How agency advertising accounts work for verified businesses

Most media buyers first hear about agency advertising accounts as a line in a conversation: 'we can set you up under our agency.' Usually nobody explains what that means. Who owns the account? Who gets verified? Who pays the platform, and who do you call when something breaks? This is the plain explanation, written by the team that does the setting up.

Three parties, one account

Every agency advertising account involves three parties. The platform (Meta, Google, Microsoft, TikTok and the rest) owns the account and sets the rules. The advertiser is the business whose products appear in the ads. The agency opens the account inside its own business setup, handles billing and support, and answers to the platform for the accounts it manages.

Why buyers use agency accounts at all

An agency account does not come with different rules. What it changes is everything around the campaigns:

• Billing: one prepaid balance and one invoice trail across several platforms, instead of a card on every account.
• Setup: an account configured correctly from day one, with the right business details, time zone, currency and access roles.
• Support: a person who knows your account and can raise an issue through the support channels platforms offer agencies, when it needs a human.
• Reporting: monthly statements that separate platform spend from fees, so finance can reconcile them without a phone call.

If you run one platform on a company card with a modest monthly budget, you may not need any of this. It starts to matter when you run several platforms, several brands, or a budget that is awkward to put through a single card.

Step one: verifying the advertiser

Before an account is opened, the agency verifies the business it will advertise for. This is separate from, and in addition to, the verification each platform runs itself. A responsible agency checks the same things a platform would:

1. 1The legal entity exists and is in good standing. For a U.S. company, that means articles of incorporation or organization, or a certificate of good standing from the state.
2. 2The person applying is connected to the entity and can act for it.
3. 3The website belongs to the business, says who it is, and sells what the ads will promote.
4. 4The category is one the platform allows, and restricted categories hold the platform's own certification where it is required.

Step two: opening the account and giving you access

Once the business is verified, the agency opens a new account for it inside the agency's own business setup. The details vary by platform, but the pattern is the same: the account lives in the agency's structure, and you get access through the platform's standard sharing tools.

You log in with your own credentials. Nobody sends you a password, and nobody should ask for yours. Roles match what you need: usually full control of campaigns for you, with billing settings on the agency side, because the agency is the party paying the platform. At Krög, accounts are usually ready within 48 hours of business verification.

Step three: funding and billing

In the agency model, the agency is the platform's billing customer for the account. You prepay a balance to the agency, the agency funds the ad account from it, and it charges a service fee on top. At Krög, service fees run from 2% to 17% of ad spend depending on the platform and your volume, and the exact rate is confirmed in writing before you pay anything.

• Top-ups: you add to your balance, the agency moves funds to the account and confirms.
• Spend: the platform delivers ads and records spend against the account as it would for any advertiser.
• Statements: each month you get a statement with platform spend, fees and balances on separate lines.
• Dashboard: balances and spend you can check at any time, not only at month end.

What an agency can and cannot do

This is the part most sales conversations skip. An agency setup is an operational arrangement. It is not an exemption from anything.

Questions to ask any agency before you start

1. 1What is your legal entity, where is it registered, and who signs the agreement?
2. 2What do you verify about my business, and which documents do you need?
3. 3How do I get access, and will I log in with my own credentials?
4. 4What is the fee, what is it calculated on, and where is that written down?
5. 5What does a monthly statement look like? Can I see a sample?
6. 6Who do I contact when something goes wrong, and how quickly do they reply?
7. 7What happens if a platform restricts the account?

Good answers are short and specific. If any of them is vague, or if someone offers you an account that is 'ready to go' without asking about your business, that tells you what you need to know.

An agency account should make the boring parts reliable. It should never make the rules optional.