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ARTICLE

How Agencies Can Be Key Programmatic Players

June 2, 2015 — by MediaMath    

Media agencies have a fantastic opportunity to ‘seal the deal’ as the key partner of choice for brands looking to explore programmatic media trading. The speed of innovation in programmatic trading means that agencies that don’t keep up with the technology developments within the industry run the risk of losing clients to more tech savvy competitors.

From my experience working with some of the most innovative agencies out of EMEA, the agencies that have truly proven themselves as expert practitioners adhere to, and continually evaluate, a number of key factors that make for being a key partner of choice for their clients.

Based on my experience working with these agencies, I’ve compiled a checklist that outlines the aforementioned key characteristics of highly innovative media buying agencies:

Knowledge and Education
Advanced agencies think creatively about how a data and programmatic strategy can fix a client problem – and in order to bring creative solutions to abstract problems, they fully understand how the technology works and how the capabilities of different systems complement one another. I would recommend organising an education session with your technology provider so they can share best practices and industry knowledge with you. MediaMath has an educational business unit, the New Marketing Institute, and is always keen to share learnings and expertise.

Differentiation
What is going to make you different from Agency X now and into the future? Where will you add value to the client? I know that strategic advice and insight on new platforms and channels always has value, but agencies need to truly identify their differentiators within the programmatic space. For example, do you have a great attribution solution to help the client realise business goals? What is your video offering like? How do you perform against your competition and are you set up to drive client success at the macro level? Cutting edge agencies that work closely with their technology provider establish competitive advantages for the agency business, and build them together.

Talent
Agencies need both optimisation practitioners and more senior team leaders with technical expertise. The agencies that I’ve worked with staff for both “hands-on-keyboard” experience, as well as for people with strategic vision. While experience in advertising helps, what agencies truly need in their employees is the ability to dig into the technology, and data, in order to understand the “what” and “how” that produces the outcomes.

Structure
A team leader with responsibility for a traditional display budget can steer the mobile, social or video spend, but in the programmatic world there should be single, cohesive teams to work across channels. The agencies I’ve worked with have removed internal siloes and are set up to work in a future based on platforms. So look at your structure to see if it is fit for purpose in a programmatic world. After all, consumers don’t browse in silos, so why break out the teams responsible for reaching those consumers into silos?

Understanding of client objectives
Make sure you know what your clients’ objectives are and have a credible answer for them. Understanding the objectives as well as having the required knowledge (especially those gleaned from their programmatic provider) will ensure agencies keep up with the ever-changing space.