This subject is a hot topic, certainly amongst bigger brands. These businesses are in no doubt that they need the right skills and expertise to manage their digital media advertising. The challenge for some of them is whether to manage things in-house or outsource the job to a media agency. The dilemma is the topic that I covered a year ago, and is for bigger brands to be worried about.
It’s the smaller businesses, those that are debating whether to hire a media agency for the first time, that often require more insight into the benefits, possibilities, and complexities involved in paid media advertising management, in order to justify the investment in paying experts to manage this process.
Unfortunately, our job and the service we provide doesn’t have the luxury of having a visual output that can be easily understood and interpreted. In fact, our work is all about data and numbers, which can be difficult to engage with for many small businesses.
There are skilled talents needed for the execution and implementation tasks on digital ads platforms, from building up an account for those first-time users of the service, through to daily management and optimisation of ads accounts. The same skills are needed for reporting on the performance of the accounts – whether reports are deliverable weekly, monthly, or as one-offs to provide further insight and updates for business owners.
There are usually client service skills required in addition to the above. The type of talent that is required to attend a client’s meeting. While these people should understand media channels in a broader sense, they also need to be onboard with the latest updates of the client’s account. They need to use their skills to understand the client’s challenges, connect the dots, and think of strategies and plans to help the client’s business. They need to be engaging and trusted by clients.
Management of ad accounts requires people who not only can understand data but also are good at analysing them, extracting tangible and actionable insights. The talent needed here should be able to interpret the data and make them accessible to the client. These are the tasks that are usually done with a combination of different methods of communications: calls, emails, virtual/face-to-face meetings.
Due to its complexity, it can be difficult for small businesses to appreciate all the work that goes into the management of their advertising accounts in order to ensure that the whole ecosystem runs effectively, efficiently, and delivers results.