1. Market Knowledge and Continuing Education
Is your agency keeping up with the latest industry trends? Are they accommodating for shifts in consumer behavior due to COVID-19? Do they have a point of view on pending tracking restrictions with 2021 Apple iOS updates as well as the 3rd party cookie? The media landscape is continually evolving. If your digital agency is not keeping up with trends, you may be receiving outdated plans and missing real-time opportunities.
2. Transparency & Collaboration
A relationship built on trust is one of the most important things to consider when hiring an advertising agency. Are they transparent with data and campaign results? Will they look for ways to optimize the campaign once it’s live? A collaborative, transparent relationship will allow for a much more effective advertising strategy and better long-term results. Go with your gut here, but make sure you’re asking them the right questions up front.
3. Media Tools
Utilizing the right planning, buying, research and reporting tools can drastically improve the performance of a digital advertising campaign. Media tools allow an agency to effectively build an audience, target the best placements and plan an efficient budget so your campaign can achieve its goals.
Trone uses media tools such as:
- Choozle
- Google Keyword Planner & Data Studio
- MRI-Simmons
- Kantar
- Sprout Social
4. Tracking and Insight Capabilities
Tracking a campaign from first ad impression all the way through the customer journey gives you a big picture view of the success of the campaign. It also allows for optimizations and A/B tests to be implemented as the campaign progresses. If an ad agency takes no steps to track how a user interacts with your website after clicking on an ad, the agency probably isn’t very experienced in executing digital campaigns.
To gain insights into your campaigns and have full access to the website activity, tracking pixels and tag management scripts, like Google Tag Manager, must be added to the code of your website.
5. Effective Reporting
Quality reporting ties back to transparency and collaboration with your digital agency. When campaign reports are provided, you should be able to see the user journey, what’s working and what’s not working so your campaign can be optimized effectively. Ongoing reporting meetings should occur throughout the duration of the campaign to allow you the opportunity to collaborate with your agency and discuss potential enhancements.
Ask prospective agencies for a sample client report so you can get an idea of what their reporting process looks like. This will give you a feel for the types of insights they’re able to provide.
Trone’s digital specialists offer expertise in display advertising, website development and monitoring, SEO, content marketing and more. Feel free to contact us if you think we may be the right fit.