The Moment of Truth

I was going over the analytics for the previous month’s marketing for a handful of clients when I noticed something very odd: A client that had a $500 per month ad spend budget had spent $1,200. Some may say that’s not a huge difference, but it definitely mattered to this client.

That was a crap your pants moment.

After talking with my team, it was determined that two new Google campaigns were created and live without pausing the other campaigns. We overspent a client’s budget by more than 2x. I looked at the results of those 2 new campaigns. If they had increased revenue to make up for the difference, then that would be ok. They didn’t. In fact, the revenue generated from those 2 campaigns was only about $300.

What did I do?

I called the client and told them that I messed up – a lot. No excuses, no explanation. We screwed up royally and that’s all there was to it. We offered the following

1. Full refund of the excess we spent
2. For us to comp that amount on upcoming invoices

The reality is that everyone has a crap your pants moment. Every marketing agency has messed up. If they say they haven’t, they’re probably not being 100% honest.

Why tell a client point-blank that you messed up?

Because that’s the right thing to do. I always try to make the right and fair decision, even when it’s difficult. All anyone really has is their word, and I want to always keep my word to the best of my ability.

The end of the story?

The client forgave us, chose option #2, we moved around the budget and they’re still our client.

Honesty pays off.