Nowadays it seems common practice for advertising agencies to not fully spend the amount that the client allocates to them for digital advertising.
Advertising agencies have always made a 16.5% commission on placing print adverts. This does not apply to digital adverts. If you as the client have control over your campaign, it will ensure that there is trust, transparency and maximum ROI.
For example, if a client allocates $1 000 to a Google Ads campaign, once the agency completes the necessary research, they will predict, based on the allocated budget, that the campaign will receive for example 200 clicks and 30 000 impressions. But once the campaign reaches these metrics, the agency stops the campaign and pockets the balance. This could represent a significant amount of money for large companies.
The same applies to other online campaigns such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter adverts. These platforms have tools to help you plan your campaign and what to expect from the budget allocated.
Agencies that do not charge an upfront management fee will generally, as mentioned above, take their fee directly from the advertising the budget. Therefore, we suggest that you should ask your agency to provide details of what they spent, based on transactions and invoices they received from the digital platform, such as Facebook etc.
How do you avoid this?
- Use your own company credit card to monitor the expenditure.
- Have access to the advertising account to monitor the campaign.
- Make sure the contract you have with your agency protects you, not just the agency.
- Put in the necessary contracts in place to protect your company.
Agencies left unaccountable for their work can often disengage from the work which can lead to overspending on campaigns or not spending any of the ad budget but still pocketing the money.
Agencies that are held accountable achieve great results for their clients!
