Mad Men-esque adland is murdering clients’ money with laziness
Traditional agencies are being lazy, ignoring the sales funnel and wasting clients’ money when it comes to measuring ROI, argues digital marketer Sabri Suby. Here, he speaks directly to clients, advising that if your agency can’t explain what your ad dollars are doing, you need to kill the relationship before it kills your bottom line.
Imagine this. You walk into your traditional ad agency and say: “We spent $10,000 this month on YouTube pre-rolls. How many clients did we get?” Most agencies will fail to answer the question.
Alternatively, they’ll come back with something along the lines of: “Look, this is how many views you got. Did you see these views? How great are they?” Or: “Look at this social reach, it’s off the charts.” They’ll persuade you that these views are good for your business’ bottom line, with absolutely no information to back up those claims.
“Adland sits around in board rooms, Mad Men-style”
How are you measuring ROI?
Things like brand and other key elements may not lead to a sale now, but do drive sales later. Going wide and far on reach is proven through Sharp’s research to work at growing businesses, too.
I’m guessing you guys do a lot of SEM work — which looks great in a spreadsheet, but very often only has a small propensity lift in a multivariate regression model, so the ‘ROI’ isn’t as good as it first looks.
Okay, it looks like I’m gonna take the bait…
The argument in the piece is incomplete (not necessarily flawed, just… missing).
Sabri do you mean all agencies here, and all activity, or just the digital activity? Then let’s go from there.
this article contains an immense amount of badly informed, cliche-ridden prejudice and brings disrepute on the author
Codswallop. As Henry says, a sale might not happen now but may happen in the future. And anyway, how many people see an ad and think to themselves “you know, I must buy that right now”.
Whether its a new Audi or, say in my specific market, cameras and camcorders, mostly never. What is MORE likely to make a sale now is where a review has been done that is favourable and has ticked all the boxes for the reader. An ad generally only makes them aware of a product or service.
And here is a fundamental difference and where it is all wrong. A client will pay thousands for an ad or a YouTube campaign. But they run a mile when the people that create the real awareness, the reviewers (as against “influencers” I hasten to add), create the stuff that does sell product.
But the ad people get paid handsomely. Weird innit…?
And how would you propose to control the reviewers? What if the review is bad?
What an offensive, poorly considered, inaccurate article. Offensive to both clients and agencies alike.
Mumbrella, this is on you as much as it is the person who wrote this trash.
Won’t bother unstitching every loosely made opinion in this flaming hot pile of garbage but suffice to say old mate won’t win much business off the back of it.
Good luck in life fella.
Agree 100%. For my part the work we do is concentrated on accountable and measured results 24/7/365.
Advertorial pretending to be thought leadership coming across as one-eyed nonsense.
yeah half right.
True: Most marketers or agencies can’t equate spend with sales.
But … and no offence here Sabri… you don’t exactly have a magic brand formula. You guys just convert what comes your way. Running Adwords & Facebook to drive traffic and then relentlessly retargeting the browser is fine but that’s not building brands people love. It’s more like flogging undies at the e-commerce market. We get it. You like to sell undies. But chill out a little. My adblocker detected 21 trackers on your site & now I’m bracing for King Kong underdack ads all next week.
Why are we giving this blinkered rubbish air time mumbrella?
If you publish it, some will unfortunately take this, not as a small fish trying to get noticed in a big pond, but as actual evidence.
We must be better than this.
It isn’t that what is written is wrong. It is that it lacks any meaningful context. It’s contributing to the problem.
Yeah – let’s all listen to the agency owner whose front page reads: “Explode your sales in the next 90 days”.
How much do I have to pay Mumbrella to get my half baked, shallow, artless opinion published?
BONUS: go check out the obviously fake / ‘gun-to-the-head’ reviews on King Kong’s Glassdoor.
Oh boy, I really hope this isn’t an argument based on digital media because digital just happens to be more easily measured.
“Digital just happens to be more easily measured.”
I suppose that is true.
But to measure it fully and accurately is as easy as climbing Everest barefoot.
Sounds like King Kong might not be meeting their revenue targets. Quick sell some more tonnage!
