Employing an ad agency is a way to save time and effort. They should know how and what audience to target for your product or service. However, choosing the right one can be the difference between a good and a bad investment. To help you on your hunt, we’ve selected some key questions you should be asking when looking for an ad agency:
Do They Have the Right Resources to Meet Your Project Goals?
If you are a large to medium-sized business, your advertising and marketing allocation might be pretty substantial. You want to ensure you get the best resources for your budget. Getting the best outcome will be checking that the ad agency you choose has all the right tools to do the job. You can get an insight into a companies resources by looking at:
- The size of their team
- Their previous partnerships
- Feedback from someone who has used their service
How Successful Were Their Previous Campaigns?
This is probably one of the most critical measures of a good ad agency. The more successful their previous campaigns, the more likely the ad agency is reputable. Take a close look at who they have worked with. If possible, view the project yourself. Look at consumer engagement. Other companies will have different standards. You want to ensure the ad’s quality and type of engagement is at the bar you want. You can take a look at reviews, profitability and consumer responses. Investigate their social media, see how well they perform on the market and look at their business affiliations.
Do They Have the Right Experience?
If the company has a list of employees, you can look at the individual experience of team members. Alternatively, most ad agencies will have a LinkedIn profile. A sign of a good profile is that they regularly upload, engage on their profile and generate high-quality content themselves.
Another way of quantifying experience is the type of companies they have worked with. For example, suppose you see they have worked extensively with a particular industry. In that case, it will be a good gauge of where their experience lies. Whereas, if they’ve worked with many different types of businesses, that might suit you better. For instance, if you have more than one project for which you want them to advertise.
Do Their Values Align With Your Brand?
This is an important but often underlooked consideration when partnering with any company. Firstly, modern consumers are more sceptical about content that brands put out, particularly advertising. In the digital age, there is so much contradicting evidence and reporting people have become more critical about the information they receive. If a brand says they support diversity but do not have a diverse team, this will reflect poorly. That is why when considering an ad agency, you want to make sure they have similar beliefs and values to establish a trail of accountability and transparency.
The second reason to consider value alignment lies in how the agency will portray your company. Consumers will be building their perception of your brand based on your agency’s advertising and marketing campaigns. In short, the best way to ensure that a company understands your vision is to work with an agency that aligns with your values and ideals. It will be much easier to work cooperatively and creatively with ad agencies in London or for that matter anywhere else that believes in your ideas as much as you do.
