Keith Kochberg, CEO of iMarketing LTD, wrote about ensuring marketing agencies are delivering what they promise, titled Top Five Ways to Tell Your Online Agency is Faking It.
To highlight, the top five red flags are:
- Is your agency regularly testing different opportunities?
- Do you get regular, detailed reports?
- When was the last time you were told NOT to spend money?
- How often do you hear from your account manager?
- How transparent is your monthly bill?
As a measurement agency of record, we couldn’t agree more with point #2. You should see all the key metrics associated with your campaign, including the not so good ones. If you are presented with reports detailing how great the campaign is doing and never hear any bad news, or never hear that a campaign just isn’t working, you should be very suspect. If your agency stammers when you ask to see targets and goals, that is also problematic. Conversely, if data is thrown at you in pieces and doesn’t provide a cohesive view into your overall effort or if you are overwhelmed with data from them that can be just as troubling.
Marketing reporting should be holistic, end-to-end and should tie marketing dollars all the way to the sale (yes, even if that sale happens offline). Censored, partial and un-timely reporting is a major cause for concern.
Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.