Just to echo the sentiments of others here, if you are focused solely on sales, ROI and digital metrucs you will be an extremely efficient business who won’t exist in three years. Yes digital is easy to track and optimise, but at the end of the day SEM doesn’t grow brand health.
Sabri, you might want to read one of the many papers by Field & Binet that demonstrate that a focus on prioritising short-term activation and maximising ROI at the expense of building memory and association at scale is actually undermining profit and long-term growth.
Spot on regarding the reference to Field & Binet.
All Sabri, you are quite aggressive in your language…. I get you are attempting to convey passion, but your opinion is very narrow and the whole article comes off as slightly juvenile.
Yeah, maybe I would have backed this 10 years ago…but such an irrelevant piece of commentary in this day and age
Articles like these is why more and more clients treat ‘digital performance’ agencies with skepticism.
It seems most people commenting on this article are complaining that he is from a digital agency and that looking at digital KPIs doesn’t take in to account long term brand metrics. It’s a fair comment but it ignores the issues the article is trying to convey.
Most agencies still report on reach, impressions, clicks, views and don’t actually talk about the short and long term value they have created in dollars. What most companies fail to do and need to do, not just media agencies but all companies, is look at how each part of their company and each campaign contributes to their long term profit. Most companies aren’t aware you can do this and you can be sure no media agency is looking at synergies across all parts of the company apart from marketing. Anyone doing this will be able to guide your investment in media and in all other parts of your company far more efficiently.
I read a variation on this theme in 2009, in 1999 and, probably 1989. In all that time, some marketers and agencies (“traditional” and digital) have developed and evolved excellent effectiveness metrics, some not. It was ever thus. Waste of space article/PR effort.
“HOW TO SELL $534 MILLION WORTH OF PRODUCT USING DIRECT RESPONSE SALES COPY”
“6 SECRET CHATBOT SALES FUNNELS THAT CREATE A FLOOD OF REVENUE”
“10 LITTLE KNOWN STRATEGIES TO DOUBLE YOUR ECOMMERCE SALES WITH FACEBOOK DYNAMIC PRODUCT ADS”
Straight from the website, which reads like the Daily Mail of digital agencies. Would love to see this guy try to prove he could sell $534 MILLION WORTH of supermarket distributed margarine using direct response sales copy.
Sounds like Gary Vee co-authored their website
Anyone equating modern media agencies with “Mad Men” automatically invalidates their opinion.
“Adland sits around in board rooms, Mad Men-style, dreaming up big esoteric marketing campaigns“
I’m going out on a limb here, and I refuse to bother doing the slightest bit of research (much like the author of this self-promotional dross) but I suspect Sabri may not ever have been to an ad agency, much less worked in one.
Shoddy.
Another Gary Vee clone without serious brand or marketing experience telling everyone how they are wrong and he is right. Don’t take the bait.
You can spot the advertising charlatans from their “everything I do is great, everything they do is bad” spiel. This article is the editorial equivalent of a blowup stick balloon man on the forecourt of a third-tier secondhand car lot on the Parramatta Road. Agree with other commentary here – Mumbrella really shouldn’t let such garbage past their sniff test; tarnishes us all.
True to form, I have been bombarded with video pre-roll ads all this week featuring Sabri promising to ‘share all his secrets’. The influx of PPC snake oil salesman (“No marketing and sales degree or skills required!”) into our industry is a sad indictment of where it sits in the credibility hierarchy.
Honestly, this is click bait and I fell for it. Please do your homework and yes, find an agency that knows better and can explain why.
Jascha Heifetz was initially skeptical about playing on the radio because the listener could elect to turn it off at any time. The answer to the question about pre-rolls is, to a large extent, whatever the client needs to hear. Heifitz’s fears were real, yet less likely then and much less costly than they are today with Youtube.
The article is promoting someone or something, but it isn’t Heifetz or the radio.
I am a client and former ad agency drone
People may poo poo King Kongs website, but for prospective clients it actually comes right out and offers a benefit right on the front page with the explode your sales in 90 days headline.
Vulgar and unsubtle I know, but a lot of prospective clients would find that intriguing..
