More and more companies want to have their advertising in their own hands again, instead of handing it over completely. More control, more transparency, faster decisions. The catch with classic in-house control: anyone who builds it up seriously needs specialists, and they cost money. This is exactly where a second look pays off, because for streaming advertising, control is possible even without your own media department.
Why companies want to take back control
The reasons are almost always the same. You want to know where the budget goes, you do not want to wait for reports but check for yourself, and you want to adjust immediately when needed, instead of starting an approval loop. On top of that comes the wish to keep your own campaign and customer data in house.
This is not a niche topic. The German advertisers' organisation OWM (Organisation Werbungtreibende im Markenverband) explicitly calls on advertisers to build internal know-how so they can fully steer and control their digital advertising. Control and transparency are therefore not just a gut feeling of individual marketing managers, but a widely shared demand in the market.
The staffing problem of classic in-house control
The thing is: media control in the classic sense is a profession, not the push of a button. Anyone who really wants to plan, buy, run and evaluate campaigns themselves needs people who understand media planning, operate the booking systems, get spots produced and can read reports. For a large corporation, that is a department of its own. For a small or medium-sized company with a lean marketing team, creating extra positions for it is simply not feasible.
That creates the dilemma: you want the control, but you cannot afford the team behind it. And in practice, no one has to build the entire value chain internally. The sensible path often lies in between: you keep control without mapping every single step in house.
Steer instead of build: how onescreen solves it
This is exactly where onescreen comes in. The platform takes on the specialist work, so your existing team can steer the campaign itself, without new positions. Four hurdles of classic in-house control fall away.
Access to the ad slots. Instead of needing individual sales houses or an agency, you book advertising on around 40 streaming services through one interface, from Netflix to Prime Video and Disney+ to RTL+. With no contract and no minimum term.
The audience. You target by region and postal code, age, gender and interests, without employing a data specialist. If you are unsure about your audience, you can determine it in advance for free in the Persona Generator.
Spot production. Your own commercial was long the biggest hurdle for small budgets. onescreen supports you with AI-assisted spot creation, so you need neither a production team nor a second agency just for the creative.
The evaluation. The dashboard shows on a daily basis what your campaign is doing. You see for yourself where the budget goes and can adjust at any time. That is exactly the transparency and data ownership that in-housing is really about.
What in-house really means here
Importantly: onescreen does not turn you into your own media agency for all channels overnight. It makes the streaming and CTV part of your advertising self-steerable, by the person who does your marketing anyway. In-house here means control, not isolation. You decide on budget, audience and timing, but get support with the spot and the setup. For many companies that is the most practical middle path, more control than with a classic full-service agency, less effort than building a department of your own. Where exactly the line between doing it yourself and using an agency runs is explored in the article Ad Manager or Agency.
Who it pays off for
The biggest beneficiaries are lean marketing teams that take the streaming channel seriously but cannot or do not want to create a media department for it. For small and medium-sized companies, it is the way to get into video advertising at all, as the article on Streaming Ads for SMBs shows. And for everyone who wants to cut agency costs, reduce dependencies and keep their data in house, self-steering is the obvious answer anyway. What connected TV as a channel actually delivers is explained in the overview What is CTV advertising.
Conclusion
Taking back control of your own advertising is a legitimate wish that usually only stumbles over the staffing question. For streaming advertising, that contradiction dissolves: with onescreen you steer booking, audience, spot and evaluation yourself, without building a media team. You get the transparency and data ownership of in-housing, without the cost of a department of your own.
Want to take media control into your own hands? Book a demo and we will show you how in 30 minutes. Or get started in the Ad Manager.
FAQ
What does in-house media control mean? That a company plans, books, targets and evaluates its advertising itself, instead of handing that over entirely to an agency. The goal is more control, more transparency and ownership of your own data.
Do I need my own media team for it? For classic full control across all channels, yes. For streaming advertising, no: with a self-service platform like onescreen, your existing marketing steers the campaigns itself, because booking, audience, spot creation and reporting are handled by the platform.
Do I then lose the support an agency offers? No. In-house control means control, not going it alone. You decide on budget, audience and timing and are supported with the spot and the setup. It is a middle path between a full-service agency and a department of your own.
Is it worthwhile for small companies too? Especially for them. Small and medium-sized companies can get into streaming advertising this way without creating positions, and keep budget control, transparency and their data in house.