Why Ad Age Thinks The Follow-Up Stinks At Digital Agencies

Posted on November 4th, 2009

Just in time for Ad:Tech NYC (which begins today – I’m attending), Advertising Age has run nothing less than a hit piece on digital agencies courtesy of Ana Andjelic: “Why Digital Agencies Aren’t Ready To Lead”

Digital agencies are having a ton of fun experimenting with ideas, technologies and strategies to find new alternatives superior to obsolete ways of doing marketing. That’s what they do best.

The problem is, this is the only thing they are doing.

When they are asked to actually follow through on their ideas, they often come up short.

I want to jump in here and point out that if there’s any general truth to this, it’s because the software tools digital agencies are stuck with are an impediment to follow-through.

Avoiding for the moment the cultural argument about traditional agencies vs. their digital counterparts, one thing digital brings to the table that traditional does not is instant reflexivity.  Performance is trackable instantly.

But performance data languishes in spreadsheets rather than being fed back into the process.  Campaign profiles aren’t shared.  Creative isn’t optimized, placements aren’t improved.  Opportunity for client engagement and self service is limited.

To back up pitches with performance, digital agencies need workflow efficiencies that just won’t materialize without the right software tools.  Creative, placement and optimization belong together, but are separated.  They should inform each other, but they struggle to communicate.

This is the exact problem AdBean was designed to fix.  Maybe AdBean can’t keep the traditional agencies from scoffing at digital, but we can help digital deliver on its promise.

Tags: Advertising Age, Workflow
Filed under Creative, Optimization, Workflow |

One Response to “Why Ad Age Thinks The Follow-Up Stinks At Digital Agencies”

1. Karen R. Jones Says:
   April 21st, 2010 at 12:18 pm

   Hope I will see more of your posts soon

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