I picked an ad agency web site at random to compare: DDB.com.au
which has a headline saying:
“Big, tough, real clients”: DDB Sydney crowned Campaign Brief Australian Agency of the Year”
I don’t know what the fuck “Big, tough, real clients” means – so you’ve confused me straight away – but not in a way that makes me want to find out more. But the headline comes across as a wank saying we’re good, without telling me why.
Are they good to staff? Did they grown their business lots this year? Do their ads win awards (as a client I do not care 1 whit about awards – effectiveness only.)
DDB then has the article from Campaign Brief in slabs of text taking over the entire page with a few pics thrown in, but overall it’s a just a sea of text.
Most clients couldn’t be arsed wading through all that. Ad agency websites are usually dreadful – they do well flogging their clients stuff, but are dreadful at selling themselves. I don’t know why.
Why doesn’t DDB just tell me WHY they are agency of the year straight away to grab my interest and make me stay.
e.g.: Our ad for ExampleCo won the most effective ad out of ALL ads made this year in the entire ad industry. Give our MD a call to find out how we could do the same for you”
===============
Instead I got bored and closed the page.
King Kong I think will do well in its niche. Sure its article is as someone said, advertorial dressed up as thought leadership, but then so is 99.9% of the articles on Linked In. Every 2nd person is now a thought leader – when i hear the term it makes me reach for my revolver, as the saying goes..
If ad agency websites are so bad at selling, how have they managed to pick up the likes of McDonald’s, VW and Westpac? I think you’d acknowledge they’re three if the biggest and most prestigious clients in the country. Maybe you don’t understand how they sell.
Sorry Brad. Big, tough, real clients speaks volumes as to what the agency stands for and does compared to the rest of the players in the agency landscape. As Um says, Westpac, VW, Maccas aren’t an unknown island, a brilliant yet small project for people who have lost their voice or some other charity job. It shows that the biggest brands respect and trust DDB. I hate to say but this feels like King Kong paid to have this advertorial appear. Vivienne?
Hi there,
I was at a funeral the day this article was published, so the decision to publish was made without me. I can 100% confirm though that this was not paid for. If it was, it would be clearly marked as such.
We have definitely noted the feedback though, so thanks for following up.
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Most of this is true – if you apply it to classified advertising. Which is where this person should be working.
I think the article makes sense and I believe that view is widely held.
I was at Atomic when it shut down and got rid the creative department and exited the strategy staff in favour of out sourcing all creativity, focusing on no longer wasting client money admen style in the board room dreaming up marketing campaigns and in stead focused on buying stuff cheap mate.
By simply using other small creative agencies when their are pitches or briefs that need creative input means the focus is a lot more accurate and while half the clients probably dont care, the other half never really know its not in house.
While roi is important its silly to become obsessed with it. As Baz always says if you can get it at rock bottom prices mate then you are guaranteed a good earner and result for the clients as well often.
Be open minded guys. EXPLORE
[Edited under Mumbrella’s comment moderation policy]
We seem to be missing that PAID CONTENT tag again.
Wow, you spent so much time on what agencies are not doing and not one second on what they should be doing.
It’s easy to complain, how about sharing what you do.
Stopped reading after he said Pre-Roll should drive sales…
Watch out – you don’t want to become the next CB-style trash rag. This flimsy cry for attention is utter garbage. Shame on you for publishing. Did he pay you to run this steaming turd?
Seriously Tim or Vivienne. Please can you confirm or deny if this was paid for?
Hi there,
I was at a funeral the day this article was published, so the decision to publish was made without me. I can 100% confirm though that this was not paid for. If it was, it would be clearly marked as such.
We have definitely noted the feedback though, so thanks for following up.
Vivienne – Mumbrella
Seems to me that Sabri and his team are focussing on hard-core lead gen tactics, which means he can easily measure results for his clients which I’m sure they appreciate. Having been to his website I’ve entered the murky depths of the sales funnel and been targeted ruthlessly since then – actually I’m quite impressed at the level their lead generation campaigns are going to. I’ve been invited to webinars, offered physical books, received emails and all kinds of digital enticement. It’s a digital deluge. However lead gen is only a piece of the puzzle which I’m sure everyone here understands. The real puzzle for me is this article itself and the horrible mismatch with an intelligent marketing industry audience.