, creative and media under one independent contract.

Network-Owned Media Agencies in Chicago

Rise

Rise is a Chicago-headquartered omnichannel media agency owned by Quad, the marketing and print company. It buys search, social, CTV and affiliate media and uses Quad's household-level audience data in planning. Rise positions itself as an agency of record that keeps media, data and analytics in one place.

Its case library includes cross-channel work for Nicklaus Children's Hospital. For Stanley Steemer, Rise beat a goal of growing booked jobs 10% within three months of taking over search, then delivered a 541% ROI improvement and a 76% lower cost per job across 110+ franchise owners and 35 branches.

• Address: One South Wacker Drive, Third Floor, Chicago

• Best for: Franchise and multi-location service brands that need search budgets managed branch by branch.

Spark Foundry

Spark Foundry is a Publicis Media agency headquartered in Chicago, formed in 2017 from the former Mediavest. In July 2026, Mattel consolidated its global media with the agency, which had handled only the US and Canada since 2019. 

Clients get access to Publicis Media's buying power and data, which a smaller agency cannot match. Spark Foundry was also shortlisted for Campaign's 2026 Media Agency of the Year.

• Address: 35 W Wacker Dr, Chicago, IL 60601

• Best for: Advertisers consolidating media from several regions into one agency.

Starcom

Starcom is Publicis Media's largest agency brand and is headquartered in Chicago. It finished 2025 as the top agency network for new business worldwide, with $2.7 billion in wins including Mars and Aldi, according to COMvergence data. Starcom buys across every channel and market, with global negotiating leverage and proprietary planning tools. Its client roster includes McDonald's, Allstate, Samsung, AB InBev and Novartis.

• Address: 35 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago

• Best for: Category leaders with national TV-scale budgets that need upfront and cross-channel negotiating leverage.

Havas Media Network

Havas Media Network, the media arm of Havas, runs a Chicago office that buys across media, programmatic, performance, commerce and out-of-home, organized around Converged.AI, the global operating system that combines Havas' data, platforms and AI tools. In the US, it ranked third for new business in 2025, with 13 client wins including Olive Garden, according to COMvergence data reported by MediaPost. In January 2026, Early Warning Services, the company behind Zelle and Paze, named it agency of record.

• Address: 36 E. Grand Ave., Chicago

• Best for: National brands that want holding-company buying power outside Publicis, for example when a direct competitor already works with Starcom, Spark Foundry or Performics.

Media Planning and Buying Across Channels: What a Chicago Plan Should Show

A good media plan shows what each channel is for, how budget will move between channels, and how the agency will tell real results from reported ones. Ask for those three things in writing before you compare fees.

Channel Roles and Budget Allocation

Each channel in a plan should have a stated job, such as capturing existing demand, reaching new audiences or retargeting. The proposal should say how much budget each channel gets at launch and what result would move money from one channel to another.

Keep the channel count in line with the budget. Every platform added to a plan splits the spend further, and a channel with too little money can't produce a result you can act on.

Our media buying service page describes how 9AM assigns those roles.

Test Cells and Holdouts Before Scaling Spend

Platforms report conversions they helped cause and conversions that would have happened anyway. A holdout, where one region or audience sees no ads, shows the difference.

That makes holdout tests part of a sound plan. Ask the agency which channels it will hold out in the first 90 days and how it will read the result.

Local, Regional and National Geography

A Chicago headquarters does not mean a Chicago media plan. The Chicago DMA holds about 2.9% of US TV households, so a brand that sells nationally but buys mostly local media is reaching a small share of its market.

Geography should follow where customers buy, so ask the agency to show how it set it from sales data, store locations or service areas.

Programmatic and CTV Media Buying: Fees, Inventory and Measurement

Programmatic media buying loses part of every dollar to fees and low-quality inventory before an ad reaches a person.

The ANA's Q2 2026 benchmark shows the size of that loss: market-wide working-media efficiency reached a record 45%, so more than half of programmatic spend still produced no qualified impression.

Working-Media Share and Where Spend Is Lost

Working media is the share of budget that buys fraud-free, measurable, viewable impressions outside made-for-advertising sites, after fees, data and verification costs.

Most of what falls outside working media is lost to inventory quality, and fees play a smaller part.

In the ANA's Q1 2026 benchmark, transaction costs differed by 2.4 points between the strongest and weakest advertisers, while media quality losses differed by 19.4 points, and the weakest group lost more than two-thirds of each dollar. 

Since inventory quality drives the gap, ask for the working-media percentage on a comparable account, in writing, and compare it with the 45% market figure.

