Introduction
Metrics are being overlooked in an industry that needs them. Most companies aren’t defining their most important metrics and even if they are, they’re not monitoring them in real-time. However, the data clearly shows that for companies that measure and monitor their performance, these goals can improve performance and make you grow more quickly. Sharing key metrics in real-time with all employees ensures everyone is focused on working towards the same goals.
The reason why keeping metrics on track is so important for your business is because the world is moving way faster than 10 years ago, which requires us to have faster and more assertive decisions. Without fresh and clear information, the chances to make the right decision are not high.
In this new report, COR Report: The State of Marketing & Advertising Industry, you will find insightful information to take business decisions through a data-driven approach.
Antoine Colaço, the founder of Google’s office in Latin America once told in an interview: “One of the reasons that made Google a successful company was because we were very metrics based”.
While tracking metrics is crucial, it is not enough on its own. Business leaders must also make that information available to the entire team to motivate them toward achieving goals. Only a handful of 6% of companies never shares their KPIs with their employees, according to the Gecko board survey, despite voting that the most important factor contributing to business growth is every team member having clear objectives, and the number two most important factor is every employee being aware of the key metrics which help the company grow.
Who participates
To start with, the first slide shows us four big questions about marketing agencies as a whole.
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Do you work for a global or a local agency?
The answer to this question was biased: 29.29% said they worked in a global agency while 70.71% of employees of these agencies surveyed, stated they worked in a local agency
Global marketing campaigns are useful for raising the profile of your business and its services, and for driving sales to larger companies, while localized marketing is far more focused, with a smaller target answer. Localized marketing is a very involved process. To ensure their message is properly tailored to the cultural norms of the target market, marketers will need to use native speakers who are familiar with both language and convention.
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What type of agency do you belong to?
The employee’s answers this time stated that 40.40% work in full-service advertising agencies, 16.9% in Digital Marketing Agencies, 11.5% in creative boutiques, 10.8% in digital advertising agencies, 6.62% in brand agencies, 4.53% in traditional advertising agencies, 3.14% Media buying agencies, a low 2.79% work in Web design agencies, 1.92% social media advertising agency and just 1.39% in public relations agencies.
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What is your role within your agency?
Of the surveyed employees, 26.5% occupied the CEO post, 20.83% the Director role, 15.83% other management roles, 8.61% project managers, behind them collaborators with 7.75%, then principals 5,34%, VPs with 4.48%. To complete the C-suite, CCOs have a 2.93%, COO 4.99%, CFAs 2.24%, and CTOs 0.52%.
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What is the size of your agency?
Small agencies with up to 15 employees at 41.75%, small agencies with employees from 16 up to 49 people at 25.08%, mid-size agencies with up to two hundred employees at 22.05%, and mid-size agencies with up to 500 employees at 6.06%. Now we have large-size agencies with up to a thousand employees at 2.19%, followed by global agencies with up to five thousand employees at 1.18 %, and finally, agencies with more than five thousand employees that condense 1.68 of the surveyed.
Large marketing agencies have become exactly what they are today by successfully servicing many clients over many years; they have more resources at their disposal and a greater range of their services.
Meanwhile, working with a small agency isn’t just about the money. Today’s big-name agencies are partnering with boutique agencies in hopes of offering their clients fresh campaign ideas. As the ease of obtaining results through online marketing continues to enhance competition, large agencies can no longer afford to rest on their laurels.
Smaller agencies are more agile and can adjust on the fly to tweak campaigns. These kinds of agencies offer niche expertise in the service they offer, and innovative thinking, as their employees seek to give their best and are hungry for good results. Small agencies are usually more proficient in leveraging new technology in support of innovative ideas.
Industry Overview
In this chapter or instance of the brief, we’ll be talking about the main challenges every agency has to deal with to stay competitive and a way to solve these problems; identifying them is key to tackling them in a precise way.
Having metrics for all of the issues described will tell us in a quantifiable way, how to anticipate the problem and have an early solution, not letting them grow bigger.
These metrics are critically important because they will help the brand determine whether campaigns will be successful or not, providing insights to adjust any issue that may come along the way. By having precise metrics, employees and project managers can know how they are reaching the goals they had previously set with the client and what is preventing them from achieving them. The next step would be writing down precise reports about the decisions that have been made and ways to optimize the performance to have better campaigns in the future.
Project and Resource Management
Which challenges are agencies and companies facing regarding project and resource efficiency?
Now more than ever, agencies need to be at the top of their game to be profitable and scale their success. The shifting realities of the professional services industry don’t make that an easy task. When given the best tools, working your way past the challenges is more than possible.
In this instance of the brief, we’ll be talking primarily about the biggest pain points of resource allocation and forecast, first. Then the discussion will turn around knowing your team’s capacity in real-time while they are with their hands full on a project.
Having pertinent metrics of project management is an effective way to evaluate the progress of the project. Measuring your project progress against specific factors helps clarify the management process. They can also help guide the objectives of a project, giving teams the ability to track performance and make improvements as needed.
