Advantages of Hiring an Advertising Agency, and What to Weigh First

An advertising agency plans, creates, places and measures advertising for its clients. Agencies differ widely in what they cover. Some are full-service, with strategy, creative, production and media buying under one roof. Others concentrate on creative work, on buying media, on digital channels or on a particular industry. Before you decide whether to hire one, work out which of those jobs you need done, because the right agency for a company that needs television spots is not necessarily the right one for a company that needs help with search and social media. This post belongs to our collection on advertising and marketing strategy.

Good advertising draws on several skills at once: strategy, writing, design, video and audio production, media buying and analytics, plus a working knowledge of each digital channel. Few businesses have all of these in house, and building a team means salaries, training and management time. An agency brings people with those skills together, so you can draw on what a project needs when it needs it instead of carrying every role all year.

The caution is that a larger bench is only an advantage if the right people work on your account. Ask which people will handle your account, how much of their time it will get and whether you will have direct access to them. Ask to see examples of past work, and ask the agency to explain the thinking behind them: who the audience was, what the message was meant to do and how the results were judged. An agency that can explain its reasoning clearly is easier to work with than one that can only show finished pieces.

Advertising done well takes more hours than most owners expect, from planning and writing to scheduling, buying and reporting. Handing it to an agency lets your staff spend those hours on the work they were hired to do. That matters most when nobody on your team is interested in advertising or trained for it. The trade-off is that an agency needs time from you too. You must brief them, supply product knowledge, review drafts and make decisions promptly. The more clearly you explain your customers, your offers and your goals at the start, the less time the relationship consumes afterward.

At first glance, hiring an agency looks like an added expense, and it is: agencies are paid for their work, and how they are paid matters. Some take a commission on the media they place, some charge project fees or hourly rates, and some work on a monthly retainer. Ask exactly how a candidate is paid, what the fee includes and whether you will see the rates and invoices from the media sellers.

Where an agency can offset its cost is in buying media. Media sellers deal with buyers every day, and a buyer who understands rate cards, audience data, timing and negotiation may secure better placement or terms than a first-time advertiser dealing directly. Experience also helps avoid common mistakes, such as paying to reach the wrong audience or buying too little frequency to make an impression. No agency can promise a particular saving or a particular result, so be wary of anyone who does. The fair question is whether the agency’s skills and buying knowledge are likely to be worth more to your business than its fees. The media buying page goes further into that side of the work.

Owners are close to their businesses. They know every detail, and that can make it hard to see what a stranger sees. An agency can ask the questions a customer would ask, point out what is unclear and challenge assumptions that no one inside the business has examined. That outside view is useful even when you are doing some of the work yourself, but it only helps if you are willing to hear it.

An agency is not always the right answer. It may not suit you if:

• your budget leaves no room for agency fees once the advertising itself is paid for;
• you have not yet settled what you are selling and to whom, and need to work that out first;
• you already have staff with the skills and the capacity to do the work;
• the job is small and one-off, in which case a freelancer may be a closer match; or
• you cannot give an agency the information and timely feedback it needs.

Being honest about these points saves everyone time, including the agency.

Whichever agency you are considering, put the same questions to each one and compare the answers side by side.

1. How will you learn about my customers and my market before recommending anything?
2. Who will do the day-to-day work, and who will I speak with?
3. How are you paid, and what is and is not included?
4. How will you measure and report on what the advertising does?
5. What will you need from me, and how quickly?
6. Who owns the creative work and the advertising accounts if we stop working together?
7. How do you decide that something is not working, and what happens then?
8. Do you work with businesses that compete with mine?
9. Can you show examples of past work and explain the thinking behind each one?

Listen to how the agency answers as much as to what it says. Look for curiosity about your customers, plain language, honesty about what is uncertain and clarity about how progress will be judged. If you are still working out how much to spend before you talk to anyone, the post on setting realistic expectations for advertising spend may help.

Founded by Kirk Donovan in 1984, Kirk Donovan Enterprises is itself an Atlanta-area advertising consulting firm, so read this post with that in mind. If you decide an agency is the right choice, the questions above are the ones to put to every candidate, this firm included. The About page tells you who is behind the firm, and the marketing agency page describes its services.