Fictional stories about advertising budgets

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    The first story. We begin negotiations
    "The site should be present at the first positions of search results ALWAYS!"

    This task is often posed by management to managers of marketing departments, while allocating a conditional 100,000 rubles a month for everything. The chances of meeting the indicated amount in contextual advertising today are negligible, if we talk about competent advertising campaigns.

    What happens next? If the company does not have a full-time Internet marketer, the search and negotiations with the future contractor begin. Which rest, as always, in the budget.

    The customer does not want to pay in excess of the amount comfortable for him for something that he does not see here and now and cannot “touch” - we are talking about the results of the advertising campaign. The contractor is in no hurry to make obligations and promise what the client so wants to hear. The customer does not “hear” the rationale for increasing the cost of advertising on the Internet, the contractor does not want to work for free.

    How wishes sound in the customer’s language:
    • Increase in the number of calls / leads / sales
    • Fulfillment, better fulfillment of the sales plan
    • Presence always and in high positions
    • Optimization of advertising costs

    What is your sales plan? What are the advertising costs and their payback at the moment? How many incoming calls do you receive per day? Immediately and clearly answer these questions will be able to unit. Of course, the more the better. Calls, like money, do not happen much.

    Then, on the basis of what are the tasks set and budgets for their implementation determined? Who and how determined that achieving these goals is possible precisely by these means? Someone conducted research on this subject or tasks are set on the basis of “Wishlist” or “sensations”?
    Alas, in reality most often there is no causal relationship between the setting of tasks and the approval of budgets.

    In fact, everything would have been much simpler and more comfortable (for both sides), if the logical chain were this: measurements of the current situation - tasks - budget.

    The second story. Fakap or negative experience is also experience. The
    classic situation that we have considered above, when a client wants an effective advertising company, but does not want to pay in excess of a comfortable amount, he can get such a continuation.
    When, under the pressure of the agency’s arguments in favor of the optimal budget, the client runs out of arguments, he goes on the counterattack. The phrase sounds: "You are experts, prove that you know how to work an order of magnitude more efficiently." It is perceived as a challenge and it seems that they are ready to prove to the whole world what we are standing for! In no case should you respond to such statements. Even indirectly. The client hears what he wants to hear, like so many of us do, what is there to dissemble.
    Contractor: "We do not promise anything, but we will try to do everything we can." The client hears: "Of course, we promise, everything will be the way you want." The plot for the collage "Expectation and Reality."

    But seriously, we came across this bait several times. Perhaps you should not explain how such stories end. And no matter how much you tell later, neither prove, nor explain that everything is done in the best possible way, but the fact will remain a fact - MIRACLE did not happen. Also, long-term and fruitful relations did not happen, and the customer, most likely, will remain with the opinion for a long time that not only in this agency, but in general on the market, some @ blows work. After all, there is nothing worse than disappointment and deceived hopes.

    Conclusion for customers:stop believing in miracles. In our experience, a momentary “miracle” happened several times when a customer came up with an advertising campaign that was badly tuned. We tuned well, and not a miracle happened at all, but simply the result of quality work. In other cases, it takes a couple of months to customize, optimize and work towards KPI, ideally, in a constructive dialogue with the customer.

    Conclusion for contractors: do not get fooled by the provocations from the series “Are you weak?”, Do not subscribe to the plans that the customer offers, without a test period and study of advertising in the industry using a specific example.

    The third story. Perfect
    “We have the following tasks for this month,” the customer says. “We need to strengthen sales of these positions. The season begins in the following directions, but these demand is no longer expected until next year. Based on this, please propose a budget with justification, ”he adds.
    The agency studies growth and risk factors, offers specific figures in various sections. “Let's try, observe, correct and discuss during the placement,” says the contractor. Perfect! And this is not a sweet dream or a pipe dream, but the very constructive dialogue between customers and the contractor.

    So, how to determine the optimal budget?

