The Media Agency Shift - Genius Monkey’s Assessment
Tempe, Ariz
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May 01, 2024 03:49 PM Eastern Daylight Time
Looking back 20 – 25 years ago, you simply could not get your commercial on TV, your ad on a billboard, or mailers sent out to your audience without going through an advertising agency. They were the end-all-be-all for anything you needed in marketing and there really was no other option. But the advertising landscape has changed dramatically in the last couple of decades, thanks in no small part to new technologies and – more recently – a worldwide pandemic that changed how many companies prioritize resources.
The media agency is going through a paradigm shift. Here is our assessment of where we are and where we are going.
The COVID Effect
In 2013, around 58% of marketers had transitioned to in-house agencies in an effort to cut costs and middlemen. When the pandemic hit in 2019, this process accelerated and saw many businesses adopt the in-house method, whether they were ready for it or not.
Many companies’ internal teams – which were already understaffed and overworked – quickly began getting overburdened by the immense workload. Agencies that previously had Google experts, GRP buying teams, social media departments and more were now being significantly downsized, sometimes reducing teams to as little as 2-5 people in total.
These teams were also generally using self-serve platforms, a supposedly cost-effective solution where the advertiser builds and maintains campaigns themselves. If the team found themselves lacking the expertise needed on certain platforms or ways of buying media, there wasn’t much they could do. Marketing suffered, and many companies found themselves in this situation amid the upheaval of Covid-19.
From Self-Serve to Fully-Managed
For better or worse, the majority of the industry followed this path. In 2023, a full 82% of marketers had transitioned to an in-house model; today, many teams are now starting to feel the squeeze. They need more efficient tools and all-in-one platforms that can help them do more with less time.
Enter the fully-managed platform, where the ad tech companies build and maintain the campaigns for the advertiser. With this methodology switch, advertisers can remain on 15-20+ DSPs/networks in a fraction of the set up and management time, all while having a much more accessible and digestible all-in-one reporting location.
Above all, advertisers could make use of the expertise that came with a fully managed platform: a support group they could always come to for help with specific and nuanced marketing questions. Ad placements and programmatic campaigns become a footnote so in-house teams can focus on branding, company voice, and other areas where they are the experts.
The Media Agency Shift
So where does this leave the media agency? There are things that an agency can do better than anyone; there’s no better partner for brand development, TV GRP buying and more. But in an evolving landscape, agencies also need to adapt if they want to thrive. The best agencies find the best partners and assimilate a team with the expertise to help companies thrive and aggressively pursue their goals.
Embracing fully managed platforms is just one example of how agencies can reap the same benefits as the in-house teams with:
- Full ad coverage with placements on all devices
- Access to programmatic experts
- Campaigns supervised by humans instead of an AI.
- Decreased costs and more efficient workflows.
Genius Monkey data alone shows a 19% better cost per conversion on fully managed over self-serve with even better metrics on CPC, CPM and other key data points. Efficiency is the metric of the future, and fully-managed platforms are built to deliver it.
The Genius Monkey Difference
Of course, not all programmatic platforms are created equal, and finding the right fit is step one to reaping the benefits of modern marketing. Featuring the latest technologies and spanning dozens of networks and DSPs, Genius Monkey is the farthest-reaching platform on the planet, built to track every detail of the customer journey and cut your cost-per-conversion.
No matter your audience, no matter your industry, Genius Monkey can help you evolve your marketing to the next level. Get in touch with us today to see how!
Contact Details
Genius Monkey
Travis Champ- Chief Operating Officer
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