5 signs its time to change agency

If you want some reassurance that its time to switch agencies below are the top 5 ways to determine when enough is enough.

1. Your agency is Slow to get your campaigns out the door for you – Have you noticed that your campaigns take forever to get out the door? Is it taking even longer and longer to get things from your agency? I will let you in on a secret, you are either a small client in a big pond or a big client in a small pond. When you are a small client in a big pond it means you are not a very profitable client as the amount of work it takes to give you service is not profitable. You might want to look for a smaller agency. If you are a big client in a small pond you will get good people working on your account but then you will eventually find that these will be replaced by others that aren’t as good. The good people who used to work on your account are now hunting for another client. My advice here is to look for a bigger agency.

2. Your ads aren’t coverting but your agency is winning creative awards – Awards are great but sales are better. If your agency isn’t really a direct marketing agency and they keep talking about the creative concept as opposed to the triggers that will get your advertising converting, you might want to switch agencies to a more direct response focused one.

3. Don’t understand direct response –Just like with your creative looking all pretty but not selling if your agency isn’t advising you on ways to increase qualified response you might want to consider switching agencies. Its easier to create sales generating campaigns when your agency talks the same language and you don’t have to keep coaching them on basic tactics to make the creative sell. Its time to stop being frustrated by your agency pushing back on you telling you that the creative would be better with a smaller call to action and a more creative headline. You know what works and its time to work with an agency that work for your targets not for creative awards.

4. When a campaign performs poorly your agency doesn’t care – This is a clear sign that your current agency is just treating you like a number and don’t care about what you are trying to achieve. The better agencies know your targets and feel the pain as much as you do when a campaign doesn’t work. Proactive suggestions on ways to get the campaign to recover as opposed to waiting for you to make a decision as to how to fix the problem is what you are looking for.

5. The costs don’t justify the value – Champagne “long lunch” agencies are fine if they deliver high quality work along with their high price tags. If you are looking for direct response hard hitting creative that converts and wins ADMA effectiveness awards I would suggest a more value orientated agency would work better. The creativity and speed of delivery of the campaign to get it to convert is what you are looking for. This way you will probably do a larger volume of campaigns or increase your media exposure of your campaign with the money you save.