    Customer actions:
    1. We clearly formulate the tasks
    2. We understand or determine how the result will be measured
    3. We set the task for the contractor.

    The actions of the contractor:
    1. We think over the strategy, calculate the budget
    2.
    We assess the risks 3. We determine the correctness of the assessment of future results
    4. We make proposals both for the budget and for the further strategy

    The actions are joint:
    1. We discuss key points and stages of cooperation
    2. We discuss controversial issues and adjust the strategy together.

    History Four. Negotiate, remember the goal
    And again: the situation, of which there are hundreds. The customer organizes a tender for the choice of a company, which will be ready to outsource Internet promotion completely. As usual, selects from several and the best on the market.

    The task initially sets the same for everyone. Why do the solutions do not converge?
    The Mimosa Agency counted 500,000, equally Yandex and Google
    The Penguin Agency 330,000, 80% Yandex, 20% Google
    And the Hurricane Agency 120,000 only on Yandex.

    Not the fact that they are trying to deceive you. Someone did not finish the task, someone took into account / did not take into account seasonality, someone thought out a different strategy.
    The calculations are based on forecast data on the popularity of queries in different regions, the average cost of a click on the desired positions and average clickability, an adjustment is made taking into account the expert assessment. It is possible to check the correctness of the calculations, having expert experience behind you, and even in this case, the probability of a discrepancy with the real indicators of placement will be great.

    In most cases, negotiations end at this stage. The representative of the customer needs to finish the choice faster, management requires, deadlines are running out, communication is already pretty tired. He compares offers and makes a choice almost “at random”. Well, or guided by the regalia of applicants, the life of the company and other secondary criteria.
    He makes a strategic mistake, which in some cases will cost time, nerves, drained budgets, lost profits.

    Getting offers is not the end, but the beginning of negotiations. The customer’s task at this stage is not to choose the most comfortable budget proposal, but to conduct a series of negotiations to understand how each contractor substantiates the amount, understands the task and plans the strategy. By comparing and asking questions, analyze what is being answered and how. Yes, this requires a significant investment of time and effort. If at this point you have doubts about the need for negotiations, read our articles on the choice of agency and the quality of communications.

    Look for the appropriate level of communication in communication with the agency, rather than the cost of services convenient for you. Why? Choosing a comfortable price, you lose sight of efficiency as a goal, forget about your tasks. Many understand this in theory, but from time to time they stray off course.

    The fifth story. Trust, but verify
    Once a new client came to us and shared his suspicions. Something is amiss in the advertising campaign launched by a third-party contractor. Ads that is on the search, then they are not. But reports are regularly sent! They don’t forget to bill, and we pay everything on time.
    We begin to request turnout passwords - there are no customer access to campaigns! How so? We ask for access to site analytics, we begin to look at the report on advertising sources. And there is an oil painting. Neither give nor take "The Ninth Wave" Aivazovsky. One week a wave of traffic, two weeks a lull, then a smaller wave, again silence. Google AdWords was a couple of months ago, three days went traffic with extreme failure - and came to naught. And this picture is poorly comparable with the amounts and regularity of invoices.

    Money in an advertising campaign flows like sand through your fingers. You may not know the peculiarities of conducting advertising campaigns, but you know how to count money and monitor their spending? How? We repeat, you must have access to your personal accounts!

    What can and should be done with accesses:
    • compare the approved budget and real expenditures (take into account VAT)
    • monitor the relative stability of expenditures (there will be fluctuations, but not sharp ones)
    • ask the contractor questions if it is not clear

    Our client, unfortunately, was deceived: they claimed one budget, spent in fact much smaller. In this case, if it is not impossible to prove guilt and hold accountable, it is extremely difficult and certainly not in our competence.

    _____
    What are these five stories for? We believe that advertisers are interested in looking behind the scenes of the experience of an advertising agency in dealing with customers. It will be great if we warn someone, and someone ease the difficulties of choice.

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