6 ways to know when it is time to switch digital marketing agencies

We understand that breaking up with a marketing agency is a difficult task. Like any relationship, even a professional one, when working with an agency, things can become rather uncomfortable and your company can be put in a compromising position.

There are many reasons that the relationship with your current agency can deteriorate. Many times, your agency is not delivering on agreed key performance indicators (KPIs), they have not been responsive enough when dealing with your queries or have just been difficult to work with in general.

Changing agencies may be a hard decision to make, but for the health and well-being of your company, it may be a necessary step to take.

However, when should you draw the line and switch digital marketing agencies?

When to Switch Digital Marketing Agencies:

In our experience, these are the six main reasons why a client may choose to part ways with their digital marketing agency:

1. Your agency is not meeting their KPIs

There will be bad months, but when the agency fails to meet their KPIs but if this happens continuously it should be flagged as a problem. With digital marketing data and analytics so easily accessible to clients, analysing an agency’s performance is very easy.

Has the agency helped you achieve objectives and acquire SQLs (sales qualified leads)? What about other KPIs like brand awareness, conversions, generating leads and closing sales? Consider all the KPIs you have set when initiating work with an agency. When the agency’s contract is up for review and you have been unhappy with their performance, their KPI performance will be a clear indicator as to whether it is time to move on.

2. Managing your agency is becoming a full-time job

The reason that you outsource work to a digital marketing agency is to save yourself time. Poor account and project management from your agency is a huge no-no. Where there is poor communication and no organisational effort whatsoever, an agency can end up being detrimental to your business’s bottom line and your own sanity. For example, deadlines have been missed and mistakes happened which resulted in lost time and money. At present, you are more involved in campaigns and projects than you would like to be, that is another clear indication that it is time to switch agencies.

3. Missed deadlines

When your agency repeatedly misses launch dates and critical deadlines, you know there is a major problem. You see a lack of functional and financial value in your relationship with your digital marketing agency. Missed deadlines could be the by-product of mismanagement of resources and often end up impacting the profitability of your campaign, negatively affecting your ROI.

4. Lack of insights and recommendations

They are the experts. A lack of expertise and assistance from your digital marketing agency is a huge indicator that something is amiss.

An agency should be sharing knowledge to help you improve your business’ marketing plan by sharing latest industry insight into your vertical. When you know about Google’s latest update or Facebook’s latest ad unit before they do, it is a problem.

5. They are giving you the runaround

Your agency is doing the following:

• Making excuses and missing meetings.
• Giving you conflicting stories.
• Hiding things behind complicated tech-speak.
• Doing nothing to fix broken lines of communication.

To elaborate, employees of your company and points of contact at the agency have difficulty getting along and effectively communicating. As a result, there is a lack of transparency between the agency and your company. It is time to switch agencies.

6. You have changed, or your agency has

Your business has outgrown them, or they have outgrown you and are not giving you the attention that they used to. Your current agency has grown too bulky and may lack their previous agility when it comes to projects and campaigns.

Or perhaps, new management has taken over control of the agency and you feel they are no longer a good fit for your company’s objectives. There could be different interpretations of the KPIs. An agency may measure success differently from you, which can be very problematic with long-running campaigns.

With all of these reasons in mind, careful consideration will make it clear when it is time to switch digital marketing agencies. If you are on the lookout for a new digital marketing agency to partner with, you can always book a consultation with one of our marketing specialists to assess if we may be able to assist.