agency

Advertising audit service for SMEs

Curious if your current advertising performance efficiency can be improved? You are in the right place. While leading advertising for large and small businesses for decades, I have found that advertising audits mean different things to different businesses. So, we are particularly interested in helping SMEs improve their advertising effectiveness at Mister Marketeer, no questions asked. Why not Corporations or MNCs? Find my answer to it here. Scope of our advertising audit service: The scope of our audit service may cover one or more of the following segments. Advertising strategy Audit We will evaluate whether your business objectives align with your marketing goals and whether the execution of your advertising matches your strategy. These types of audits typically settle alignment gaps in your business. You may need to consider telling us about your brand positioning, your core target audience, and your defined competitive environment. Advertising campaign analysis We get down to the nuts and bolts here by analysing your current and past advertising performance. Our objective is to determine whether your reach, engagement, conversion metrics and ROI follow a framework where they are well-measured and show growth or decline. We will review your messaging, creatives and customer journeys to provide you with a holistic view of improvements that can be done (by you, your team or your agency). Advertising transparency reviews We have found SME businesses completely blind to the implementation side of their ads. They were unaware of who was targeted, where, and how. They could not retrieve the data because they could not access ad platforms. Often, this was because of their current contractual obligations with agencies. Internal advertising capability review In both startups and scaleups, we found that internal DNA, structure, staffing and belief systems create capability gaps that imply a loss of both time and money. We will cover these aspects should the client wish to do so. Advertising processes reviews Every department needs to have a standard set of processes such that the entire organisation follows a systematic approach to execute and scale. Why should advertising be different? So, where do you start? For Startups with seed funding or more: Start with a strategy audit on advertising.. For SMEs: we have found advertising campaign audits to be more impactful. Process and Fees Contact us with information on your business website, your name, and your designation. We will give you an hour of free consultation. This one hour is often enough for us to give you actionable insight to apply. We request a re-engagement for a formal and more lengthy discussion once results from these insights are available. Our audit services are costed with considerations made for our time and scope. These fees may range from $50 to $250 per billable hour. NDA requirements We recommend NDAs to enable, facilitate and share data confidently and with full confidentiality. What do you get Clear, actionable steps to improve your advertising Estimated improvement metrics provided for your businesses based on our industry experience. We provide our clients with exceptional, customizable, and personalised tips you won’t find on the internet or social media. Contact us to receive yours. Audit service for MNCs and Corporations Bigger brands with larger budgets have far more audit needs, such as Brand safety, ad fraud, impression, and click tracking to ensure that the ad actually ran and an actual user clicked on your ad. Vendor and supplier analysis is used to review the accuracy and markups on pricing, handling of media vendors for kickbacks, inventory quality, and compliance with several advertiser criteria. Many of the brands that do these kinds of audits are publicly listed firms, and it’s an overkill for SMEs.

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What to look out for when procuring an advertising agency service

You are ready to start executing your advertising and marketing campaigns and are now in the selection stage of an agency. This article gives you the top five tips for your decision-making process. We have heard stories about startups and SMEs having an unideal experience when dealing with agencies and the top 5 factors to look out for when choosing an agency to work with. Ultimately, you are going to be serviced by a human, and the skills of the agency, internal teamwork, and client servicing aspects are important. This article helps you figure out telltale signs of an agency contract that may get you locked up without guaranteeing proper servicing. Understand the length of the contract and your exit terms clearly. Most agencies will ask you for long-term contracts, with very few offering 30-day terms for trials (we do). A longer-term contract makes more sense when a strategy is decided over the next 3 – 6 months. A longer contract allows the agency to execute in a planned manner and bring results to the table. It also gives you cost benefits since it helps agencies secure cash flow over a larger period of time and thereby helps determine resources. Are you required to spend a minimum stipulated amount of money every month, or is a given budget amount required to be spent annually? A minimum stipulated budget automatically creates an incentive to spend the allocated budget even if it does not perform. This is not going to work in your favour in the long run. On various occasions, we have experienced startups finding flaws in their products/services and asking to stop advertising so that they can route their budget to improve the flaws. Growth-inclined startups or those still expanding their current portfolios must consider budget flexibility and offer agency terms that are win-win. Who controls the data and access to your advertising platforms? Much of the work done by advertising teams relies on their ability to structure marketing campaigns and train the underlying advertising algorithms. This is done on the client’s budget, and when clients switch agencies, they often never get access to advertising platforms. If you still do not have ownership on your advertising platforms, then fix it either by requesting ownership or simply moving over to a new account. Transparency is another issue. Clients may not even have access to look at real costs incurred on their platforms. Relying on manually constructed Excel reports is almost a guaranteed method of paying more than you think. Of course, there are kickbacks, and a great agency (like ours) declares all benefits to all its clients. Who will service your account? Will it be someone with relevant experience? Frequently, we hear startups meeting experienced professionals during pitches and being left to be looked after by a poor intern still finding their way up the agency ladder. We have even heard about clients not having any access to the actual campaign manager and thereby not being able to learn more about acquisition strategies that are working or not working. You could likely be in the dark about the process and experience. We often rely on a given ‘portfolio’ or ads from agencies to procure them without knowing if the client still works with them. With Mister Marketeer, you can ask us to connect you to our clients to verify a claim, no questions asked.  Is your agency willing to look at metrics beyond advertising KPI to help you grow? While everything is based on the scope of work, a fast-growing scenario requires communication across divisions outside of marketing. I get worried when silos are created, and discussions are limited to cost per lead without care for sales team insights.  Growth requires partnership with a high amount of trust, and while SOW draws a line, the relationship with your agency and gestures of bilateral goodwill is beyond ignorance. KPIs are great! What if you wanted to grow more? Can your agency diagnose metrics to give a pointed answer on possibilities instead of relying on an expert from an ad platform?  There are several other parameters to look for, like the type of previous client experience, the width and range of advertising channels, and, maybe more importantly, as you grow beyond your initial advertising tech stack of Adwords, Facebook, and so on.

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