If you are investing material dollars in marketing campaigns, more often than not, you have considered engaging, or have engaged, an advertising agency to assist you with those efforts. Those decisions whether or not to manage your marketing campaigns with in-house teams vs. third party agencies are typically not easy decisions. And, if you decide to outsource to an agency, the selection process can be overwhelming, with the thousands of agencies out there to choose from. This post will help make those decisions easier for you.
In-House Teams vs. Third Party Agencies
The decision to manage campaigns internally vs. externally often comes down to the following things: (1) the size of your media budgets; (2) the complexities/channels of the campaign; and (3) the skills of your team and the analytics tools you have to work with. Over time, my leaning on this decision has changed. I used to want to run everything internally, to save the costs vs. an agency (which can often be 15-20% higher including their fees). And, I used to want to find disparate agencies with a specific expertise (e.g., one agency for search engines, another agency for social media).
Identifying the Best Potential Agencies for Your Business
All agencies are not created equal. Certain agencies are expert in B2C and other agencies are expert in B2B. Certain agencies are full service advertising agency handling all services, and other agencies handle certain specialty solutions (e.g., branding, creative, television, B2B lead generation). Some agencies are set up to handle huge budgets, and other agencies are set up to handle smaller budgets. So, the first step is to have a rough idea of your budget and needs (e.g., prepare to spend 10-30% of your revenue target on sales and marketing activities), and the next step is to identify the agencies that are best suited to support those budgets and needs.
Create a Questionnaire and Interview The Best Targets to Ensure a Good Fit
Just because you think they are a good agency for you based on preliminary research, doesn’t mean they really are a good agency for your exact needs. You need to ask probing questions of them, like: (1) what is your minimum media budget, are we large enough to be a material account for you; (2) what are your fees, can we afford your services (keeping the fees under 10-20% range, depending on media budget); (3) what is your industry expertise, do you have good references from similar companies like ours; and (4) are you working for any of our competitors, do you have any conflicts we need to worry about. This part of the process will narrow down your list to around 3-5 truly best targets.
Invite the Best Candidates to Pitch Their Services
The pitching process will start with the agency better learning your budgets, history and needs, and most likely will involve them taking a closer look at your current campaigns in Google Ads, Microsoft Ads, Facebook, Google Analytics, etc. After 2-4 weeks, they should be have completed their research and planning, and be ready to present their proposal.
Pick the Front-Runner
Once you pick your favorite agency from the presentations, it is time to take the next step with them. That will include things like: (1) speaking to their references (to ensure what they pitched and what they delivered were in line, especially in terms of team quality and happiness with efforts); and (2) negotiating the agreement and statement of work (to make sure both parties are largely in alignment on the legalese and the plan). This can take several weeks to complete.
Formally Award the Winner
Congratulations, you have formally engaged your advertising agency. Hopefully, the above process enabled you to find a really great partner for your specific business, that can help propel it to new heights. Now starts the busy work of transitioning services from your old agencies or team members, sharpening your pencil on the campaign strategy and media mix modeling, and setting up all the management processes.
