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I Work In a Digital Ad Agency Ask Me Anything

Marketing, social media, advertising

Vic

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I've learned a lot reading through the forums these past few days. I also used to own a forum and realize how important it is to build up credibility by genuinely helping people out.

So, as the title says I work in a digital ad agency and I have experience with a number of things, for example you can ask me about:


  • Media Buying
  • Ad serving
  • Negotiating with an ad agency
  • Asking for an RFP (request for proposal)
  • Strategy vs tactics (something that is lost on 99% of the people)
  • Branding campaigns vs Direct response
  • Who to approach in an ad agency
  • How not to get ripped off by an ad agency

I won't mention who I work for or clients I have or currently work with though, sorry.

As I mentioned in my intro thread I also used to do Affiliate marketing so feel free to ask me about that too.

PS. As I look at the bullet points, it looks like a decent outline for a book wouldn't you say? ...:D
 
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snowbank

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Vic, I think you should get to know people here more first.

A post like this 4 posts in comes off more as, "I hope people hire me for consulting" type post. I'm not saying that's the case, but no one knows who you are, so they don't know who they're taking advice from.

If you came in with a huge intro that detailed a bunch of huge successes you've had in the ad world and they could be verified, it'd be substantially different.
 

Eskil

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Welcome to the forum, Vic.
How not to get ripped off by an ad agency

Can you elaborate a little more on this? Sometimes when I dealt with self-serve networks like these, I got the feeling that my ad rep didn't always have my best interest at heart - and that other advertisers I talked to were given more beneficial rates, etc. I'd love to hear more on your views on this from "the inside".

Thanks!
 

healthstatus

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Hi Vic,
I am a publisher in the Health niche. What kind of monthly ad views do networks want to see for segmented niches? If a pharma has an ad for a prostate drug, and they are looking to put their ads on prostate health related pages, how many ad views is "enough"?

We are doing some work segmenting our site, and I am trying to figure out how granular to get, and I have xx,xxx pages of content (and we have limited effort gnomes). So if I get 50 page views of my prostate pages each month, am I better to dump that into "mens health" segment (which gets 20,000 page views) or get down to tagging at a level of: prostate -> mens health -> health -> ROS
 
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Vic

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Vic, I think you should get to know people here more first.

A post like this 4 posts in comes off more as, "I hope people hire me for consulting" type post. I'm not saying that's the case, but no one knows who you are, so they don't know who they're taking advice from.

If you came in with a huge intro that detailed a bunch of huge successes you've had in the ad world and they could be verified, it'd be substantially different.

Hmm, good point, honestly the last thing I want are clients :) that would be a very slowlane.

Welcome to the forum, Vic.


Can you elaborate a little more on this? Sometimes when I dealt with self-serve networks like these, I got the feeling that my ad rep didn't always have my best interest at heart - and that other advertisers I talked to were given more beneficial rates, etc. I'd love to hear more on your views on this from "the inside".

Thanks!

Hey Eskil, I think you are confusing ad agency with ad network... as part of a media plan for our clients we may include ad networks as part of an overall tactical strategy. If they are giving you a set price...they may be overcharging you if they are buying inventory from RTB's and DSP's. If they have direct publishers, they just may not know what they are doing. They could also have tiers by spending amount. Usually you have to wear them down. I've had networks quote me $8 cpm, I come back and say.. sorry I already told the client you could do $3cpm, so let's work with that, this is a new client and we want to show them the best results, blah, blah, blah. It comes down to amount you are willing to spend. But honestly, a lot of them are just order takers.

Btw, I recognize your twitter handle name from at least two other forums, haha. Good seeing you here.

Hi Vic,
I am a publisher in the Health niche. What kind of monthly ad views do networks want to see for segmented niches? If a pharma has an ad for a prostate drug, and they are looking to put their ads on prostate health related pages, how many ad views is "enough"?

