Stop…Don’t fire your agency! — Glenn Welham // Searchmetrics

Quotes

• “With COVID, its really important for digital agency to see what the true value of what theyre doing. For what we are seeing in a lot of cases, agencies come to us to try and understand how metrics can help them to really standout even more than usual to highlight the value that they can bring.” - Glenn

• “For both sides of the agency, you need to be as good as you possibly be to retain and grow clients during a time of crisis like we have and then in terms of winning new business, you need to distinguish yourself even more.” - Glenn

• “Empathy around the challenges that brands are facing against the backdrop of COVID for an agency is very, very important as well. Like how conscious are they with the negative effects of COVID on a particular business and how can an agency position themselves to an existing client to highlight that they understand the challenges and how they are uniquely equipped to help that brand.” - Glenn

• “My guess is that, theres been a lot of agencies whove had, for lack of a better term, a big Oh, shit moment with the outbreak because what I saw from the macro lens, most B2B SaaS brands said they need to cut spend, fire staff, cut performance marketing budget and Im assuming that the agencies were impacted as well.” - Ben

• “From conversations weve had, it was a mix. We have agencies who lost their clients because their business had been so adversely affected and in such an immediate sense because of the lockdown and that there was just no way to justify at this point in keeping their digital agency on.” - Glenn

• “That said, there also agencies who have seen an increased demand for their services and those who needed them essentially needed them now more than ever and theyre looking for agency that can help them capitalize on that increased demand.” - Glenn

• “It goes down to what role is the digital agency playing in the broader business goals. If in some cases that hasnt been clearly defined or measured, when something like COVID happens, it usually becomes within the first line of items to get cut.” - Glenn

• “If its clearly been defined from the beginning, and the agency as able to show that they are delivering on the agreed objectives, then in that scenario, it should be one of the last things that they should cut because it should be easily quantifiable what they are delivering against the broader business goals.” - Glenn

• “You bring up an interesting point that it depends on what the value your agency bring and what the purpose your agency serves for an organization. It seems like there are different ways that an agency can benefit in organization whether they are essentially a replacement for an in-house team, or they serve as functional area experts, or whether they are meant to be supplemental on a growth strategy.” - Ben

• “In general, the agencies that had no full understanding of how the world events are changing for their client or potential client in a new business sense, are the ones that struggles the most.” - Glenn

• “Its really important for the SEO agencies that we work with to understand what the global pandemic impact has been and how to adjust strategy accordingly to either mitigate or capitalize on with increased demand of services for particular industries.” - Glenn

• “My big takeaway here is, we saw a decrease in the amount of performance marketing budgets. I can rationalize the decrease in need for performance marketing agencies. It obviously depends on your brand, if youre in a home goods e-commerce business and your sales are going through the roof, you might want to continue on performance marketing.” - Ben

• “But broadly, weve seen performance marketing get less expensive, were seeing brands cut their budgets and I think that those agencies are the ones that are at most risk.” - Ben

• “With SEO and content marketing, maybe there is a decreased demand for those agencies but I think it was more like a panic move than anything else.” - Ben