Agency transparency is not a new topic, but it often concerns the ethics of large media agencies when it involves media buying and the kickbacks that they receive.   

There are many other areas where there is less than optimal clarity. In 2021, there will be fewer reasons for you as the client to expect complete transparency, including across strategy, task planning, and, crucially, results.

Although many clients have an open relationship with their agency, they may not know everything. This leaves them open for less value in their monthly retainer and lower chances of reaching their business goals. Insults can lead to injury.

Questions to Ask

It’s not the truth that you shouldn’t ask your marketing agency in NYC to tell you what they are up to or how they will tackle your marketing challenges. They can hide behind technology and jargon and make even more money, but only deliver a fraction of the potential results for your business.

You can take the test yourself. If you don’t know the answers or are unable to find the information in your email, then you may need to talk with your agency.

• What is their long-term strategy to deliver results?

• Which tasks will they be focusing on in the coming month to achieve results?

• How did their results compare to their expectations?

• What channels are they using to reach your audience? And why did they choose these channels to help you achieve your goals?

These agencies rely on your being too busy with other priorities to worry about what they are doing every day. If they can get away with not-so-good results (or even very good results), then why should they push for better results? Of course, the reason is that they could increase your traffic/conversions/revenue and help you hit or smash your targets, but as long as they’re being paid the same amount – that’s not a strong enough incentive to push for better.

Reporting

Let’s take a deeper look at reporting, which I believe is the most critical area in which agencies fail.

Many agencies report by simply pulling out a list of the best numbers each month and directing your attention to those. It’s a different matter to ask if they are worth any value to your business. It’s rare to know WHY these results have been achieved or how they compare with expectations.

This doesn’t mean you have to accept it. You can challenge them to be better. You should get both quantitative and qualitative analyses of every channel’s performance each month, at a minimum.

If there were clear indicators of the cause and how it was being addressed, I would not be too concerned if it was a client. All you need is to know that someone is thinking about your best interests and not just repeating the same actions week after week.

Transparency in Task Planning

You should also have the ability to request the same transparency regarding task planning. This is a crucial but often overlooked process that will ensure your agency adheres to its strategy and not just wanders aimlessly in the digital wilderness every month.

This is an activity that any agency worth its salt will do as a routine. The information will be available in minutes. If they take a while to get the information back, likely, the agency is not considering the strategy until the retainer expires.

Time estimates are an important part of a decent task plan. This will allow you to see if they are hiding behind vague phrases. “Optimisations” is a classic term – it depends on how much activity you do, but shouldn’t exceed a small fraction of your monthly allowance.

What to do

I don’t recommend that you demand everything from your agency. That would be a waste both of your time as well as theirs. You need to make sure that you ask the right questions, and get the right answers. This will show that they are focused on your marketing goals. If they don’t, they most likely aren’t.

Perhaps we should encourage transparency in media buying by big media agencies. One of my friends who works for one of the big boys admitted that he had never done so (not once!) A media campaign was planned according to what would be most beneficial for his client, as well as the inventory that they need to dispose of. This will help them maximize their bottom line.