So many clients that I start working with are using the wrong agencies. They are being ripped off, or their campaigns just aren’t working. In many cases they have chosen the wrong agency for what they need and for their budgets – it’s not necessarily that the agency is bad, it’s just not the right one for them at this point in time.
Often when I first start working with clients nearly always they are wasting thousands ? (often hundreds of thousands of pounds) on fees and media spend that are not delivering a return. And I put a quick stop to that!
When hiring a new agency it’s always worth speaking to at least 3 agencies/ suppliers for each of your needs. Have a meeting with them in person, if possible, go to their office if they have one. Really get to know them.
Here are some questions that you need to ask yourself and the agency before choosing who to go with.
How to find a Digital Media Agency.
- Have they got good testimonials?
- Have they got good Google Reviews?
- Ask within your network for referrals – do any of them come recommended from people you know?
- Google for the service that you are looking for and review their site thoroughly – this is a good alternative to recommendations as part of the 3+ agencies that you plan to meet.
- What sort of clients are they working with?
- What size budgets are they working with other clients?
- What industries do they specialize in?
- Does that fit in line with what you are looking for in your business?
- Do they have case studies which show good results?
- Can you speak directly with their clients to find out exactly what are the good/ not so good things about this agency?
- What is their office like? Do their staff seem happy? (check our Glassdoor). You don’t want your team working on your account to be constantly leaving!
Find out who will be working on the account – get to know them.
- Do you like them?
- What level of expertise do they have?
- What other accounts are they working on?
- What is their experience?
- Often you will meet the founders/ owners/ new business people in a pitch and then you’ll never get to speak to them again once the account is live so make sure that you find out who is going to be your day to day contact and also who will oversee the account.
How to know whether they are charging correctly.
- What are their rates?
- How do their rates change as you spend more money? (they should decrease).
- Can they send a very clear and transparent proposal which shows exactly what they charge for?
- What extras do they charge for? (this is sometimes a way that agencies or suppliers can make more on high-profit extras like tracking).
Contracts and Terms.
- Are they going to issue you a contract? If so review it in advance.
- Is there a notice period?
- Is there a set-up fee?
- What does the set-up fee cover?
- Is there a monthly retainer? If so what does this include?
- Do they take a fixed fee or are they charging a % of media spend?
Creative
- Do they look after the creative needs or do you need to provide the creative separately? With campaigns like Facebook and Instagram (in fact most digital campaigns) you need a whole bank of creative that you can change and test regularly.
- Are they going to be testing different ad copy if they are running text-based (PPC) campaigns?
- How many different ad copies are they testing?
- How often are they doing this?
- Are they building landing pages or will you do this?
- If so will they charge to build the landing pages or is it included in the cost?
- If they don’t offer this as a service are they going to advise on the best kind of landing pages to use?
- Do they work with partner creative agencies that they recommend or do you need to provide your own creative?
Reporting
- How often do they report on the results?
- What does the reporting look like (ask to see an example report)?
- How often do you have a call to discuss results (weekly/monthly)?
- How often will you meet in person for an update?
- How often are they analyzing the results internally and making changes to the campaigns based on what is and what is not working?
- Who will be doing the actual reports and who will be on the calls?
- Will they be making proactive changes to the campaigns based on the reports?
- Will they send an overall update with the report as to what is and what is not working?
Tracking
- What sort of tracking do they use?
- Why do they use this kind of tracking?
- Is there an additional charge for tracking tools?
- Will they provide training on tracking and how to use Google Analytics?
This is the kind of thing that I love helping clients with. It’s guaranteed to save you money as pretty much everyone I have helped has previously wasted money on media and marketing campaigns that haven’t delivered results. Often they don’t have the insight/ knowledge to understand this which is not surprising as it can be quite confusing and complicated! But with my degree in economics and accounting, and having run my own digital media agency for 10 years I am all over the figures.
So my final question and most important one maybe is do you think that your marketing spend might need a bit of a review? If so get in touch. I’d love to help!
