5 Signs it’s time to change your digital marketing agency

While some online businesses may have the tools, resources, and bandwidth to manage their digital marketing campaign in-house, most of them do not. These companies often rely on the expertise provided by professional digital marketing agencies. However, not all agencies provide the level of service your brand requires.

Here are some signs that it’s time to change your digital marketing agency:

• They don’t understand your target audience

A professional digital marketing agency will create a campaign strategy after understanding your target audience. Rather than create ads that are generic and one size fits all, they will spend time understanding your target audience’s key demographics and tailor make ads that will appeal to them.  If you have a brand guideline document or key demographic analysis done for your brand, you need to share this with your agency. This will help them dive deeper and get a better understanding of your target market. Not to mention, it also saves time and money by learning through experimenting. They will know from experience what works on platforms like AdWords and platforms like Facebook, Instagram etc. They will also know where your audience is more likely to engage with your brand.

• They don’t communicate

Nothing can be worse than having an agency that does not make it a point to communicate and collect feedback from you. If digital marketing campaigns can be run on auto-pilot you really don’t need an agency to manage your campaign. However, it is not advisable to leave a campaign on auto-pilot no matter what type of campaign. The key here is to have a set of measurable KPI (key performance indicators) and schedule weekly/monthly meetings with your agency either in person (if they are local) or over the phone if they are located far from your business. This will help you understand if your agency is on track or if they lack direction and need your inputs to get back on track. This also makes sure your agency is constantly monitoring your campaigns and is not running it on auto-pilot

• They don’t deliver a positive ROI

It’s a simple equation, your campaign needs to pay for itself, the agency fee and also deliver a profit margin that is healthy. If these parameters are not being met then you really are running a negative ROI campaign. You need an agency that clearly understands your business goals and profit margin goals. Professional agencies will make it a point to understand how profit margins vary across product categories before deciding on what kind of CPA (cost per action) is profitable. They cannot bid at the same level across product categories rendering some categories unprofitable. They need to maintain a healthy balance between high cost categories and high profit categories.

• They don’t share data

Running a campaign that has no measurable KPI’s is as good as throwing your money away. If your agency is not providing data that is measurable and in line with your marketing goals then you need to change your agency. Every campaign be it a lead generation campaign or a cost per sale campaign has measurable parameters. Your agency will need to define these goals and you need to measure their performance against these goals. It takes time (3-6 months) depending on the nature and size of campaign to optimize a campaign towards a certain goal but these goals need to be monitored parodically. You don’t want to be in a situation where you have wasted 3 months of your precious time waiting for progress and at the end of it have no measurable data to decide if your approach is working or not.

• They don’t speak your brand language

An agency that does not align with your brand and merely treats it as a another campaign is not the right fit for you. Your agency needs to integrate with your brand philosophy and be a part of your growth story. They are flag bearers of your brand and need to speak your brand language & philosophy. Their approach should reflect your brand’s image and should not dilute your brand image. If the ad copy or creative are not in line with your brand’s guidelines then you know that they are disconnected from your band and need to be replaced. A professional agency will never compromise your brand’s integrity for the sake of traffic or visibility. They will know how to position your brand on the right networks and topics. They will also know to avoid certain tactics or technique’s that maybe damaging to your brand. We have seen several instances where agencies have used dynamic keyword insertion ads that appear for the wrong keywords giving the ads a totally different meaning.

Your digital marketing agency is an extension of your team and they need to behave and operate like one. If they appear to be disconnected and do not put in the effort to integrate with your brand then you know that it is time to shift to a different agency. If they are not innovative and use the same old strategies and techniques year , year then you know it’s time to change your agency. Finally, if they are not delivering a positive ROI beyond a certain point then you should be looking for a different agency.