Running an advertising agency can feel overwhelming at times. You have a lot on your plate between juggling client expectations, meeting deadlines, and overseeing creative output. And it doesn't stop there. As you work to deliver projects and keep clients happy, you also need to think about your marketing agency operations. How do you attract new business? What can you improve to run your agency more efficiently?
How do you develop your services and grow your business? These questions can be challenging to tackle amidst the chaos of agency life. In our guide on advertising agency management, we'll unpack how you can create and grow your productized service efficiently to help you overcome these challenges.
Orchestra's solution, grow your productized service, offers a straightforward approach to help you achieve your goals. The best part? It enables you to create and grow your productized service quickly and efficiently so you can focus on what you do best – delighting your clients.
How Do Advertising Agencies Work
An advertising agency is a service provider that participates in the creative process of designing, planning, and managing advertisements for other organizations or businesses. The advertising agency’s primary focus is developing the most effective means of communication to achieve business goals, whether promoting sales or increasing awareness.
An advertising agency works toward creating the need, demand, and understanding of a product portfolio. Advertising also has other purposes, such as brand awareness, recruitment, inviting tender bids, and calling for admissions. The role of an advertising agency includes the following:
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Collect information about the client's product or services and create an advertising strategy and advertisements around it.
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In-depth market research about the products and surveys of potential and existing customers.
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Creating a plan for product promotion through various media channels, including print, mass, and social media.
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Check the response of advertisements aired from potential and existing customers and tailor content or future lines of action based on that.
Why Do Businesses Need an Advertising Agency?
Let’s look into the importance of advertising agencies from a business perspective to understand the various advantages and benefits of an ad agency for business growth.
Advertising Agencies Provide a Cost-Effective Solution
Hiring an ad agency is profitable as it takes a holistic approach to your marketing, advertising, and branding needs. You will reap more benefits than the amount you invested in availing their services. As a package deal, you will get the services of skilled and experienced professionals, including graphic designers, content creators, and mass media experts.
Avoid the Pitfalls of Employee Burnout with an Advertising Agency
Some businesses may be tempted to cut costs by passing advertising responsibilities to their existing employees. The problem is that advertising expertise may not be included in the skill set of the employees entrusted with the responsibility. This extra burden will surely decrease the efficiency of the employee concerned, which will have a direct effect on business performance. It’s better to avail of the services of an advertising agency than burden your employees and jeopardize your business. This way, you and your team will solely engage in your core competency and grow the business.
Get Cutting Edge Business Solutions Through an Advertising Agency
One of the most significant advantages of an advertising agency is that you can avail yourself of the most effective solutions for your business. Since an advertising agency is an expert in the field, it keeps itself informed of the latest developments, consumer tastes, and trends in mind. The ad agency specialists are continuously exposed to the advertising environment and frequently updated through regular training and seminars. The agency will also use the required software and tools and commission or get hold of market research and detailed reports. This all translates into cutting-edge solutions best suited for your business needs.
Quickly Scale Your Advertising Needs
If you have hired an advertising agency, you can quickly scale up your advertising needs if required. The advertising agency you hired beforehand already knows about the products and your customer base. They already have the relevant information and prior experience and will quickly scale up their operations when required.
Get an Objective View of Your Business Needs and Requirements
An advertising agency brings a unique objectivity and outlook to your business needs and operations. Whether we accept it or not, our views and beliefs become distorted by our inherent biases. An ad firm will have a neutral yet unique perspective on your business needs, brand identity, and what the customer requires. As external observers with keen advertising insight, they will provide the right solutions for your business needs in that field.
Receive a Tailor-Made Strategy for Your Business
One of the advantages of an advertising agency is that they have the skill set and experience to plan an advertising strategy suited to your business needs. They may switch from print media to hoardings or a more interactive social media and get your products relevant exposure on different platforms based on business suitability. They will create, modify, or change the advertising strategy as per the situation and suited to the targets decided upon.
Access Creativity and In-House Expertise
Creating advertising strategies and campaigns, developing brand identity, and designing logos require a specific type of creativity. Advertising agencies are staffed with creative and skilled professionals. These professionals are specialists and experts in different advertising and marketing domains, mediums, and techniques.
