Love them or hate them, agencies play an important role for scaling businesses. Bringing in expert skills on a temporary/semi-temporary basis should breathe new life and opportunity. However, agencies can be a bit like the bizarre and inappropriate boyfriends of your youth, you have a kiss a few before you work out what it is that you’re really looking for. 

Hoping to make finding an agency less confusing than navigating teenage romance, here are our top five things to consider when looking for an ads agency.

Chemistry

It might seem like an odd one to put at the top, but we think it’s vital for a productive relationship. If you feel like your agency are an extension of your own team, they understand and get excited by your business and bring positivity and an energy to drive your growth forward, then that’s a big box ticked. If you feel able to trust them, it frees up your time and energy, and allows them to focus theirs on building your business.

Find out from a prospective agency who, from their team, you’ll be working with. There’s no value in getting all the right responses from the agency owner or a senior employee when you first approach them, and being handed the office junior to manage your account once you sign up.

Bigger Picture

‘Marketing’ is broad. ‘Digital marketing’ is still massive. ‘Ads’ starts to be more focused. Even if your agency is only coming in to focus on ads, you want to know they are interested in the broader marketing machine. In most businesses there are many elements which influence how and why people engage and buy from them, and you want an agency who understands the elements which affect their ads.

A diligent agency will take a keen interest in an ecomm website or landing page, any customer journey, nurture sequences, organic social activity, email campaigns, sales processes etc. Optimising the customer experience before and after being served an ad will bring better returns. It’s the job of your agency to keep working to increase your ROAS (return on ad spend), and advising on broader elements is part of this.

Experience and Reputation

What has the agency achieved for other brands? You should be asking what impact they’ve had on other, ideally similar, businesses. Whilst the results a campaign delivers for one client can’t necessarily be transferred to your business, seeing some top line results or case studies and understanding if they’ve fulfilled their brief is a good gauge.

Beware a page full of client logos with no feedback in the their own words.

Method

Ads managers are always talking about testing. We know it’s not what clients want to hear, but the truth is, until you get into the bus and start driving it, you don’t know how it’s going to respond. 

However, running ads isn’t a finger in the air business either. Depending on your campaign, a good agency will ask you for some key metrics to make an informed assessment of the budget you’ll need to get the results you’re after. 

They should also be asking you about creative assets, email lists (and how well segmented they are) and previous activity on the account, as these will all impact the opportunities of a campaign.

Hourly v Retainer

The problem we find with the hourly rate v retainer question is that ads campaigns rarely behave in an ordered and regular manner. This makes billing a proper headache for clients working on an hourly rate contract. If it’s been a challenging month for a campaign it’s either going to lead to a big invoice, or a capped monthly fee and abandoned campaign.

We feel a fairer and much more productive approach is a retainer. Some months the agency will really sweat for their fee, and in months when demands are lighter they’ll be banking new creative and ads to feed in as campaigns start to fatigue. Successful campaigns require commitment, and you don’t want yours run by someone who’s checking their watch.

Our biggest piece of advice when looking to outsource is speak to people! Ask friends and colleagues for recommendations, speak to a few, ask all your questions, listen well to the answers, and go with your gut.