We are doing some work segmenting our site, and I am trying to figure out how granular to get, and I have xx,xxx pages of content (and we have limited effort gnomes). So if I get 50 page views of my prostate pages each month, am I better to dump that into "mens health" segment (which gets 20,000 page views) or get down to tagging at a level of: prostate -> mens health -> health -> ROS

As I mentioned to Eskil, you are confusing agency with network, so I can't really answer your question. I know many networks have a minimum amount of traffic they want to see before giving you approval as a publisher. But honestly in order to sell your inventory, they would probably just take it any way you put it..they just want to sell more impressions and really couldn't give a shit how targeted it is (within reason). So do whatever you think is best to sell the highest amount of inventory you can.

So just to clarify a bit here are some example of ad agencies, think of the show mad men.

Ogilvy
Y&R
Omnicom
 

healthstatus

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As I mentioned to Eskil, you are confusing agency with network, so I can't really answer your question. I know many networks have a minimum amount of traffic they want to see before giving you approval as a publisher. But honestly in order to sell your inventory, they would probably just take it any way you put it.

No confusion on my part at all. I have high traffic and ad impressions, and I want to get more into direct sales with Pharma advertisers. I want to be one of the sites they can go to directly. Trying to figure out how to be the pretty girl at the dance.

Already involved with many networks.
 

Vic

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No confusion on my part at all. I have high traffic and ad impressions, and I want to get more into direct sales with Pharma advertisers. I want to be one of the sites they can go to directly. Trying to figure out how to be the pretty girl at the dance.

Already involved with many networks.

Ah, gotcha. Well then what you would have to do is hit the street and visit agencies and pitch them on offering your site as a potential partner for their client. Initially it may be difficult, because many agencies have long term relationships with their publishers. In many instances publishers give a kick back to the agency dependent on investment level. So for example, if Agency X invests $100k or more, you would give 20% back to the agency (this is a dirty little secret many clients don't know).

To get your foot in the door, I would offer a free test with the agreement that if it performs better than current partners, then they would agree to give you a chunk of the budget. 99% of Publishers won't do this, so this is your way in.
 
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Rerun

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Hey Vic,

This is relevant to my interests... thanks for posting.

  1. If I were to start an agency, managing and optimizing client campaigns, what major challenges should I be prepared for?
  2. What's a good rule of thumb to charge clients? Is it typically something like 10% of ad spend, or maybe a profit sharing deal?
  3. Big question I have is billing... are clients willing to prepay/make a deposit for traffic or do they get billed after the fact?
 

Vic

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Hey Vic,

This is relevant to my interests... thanks for posting.

  1. If I were to start an agency, managing and optimizing client campaigns, what major challenges should I be prepared for?
  2. What's a good rule of thumb to charge clients? Is it typically something like 10% of ad spend, or maybe a profit sharing deal?
  3. Big question I have is billing... are clients willing to prepay/make a deposit for traffic or do they get billed after the fact?


1.Depends on what clients you are going after, big brands will require tons of people to coordinate a pitch, develop a strategy, etc...
On the lower end, local businesses would maybe require a presentation and a few calls. Be prepared for billing issues, the larger the client, the less willing they are to part with their money upfront. Be weary of a prospect or someone who calls you up and wants you to create a proposal...always hold something back otherwise they may just take your strategy and tactics and buy the media themselves.

2.All depends on what you are selling. For search 10% is about average or you can charge less % and offer the client a flat click cost. Although the latter will only work with branding clients. You can offer rev share as well, if you think you can make it work or rev share/low fee. You can offer no fee for display and just collect the margins on the display buy as long as you know the costs going in and quote a flat click cost. Or you can do the rebate scenario I mentioned earlier, where you get a kickback from publishers.

Charge extra for advanced reporting and adserving, the latter can bring in huge margins.

3.Whenever possible try to get paid upfront. At least a retainer fee. Cash flow is your biggest challenge outside of getting new clients. I've seen HUGE brands take 6-9 months to pay after their campaign has run. Some will try to nitpick in order to avoid paying at all, like auditing you, etc...

Last but not least, the relationship with your providers/publishers is actually more important than with your clients. You can always get new clients, but there are only a limited number of publishers you can work with. So even as tempting as it is to get on the phone and bitch them out for screwing up a campaign launch, just be tactful and ask for a make good, then turn around and tell your clients you got them bonus impressions/clicks. :)
 

Rerun

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+Speed

Thanks for the detailed response. Didn't think about the additional fees that can be tacked on. Good stuff...
 