By following and analyzing the right indicators, you’ll gain key insights into your team’s performance – from both a high-level and individual perspective. You’ll be able to pinpoint the bottlenecks and other inefficiencies that you can then correct, adding to your project’s assumptions list and improving future project performance.
Additionally, tracking and collecting this type of information can come in handy when it’s time for your project management performance review. Think about it: the more raw data you have, the better you can demonstrate that you’re a true leader who is dedicated to the success of the organization as a whole.
How Time Management impacts agencies’ profitability
Time management helps you see how your team uses its time, analyzes productivity, and makes informed process improvement decisions. Besides, it automates multiple routine activities, allowing you to focus on high-value marketing tasks and stay tuned in to what’s important.
In this instance of the brief, we’ll be talking about how we perceive our projects in terms of profit, how we are estimating the fee of those projects, and how often that budget previously agreed upon changes. We’ll also examine the reasons why those budgets change, how to estimate project profitability and how time management can help us with all of these.
Time management metrics will help you manage time efficiently by attacking those things in your project where there are flaws. Say goodbye to deadline pressure, these numbers will result in effective strategies for better management of your time. You’ll find yourself being more productive and procrastinating less. Remember to measure your results, not your time, set priorities and focus on your goals, target to be early, stop multitasking and stop distracting yourself. Ultimately and for the best, track your time spent.
In terms of profitability, you will see that time management improves productivity and profitability by having a solid strategy everyone is on board with. These strategies provide positive motivation for workers to stay oriented and give the team the tools they need for a job well done.
As for the importance of profitability metrics, they give your company a window into how the net profit is broken down. Various factors contribute to the net profit figure and understanding these factors will give you a better idea of how certain aspects of the agency are performing. This helps to give potential investors an overall picture of how well the business is performing compared to its competitors and gives a strong understanding of the company’s underlying finances. The more you understand these metrics, the more you can channel energy to make your agency more attractive to potential investors and make every project you’re in, more profitable.
Client Relationship: Adapting to change for them
In this instance of the brief, we’ll be talking about your relationship with your client, describing the features of your ideal one, and why it matters to stay communicative and share progress, tasks, and resources. We’ll be analyzing how transparency can lead to winning your client’s heart.
A healthy client-agency relationship is a partnership between a business and a marketing agency. By the very definition of the word partnership, a client-agency relationship should be built on a foundation of mutual respect, trust, and understanding. For client-agency relationships to succeed, all parties must be aligned.
Transparency will allow for alignment. Transparency will dictate expectations for copes, KPIs, and billing. Transparency will also establish guidelines for communication, monthly reporting, and dependencies.
Having precise metrics of your relationship with your client points out how strong it is, the quality of their experience with your agency’s service, and their overall satisfaction with the brand. These metrics will result in showing customer experience quality and customer loyalty. By having precise numbers, you can adapt how you work to ensure good client satisfaction.
How agencies are using technology for their operational management
In this instance of the brief, we’ll be talking about what the tech stack of your agency looks like, how many tech tools your agency uses for its operations, what is data silo, and if it’s an issue in your enterprise and why.
The importance of technology in agencies cannot be understated. Agencies worldwide are relying on emerging technologies to help improve their competitive advantage and drive strategy and growth. Today, we cannot even consider doing business without the internet, video conferencing, project management, and more. The role of technology nowadays will only continue to expand. This fact necessitates incorporating technology into your processes if you aren’t already doing it. So, it’s time to get familiar with the technology which means getting in contact with project management tools and others, to reach the best service your agency can bring, it doesn’t matter how many you use to achieve this, in the end, the final product is what matters
Technology metrics will help you visualize how you are implementing technologies in your day to day of work, and how are you using them to reach your goals. They help CIOs or Chief executives of IT understand the value of technology and demonstrate the value of IT to the rest of the agency or business. The important thing to remember is that every team’s tracking and reporting needs are different, that’s why it’s important to share different metrics with different stakeholders. Use visuals to make reports easy to understand, and try to keep a scorecard that is a high-level way to both evaluate and communicate your team’s performance. Always keep in mind that your metrics are aligned with the unique goals of your organization.
Conclusion
What’s important to understand is how metrics can influence our decision-making. These numbers allow us to make strategic and informed decisions before things are even an issue. With what the report provides us, we must be proactive and not reactive to the problems that emerge. In a way, the problems that arise are not new, that’s how metrics, in a way, keep score of them and tell us in what area we must do an extra effort, to become a better agency.
Metrics will help us figure out if our campaigns will be successful or not, providing insights to adjust to anything that may pop up. They’re effective in monitoring the progress in the project management area, they’ll help in relocating resources and forecast by showing us the pinpoints of those issues and the team’s capacity in the project at hand.
Regarding time management, metrics are critical. Reaching deadlines, being more productive, and avoiding distractions. They help us visualize if our time in the project at hand, will give away profit, and help us estimate better fees. Time management shows us the reasons for budget changes and why they happen.
As for client relationship metrics, they will show how strong your bond with your client is and the quality of your service. By analyzing these numbers, you’ll see if you need to adapt any strategy or approach.
Technology metrics will show how your team uses technology, from how many apps or tools they use to reach previously set goals, and if they are being useful or not.
