Your agency relationship is doomed.
We know that’s a heck of a way to start an article, and it’s a bit of a downer. But in a lot of cases, unfortunately, it’s just true.
Megan Zink, Senior Director of Demand Generation Marketing at ReviewTrackers and the presenter for this particular Hot Take Live talk, stressed that agency relationships are just plain hard.
So many brands stress that they haven’t had any success working with past agencies, and the American Association of Advertising Agencies, the average client relationship was 7.2 years in 1984 and 5.3 years in 1997, but under 3 years long today.
Zink worked in a marketing agency previously and saw this firsthand. Clients feel that it doesn’t work, and agencies are sometimes stressed about issues coming from their clients.
She also knows, though, that agency relationships can be the key to scaling fast, just like she did in her new role. Together with their agency, they focused on PPC and SEO strategies that drove the following results:
- Generated $852K in the pipeline for $490K of spend, which is a 1.7x ROAS
- Increased branded keyword searches by an average of 142%—each
- Increased total ops from organic search by 336%
This happened since they started working together in November of 2021.
So positive agency relationships are possible—but you need to get it right.
To do so, you need to start with these three things:
- There’s no such thing as a “set it and forget it” policy; you both need to be involved regularly and consistently, and there should be a dedicated person overseeing that relationship and checking in regularly. (Megan has a monthly call with her agency.)
- Two-way data sharing is imperative so that everyone is on the same page; you will have some data the agency won’t have, including how well the leads convert or how high-value they are.
- Over-communication and optimization are key.
Cultivating strong agency collaboration is imperative, both internally and externally. Agencies should not be treated as entirely external teams; they need collaboration with internal team members, and it needs to be an active and ongoing effort from both parties. Agencies are meant to augment your team, not replace it.
Want to check out the full video? Watch the full Hot Take Live here!