6 Things Digital Marketing Agencies Won’t Tell You
If you’ve hired a digital marketing agency at some point in your life and don’t have much experience in the field, then you know all too well the struggle of not understanding what the digital marketing agency charged you for and why.
It is vital that you understand the basics of digital marketing to keep up with the agency and understand the digital marketing metrics they keep throwing at you. It is also important to invest your money in a good agency that will strive to do what is best for your business.
“There is no one right way of doing this.”
The digital marketing strategy used depends on your business and its needs, which means there is no one strategy that I applied to every business. Because digital marketing is based on trial and error, digital marketing agencies may change up the strategy it set for your business even after it has already begun. The agency may realize that something will not work or it not working. It may also stop certain campaigns it feels are not working as well as they should.
“We need a trial budget.”
If you notice that your digital marketing agency does not have a past or present client within the same industry your business is in, chances are they don’t have much experience with your industry and that is not an issue. However, any good agency will then request a “trial budget” or a small amount of money they can test ads with to understand exactly what works for your industry. If they don’t request one, chances are they will charge you for it one way or another or won’t even conduct a trial. After conducting a trial, the agency can then tell you the numbers and metrics they expect such as likes, reach and followers.
“No.”
If the agency you are working with does exactly what you ask for and you have almost no experience in the digital marketing field, that would explain why you are not seeing any results. If the agency’s main concern is the success of its clients, it will be upfront and honest and tell you “no” every once in a while and explain what would work better for your business. An agency that only agrees with everything you say may indicate one that does not have much experience because different agencies will have different points of views and different ideas, so expressing no ideas or objections may be a red flag.
“Facebook can still help even if you are B2B.”
LinkedIn is usually the first choice B2B companies go for when it comes to social media marketing and that makes sense; LinkedIn is meant for B2B. However, some digital marketing agencies may tell you Facebook will not get you results if your company is B2B and is not worth the investment. That is simply not true. Depending on which industry you cater to, you may actually be able to reach small business owners directly via Facebook.
“You should use SEO with Google Ads.”
If you decided to invest in Google Ads, good for you! Google ads can help put your business on Google’s radar quickly and can push you to the number one spot much faster than SEO can. But that does not mean you should ignore SEO all together and only depend on Google Ads. Your SEO is what will later help you dominate the first search engine results page (SERP) and it is what gives your website a high quality score. That score is what helps you get the top spot in Google Ads. You should also keep in mind that the higher your website’s quality score, the less you pay for your Google Ads.
“The main aim behind digital marketing is to help you sell.”
A digital marketing agency’s success is not just based on the success of their clients’ digital marketing; it is also based on the ROI these clients gain from carrying out digital marketing, aka conversions. The numbers given to clients at the end of each month in terms of likes, followers and clicks alone are not enough. Pay attention to the amount of sales you as a client were able to make in relation to how much you spent on digital marketing. If you are spending money on digital marketing and not making any sales, bring it up with your agency because something is definitely wrong.
The moral is: pick a digital marketing agency that is transparent with you. Agencies that decide that what their clients don’t know won’t hurt them are actually hurting their clients. Each agency will have its own strategy and its own way of doing things but the end goal should be the same no matter what; the success of the client.
