With increasing distrust between digital publishers, marketing agencies and clients, marketers turn to audits

Since 2016, the relationship between agencies and clients has eroded significantly. The distrust was fueled largely by insights from an Association of National Advertisers (ANA) report which identified transparency issues around media buying, including kickbacks from media companies. The result was rapid growth of brands auditing agency media buying processes and pricing. Not surprisingly, many agencies pushed back on brands and auditors, citing flawed methodologies, among other complaints. While the auditing continues, we at Anvil see an opportunity to take a broader approach, to help brands understand how well all digital marketing is performing, regardless of who is doing the work or which vendors are being utilized.

The agency-client trust levels are at an all-time low, according to a 2018 study by ID Comms. According to a January 2019 study by Integral Ad Science, 63 percent of US agencies and nearly 60 percent of brands indicated a lack of transparency was a strong threat to digital ad budgets. On the media buying side, the greatest concern is programmatic advertising, which is known for opaque pricing practices. While agencies should be open to audits, if not embrace them, to rebuild trust with clients, auditors are accusing agencies of gaming the data being examined to evaluate transparency.

Another component to consider, in addition to auditing past media buying activities, is to look forward to future purchase. One area that is seeing growth and change in this area is marketing procurement. Beyond the trust issues between brands and agencies, overall cost is a factor. For some brands, advertising is the largest expense on the books. While procurement is seen as a bad word by agencies and vendors, it will be playing an increasingly important role moving forward. Agencies need to learn how to work with procurement while brands need to improve integration between marketing and procurement. Changes may included creating a new role in the marketing department: marketing procurement. If brands can focus more on outcomes or value-created and relevant KPIs, agencies be in a better position to embrace the new role. 

Much of the focus of agency audits has been on advertising, due largely to the questionable pricing and measurement against a relatively large expense. Unfortunately, this diminished a bigger opportunity. Digital marketing audits can and should expand the view to include other digital marketing channels and disciplines to include paid media (pay-per-click search engine and social media advertising, retargeting, remarketing and programmatic), search engine optimization (SEO) and organic social media/content strategy. An ideal audit would also include the technology stack (sales & marketing automation, email, CRM, etc.), related vendors/integrators. More than just evaluating the efficacy of agency and other marketing vendors, audits can also be directed at internal teams (whomever is ultimately managing if not doing the activity being audited).

There are many challenges with implementing an audit, including hostile vendor, agency and client-side contacts who feel they have something to lose. Another key issue can be a lack of access to the data and/or platforms, which may be related to the first challenge. A third potential concern is the inherent conflict-of-interest, if the auditor also provides a digital marketing service offering. We’ve found the best solution is to get buy-off on an audit from the CEO and CFO, so the parties being audited are aware the audit has full support from the brand’s executive team. Another fix is to either use a truly unbiased auditor that does not provide marketing services or ensure the contract includes a non-solicitation of services.

As media buying continues to automate, agencies must look to alternative revenue streams and strategic directions, which may include developing IP, integrating and managing AdTech and MarTech platforms or moving towards more of a strategic consulting role. At my agency, Anvil, we’ve done just that: we’ve developed our own IP (the Digital Marketing Efficiency Audit, formerly known as the Anvil Marketing Index?) and we’ve moved to a more strategic role, advising clients on evolving digital marketing channels and strategies including Amazon marketing, podcasting and voice search optimization.

Since 2000, Anvil has honed its expertise in digital marketing, including paid media (pay-per-click search engine and social media advertising, retargeting, remarketing and programmatic), SEO, organic social media and email marketing strategy. With an ever-expanding and evolving service mix, Anvil is in a unique position to audit existing teams, vendors and agency partners to evaluate performance and return-on-investment (ROI). To address the concerns outlined in the above article, Anvil has developed a 2-tiered pricing strategy for it’s Digital Marketing Efficiency Audit, with the highest price-point guaranteeing it will not solicit marketing services relating to the audit. If you’re interested in learning more about Anvil’s latest digital marketing audit, contact us today.