An Opportunity For The Agency Model to Evolve

I’ve spent the first 6+ years of my career working for digital marketing/paid media agencies. I’ve learned countless invaluable lessons over this time, and couldn’t be more grateful for the experiences that I’ve had.

However, after spending over half a decade in the agency world, I began to notice a pattern. Long-term clients were starting to become more and more rare. Client rosters could look dramatically different from one year to the next. Unfortunately this wasn’t a unique experience, and Forbes noted that the lifespan of an average agency-client relationship has dwindled from over seven years, to now under three.

I found that even when there was an all star team paired with clients who were bought into the engagement, the likelihood of success didn't seem to be any higher. Those big client wins could quickly turn into big client losses faster than anyone expected.

I noticed that this came down to a fundamental misalignment in expectations. Agencies running paid media were responsible for performance, but often only accountable for operating media platforms. Delivering successful paid media results requires:

• Customer research

• Product positioning

• Messaging

• Creative

• Media execution

• Tracking

• Measurement methodologies

• Data analysis

• Etc…

The majority of those tasks fall outside of the scope of an agency's paid media team, yet these teams agree to be held responsible for the final outcome of variables that they don't control.

Agencies might not be responsible for certain activities for a variety of reasons. This could range from a gap in capability, to contractual limitations, or even political dynamics. Almost every agency I’ve come across has some tagline in their own marketing efforts that calls out how they are “invested in growing their clients’ businesses.” However, if an agency genuinely wants to align their actions against this claim, they need to break down some of the traditional silos that have inhibited client growth in the past.

That’s why I’ve made the jump to go out on my own, and start working with clients to support growth through holistic marketing efforts.

By scaling my operation down from the size of an agency to just me, I can be much more nimble. If a client needs:

• Additional GA4 and measurement support, I don’t need to wait for another department to write up a separate project SOW and get that signed.

• A landing page built to improve conversion rate I can deliver that directly instead of waiting on a creative agency.

• To develop a new lead magnet to go to market, I can conduct customer and industry research to help them bring that lead magnet to life.

• Support in an area where I don’t currently have the skill set, I can take an online course and bring that new knowledge to our partnership within a week.

These are all real scenarios that I’ve been able to live into since developing this model, and I’ve seen these marketing programs test, iterate, and progress faster than they would in a traditional agency model. With this level of involvement, I actually prefer to refer to my clients as partners, because I genuinely view the work we’re doing as a partnership.

As I continue down this experimental path of breaking down silos and living into more robust partnerships that extend beyond media; I’ve started this weekly newsletter to share my perspectives, frameworks, templates, and case studies along the way. The More Than Media Marketing newsletter will be delivered to your inbox every Friday, so that you can jump into the next week with some fresh ideas.

Have questions, considerations, or critiques? I’d love to hear them! If you’re reading this via email, just hit respond. Otherwise, you can find me on LinkedIn and X (Twitter).