Where the Inventory Runs

The quickest check on inventory quality is a placement report broken down by domain and app.

Private marketplaces accounted for over 92% of median spend and all CTV transactions in the ANA's Q4 2025 data, and agencies buying that way can usually show exactly where ads ran. 

Open-exchange buying is cheaper per impression but harder to audit, so ask any agency that relies on it for the same domain-level report.

Incrementality Tests for CTV

Connected TV ads reach a household on a TV screen, with no click to track, so attribution needs a different method. 

Attention is a second problem. An ANA review found only 37.5 cents per CTV dollar reached an attentive, non-fraudulent impression.

Because clicks and viewability both miss part of the picture on CTV, ask whether the agency measures CTV against matched unexposed households or geographic holdouts.

Our Chicago CTV page covers how 9AM sets this up.

TV, Radio and Out-of-Home Buying in the Chicago Market

Chicago is the third-largest US television market, with about 3.65 million TV households in the 2024-25 season. That scale makes local broadcast and out-of-home expensive, and it rewards agencies that negotiate in the market every week.

Chicago DMA Broadcast and Cable

Local broadcast still delivers reach that digital channels struggle to match in a single week, especially for older audiences and live sports.

Getting that reach at the right price depends on relationships with stations, knowledge of seasonal pricing and post-buy audits that confirm the spots ran as ordered.

Independents with a long history in local investment, such as KSM, tend to have that depth.

Out-of-Home and Transit Inventory

Chicago's out-of-home inventory runs from highway billboards to transit and street-level digital screens.

With that much inventory to choose from, site selection decides the result. Ask the agency how it selects locations, whether it uses mobile location data to measure exposure, and how it prices digital out-of-home compared with static.

Offline Buys Tied to Sales

The hardest part of local TV, radio and out-of-home is proving what they sold. Matched-market tests, branded search lift and store visit data are the usual tools.

Each tool suits a different kind of business, so ask the agency which one it would use for yours and what result would make it cut the budget.

What to Settle Before Your First Call With a Chicago Media Buying Agency

The right agency depends on the job you are hiring it for, and Chicago's market sorts into three jobs:

• Local negotiation: buying broadcast, radio and out-of-home in Chicago and other markets at the right price. Independents with long local histories do this best.

• National scale: global planning and negotiating leverage that only a holding-company agency can bring.

• A fast learning loop: testing creative, audiences and channels, then moving budget toward what works within weeks.

Decide which job matters most before the first call, and bring three things to it: your margin targets, your conversion definitions and the geography where your customers actually buy. An agency that cannot work from those three inputs will end up planning around platform metrics.

If the learning loop is your priority, book a strategy call today. 9AM builds its plans from those same three inputs and reports spend against acquisition cost and revenue, with any tracking gaps written into the report.

Chicago Media Buying Agency FAQ

What does a media buying agency do?

A media buying agency plans where a brand's advertising budget goes, negotiates and buys the placements, and reports what they produced. Most also manage the campaigns day to day and recommend how to shift budget between channels.

What is the difference between media planning and media buying?

Media planning decides which audiences, channels and timing a campaign should use. Media buying negotiates and purchases the placements in that plan, then manages and optimizes them. Most agencies on this list do both.

How much do media buying agencies in Chicago charge?

Most charge a percentage of media spend, a monthly retainer or a mix of both. Holding-company agencies usually require multi-million-dollar budgets, while performance agencies often work with smaller monthly spend. Ask for fees, data costs and platform costs listed separately so proposals can be compared.

Do you need an agency with an office in Chicago?

Not for most digital buying, which works the same from anywhere. A local office matters more for Chicago broadcast and out-of-home, where relationships with stations and vendors affect price. Our list of media buying agencies in NYC shows the same trade-off in another large market.

How does programmatic media buying work?

Programmatic buying uses software to bid on ad impressions in real time, across websites, apps and connected TV. The agency sets audiences, budgets and bids in a demand-side platform, and the platform buys the impressions that match.

Should you hire a media buying agency or a PPC agency?

A PPC agency focuses on search ads, usually Google and Microsoft. A media buying agency plans across several channels and decides how budget moves between them. If search is your only channel, a Chicago PPC agency may be enough.

About Mustafa Alkhtab

Mustafa Alkhtab is Head of Performance Media at inBeat Agency, where he oversees paid media and performance creative results across the agency's accounts. Before inBeat Agency, he built growth programs for ecommerce, lead generation, and mobile app businesses in international markets. He writes about media buying, measurement, and conversion rate optimization.

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