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911Carrera

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1.Depends on what clients you are going after, big brands will require tons of people to coordinate a pitch, develop a strategy, etc...
On the lower end, local businesses would maybe require a presentation and a few calls. Be prepared for billing issues, the larger the client, the less willing they are to part with their money upfront. Be weary of a prospect or someone who calls you up and wants you to create a proposal...always hold something back otherwise they may just take your strategy and tactics and buy the media themselves.

2.All depends on what you are selling. For search 10% is about average or you can charge less % and offer the client a flat click cost. Although the latter will only work with branding clients. You can offer rev share as well, if you think you can make it work or rev share/low fee. You can offer no fee for display and just collect the margins on the display buy as long as you know the costs going in and quote a flat click cost. Or you can do the rebate scenario I mentioned earlier, where you get a kickback from publishers.

Charge extra for advanced reporting and adserving, the latter can bring in huge margins.

3.Whenever possible try to get paid upfront. At least a retainer fee. Cash flow is your biggest challenge outside of getting new clients. I've seen HUGE brands take 6-9 months to pay after their campaign has run. Some will try to nitpick in order to avoid paying at all, like auditing you, etc...

Last but not least, the relationship with your providers/publishers is actually more important than with your clients. You can always get new clients, but there are only a limited number of publishers you can work with. So even as tempting as it is to get on the phone and bitch them out for screwing up a campaign launch, just be tactful and ask for a make good, then turn around and tell your clients you got them bonus impressions/clicks. :)

Good info. thank you.
 

Vic

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If I was an ad network, how would I approach ad agencies to get them to advertise on my network?

If I owned an ad network and wanted to get an agency to buy from me, I would have to create a unique selling point and meet some of their needs. Surprise surprise! Most that come pitch to us, say the same tired thing, we have 60 billion impressions a month, in 48 categories, blah blah blah. I already know this and know you just have an API to Right media, admeld, and a dozen other exchanges.

What I want to hear is, we can target site specific…for instance, if you have clients that want to run on cnn.com but don't want to pay their $30-$120 cpm, we can buy it for $3 cpm,..obviously it's their remnant but you would still be on cnn.com.

Show me a side by side chart of 10 premium sites and compare their direct rates against our rates.

When you do all this, just make sure the sites have remnant and you can meet that price and still have a good margin for yourself.

Price alone isn't much of a strategy, throw in some added value, like we have access to such and such on twitter and will tweet your client's promotion.

I'm not sure how large your resources are, but basically try and offer something that costs you nothing that the agency can then turn around and sell to the client, such as my twitter example.

Finally, it helps a lot to bring in some swag. If you want to go all out, invite them for lunch.
 
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bernieshawn

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If I owned an ad network and wanted to get an agency to buy from me, I would have to create a unique selling point and meet some of their needs. Surprise surprise! Most that come pitch to us, say the same tired thing, we have 60 billion impressions a month, in 48 categories, blah blah blah. I already know this and know you just have an API to Right media, admeld, and a dozen other exchanges.

What I want to hear is, we can target site specific…for instance, if you have clients that want to run on cnn.com but don't want to pay their $30-$120 cpm, we can buy it for $3 cpm,..obviously it's their remnant but you would still be on cnn.com.

Show me a side by side chart of 10 premium sites and compare their direct rates against our rates.

When you do all this, just make sure the sites have remnant and you can meet that price and still have a good margin for yourself.

Price alone isn't much of a strategy, throw in some added value, like we have access to such and such on twitter and will tweet your client's promotion.

I'm not sure how large your resources are, but basically try and offer something that costs you nothing that the agency can then turn around and sell to the client, such as my twitter example.

Finally, it helps a lot to bring in some swag. If you want to go all out, invite them for lunch.

Hmm, good stuff to think about. I'm contemplating throwing my hat into the mobile advertising ring, have a couple good ideas, but am just thinking before jumping in at the moment.

Thanks!
 

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