Digital Marketing Agency Buyer’s Guide 

1. Experience 

How long has the agency been in business? More specifically, how long have they focused on Digital Marketing? Many marketing agencies claim to do SEO, manage ads, and design web sites. If in doubt, ask to speak with some current or former clients, preferably ones in similar industries to yours and who have been receiving similar services to the ones you need. Market Vantage was founded in 2002 as a Digital Marketing agency. That’s all we do. 

2. Strategic Focus

When the agency representatives talk about the benefits of working with them, what do they talk about? Is it clicks and traffic or actual revenue generated? Anybody with money and time can attract website visitors, but you should be interested in visitor engagement and conversions that result in orders. We’re businesspeople so our attention is on helping you improve your bottom line. 

3. Data-Driven Decisions

Attribution is critical. One of the wonderful things about Digital Marketing is that most of the results are trackable. What brought in that lead? Was it an organic or a paid click? What was the search term or ad creative that worked? Answering these sorts of questions helps digital marketers decide where to place their bets so that campaigns are constantly being optimized and improved. Does your Digital Marketing agency know how to configure analytics tools? Can they make inferences and draw logical conclusions to produce meaningful reports, or do they just dump data each month and leave you to decipher it? We decline projects if we can’t have access to the necessary data.  

4. The “A” Team

Ever get pitched by agency rock stars, only to find out after the contract is signed that you’re now going to dealing with interns? Market Vantage hires the best, brightest and most experienced we can find, and then we cross-train on our culture, approach and methodology. The result is that you’ll always be dealing with people that know more about Digital Marketing than you do. 

5. Bespoke Service

That’s the word the British use for “custom tailored” and that describes how we scope our services for each client. Your situation and needs are unique, so the approach your agency takes should reflect that. 

6. Collaboration is Key

Digital Marketing is not something to be thrown over the wall to outsiders. We don’t like to work that way and you shouldn’t either. It needs to be a collaboration. Maybe you have in-house people or another agency that should partner with us. That’s great! We want to provide just the expertise and resources you need. 

7. Who Owns the Data?

We can’t tell you how many times we’ve been approached by a prospect that has a hunch that their online marketing could be doing better. So, before we make recommendations, we ask to look “under the hood.” That’s when we find out their current agency has control over their Google Ads or Analytics account and won’t let the client in, let alone a competitor like us. That’s just wrong on so many levels. We believe that it’s your data. Your agency should be a guest in your accounts, and if you get tired of the company, you should be able to show them the door.

8. Non-Compete

With very few exceptions, it does not make sense to hire a Digital Marketing agency that’s working for any of your direct competitors. Having two organizations fighting over the exact same keywords in the same geographic territory is great for the ad platform but bad for you. Digital Marketing is generally a zero-sum game. When they win, you lose. Do yourself a favor and hire the smartest folks you can and make sure they don’t work for your competitor. If we’re working for you, we’ll ask you for a list of your competitors right from the start and, while you are our client, they will not be.

9. Service Pricing Based on Effort

Most agencies that do Pay-Per-Click work base their pricing on a percentage of click spend. Market Vantage has never done that. Google and other digital platforms encourage advertisers to spend more. We work for you, not for Google. In many cases, we help our clients reduce their click spend significantly – while increasing quality conversions. It takes a lot of work to achieve that. Why would you want to pay us more because we persuaded you to spend more? Here at Market Vantage, we want to make sure our objectives are aligned with yours.

10. No Long-Term Lock-In

What happens if, a few months into an agency relationship, you find that things just aren’t clicking? Not much If you have a one-year (or longer) contract. Well, we don’t like being unappreciated either. That’s why our contracts offer a clear termination options that can be as short as 30 days.