Ad agencies love to offer businesses a free account audit. They ask for access to your ad accounts and, in return, provide you with a laundry list of everything you’re doing wrong: errors, missed opportunities, under-utilized features, and a surprisingly targeted game plan that spells out why that agency could do so much better.
The reason agencies do this: it works. It sows doubt in the decision-makers mind. The worst version of this is textbook fear-mongering. The best case scenario can help you develop some new ideas for testing and leveling up your game. Either way, this is a sales tactic. Here’s why we don’t do it:
You could have a spotless ad account and still lose money on marketing. Your digital campaigns could leverage every best practice in the book, and have a 100% network optimization score, but without a strategic tie to financial outcomes, that’s all for vanity.
We’ve seen best practices and network recommendations fail. The truth is: the secret to digital marketing isn’t ticking every box on a static list of guidelines. Successful digital marketing requires continuous testing, as the marketing tech and competitive landscape change constantly. The very fact that you compete in it changes the game. What works for one company will be a bust for another, and what the ad networks recommend themselves should come with warning labels for uninformed users.
The ad account provides one particular view of activity and levers. Imagine having a separate car mechanic who specialized in dashboards take a look at your car in isolation. They could tell you a very limited amount of information, based on what’s reported there. What’s worse… they couldn’t even tell you if what’s visible in the dashboard is accurate information. Without taking a look under the hood at the whole system, all they can tell you is how to upgrade, fix, or interpret your dashboard - not how to make your car run better.
The goal of the audit is to poke holes, no matter how impactful. We don’t think that’s a good use of our time, and we wouldn’t feel good about distracting you from things that are actually impactful to point out how you have a couple negative keyword conflicts in an inactive campaign. For those not in the know - this is an “error” that has no actual impact on campaign performance. We care about what will have the largest net impact on your bottom line. That might be addressing errors and issues, but it might also be expanding to new areas.
So what should you do if an agency offers to do a free account audit? Take them up on it! They may have ideas, suggestions, or perspective that could be helpful. Our advice: stay aware of the fact that this is a sales tactic, and their goal is to sow doubt in your current approach and tout their own knowledge and skill - no matter how loosely tied to the goals of your business.
If you do decide to engage with an agency or act on their recommendations, please:
Test methodically - figure out how you’ll know if their recommendation is working, and don’t go all-in on any changes, even if they’ve worked for 9/10 companies in the past. It’s not worth gambling your business unnecessarily.
Keep the focus on profit. Agencies love to talk about KPIs and metrics. There are so many to choose from! Click-through and conversion rates, quality score, impression share, and so on - all good fodder for optimization. However, they can easily become a distraction. As we’ve said before, you can optimize yourself out of business trying to hit a specific return on ad spend (ROAS). Don’t invest any budget in a tactic until you know how it relates to your profit and growth goals.
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