Hiring an advertising agency allows you to access this creativity and a whole palette of it. You will deal with professionals who will form the best advertising solutions for your business based on their vast experience. Collaborating with your advertising partners will also help you learn about your business domain, market trends and strategies, and technical know-how.
Proficient Financial Management
The importance of advertising agencies can also be gauged by the fact that they provide value for your money and excellent financial management for your advertising budget. Advertising agencies have prior experience working with different businesses with different budgets. They will monitor and measure the amount spent on advertising and marketing your products on various platforms and mediums. They will prepare the budget and proposal based on your business type to help deliver your message to the target audience.
Achieving Targets and Business Expansion
A good advertising agency will collate the data, research and analyze it, create reports, and finalize the advertising strategy. They will implement the plan while you dedicate your time to business growth. Thus, your market penetration and your business will expand in due course.
Dependability and Excellence
An advertising agency is a professional firm that knows the best ways and means of advertising. Hence, hiring one enhances the dependability of a campaign and encourages brand growth.
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16 Incredible Tips For Advertising Agency Management
1. Streamline Your Operations with Orchestra
Simplify your ad agency's operations with Orchestra. This all-in-one growth toolkit helps you launch your productized service with ease. Built for creatives, Orchestra provides a white-labeled client portal, task management, and real-time analytics. You can start using it right away. No coding is needed—just your Stripe account.
Whether you’re a designer, developer, or copywriter, Orchestra streamlines your workflow, letting you collaborate with clients seamlessly while maintaining a private workspace with your team. Add integrations like Slack and webhooks to customize your setup and deliver a branded experience. Enhance your service with a platform built to grow alongside you. Try Orchestra for free and develop your productized service today!
2. Set Business Goals for Your Campaigns
Everything starts with the business goals. Your agency needs to be clear on the budgets they have to work with and what you define as success from the campaign. Sometimes, that is upper funnel targets, like growing your brand awareness metrics. But more often than not, it is lower funnel targets, like hitting a desired revenue level and matching return on ad spend (ROAS) or the cost of acquiring a customer (CAC). It is challenging to manage everything simultaneously, so set a specific goal to shoot for. For example, a ROAS in the 5x-10x range or a CAC not exceeding 33% of your average order value (AOV).
3. Create a Scalable Agency Structure
Think about where you’re at and where you see your agency heading. As you hire more resources, ensure that your agency structure, systems, and processes allow for growth without severely disrupting organizational hierarchy. For example, your digital agency may have just two specialists specializing in search engine optimization. As you begin signing new clients and taking on more complex projects, you may need an agency liaison (such as an account manager) to oversee project management. Adapting to a pod agency model may be your best bet.
4. Set Target Customers
Every business is different. If you are a B2B company, you typically target specific companies that would be logical buyers of your products—or, more likely, specific employee roles, within those businesses. For example, suppose you are selling social media marketing software. In that case, you may reach out to a Chief Marketing Officer, or a Director of Social Media at those target companies and understand that not all companies are created equal.
You may target employees at big enterprise-scale Fortune 500 companies or go after employees of small and medium size businesses that can better afford your products. So, lock down your target company size and the target roles of employees inside those companies, understanding you may have more than one target persona to go after. If you are a B2C company, you are most likely going after a particular customer demographic that would be most interested in your products. Is that men or women? Is it high-income, well-educated people, or more mass market? Are they aged 21-34 or 55 plus?
Does geography matter? If so, add your target states or cities of residence. It would be better to layer personal information from various psychographic data sources. For example, is your customer more of a “fitness fanatic” or an “arts and crafter” to enable media targeting at that “interest” level? The better you understand your current customer base, the easier it will be to identify the correct look-alike targets to go after. Again, there may be more than one persona here.
5. Update Your Pricing Structure
Knowing how to charge your clients may not always be the most straightforward task, but it’s essential. To decide on an appropriate agency pricing strategy, ask yourself: Is my agency focused on short-term or long-term client projects (or a combination)? How long would these types of projects take? Should my agency consider any contractual clauses (e.g., 50% downpayment)? How do my competitors typically price their services? Are there any opportunities for pricing add-ons or upselling clients? Should my agency charge for client reports?
6. Set the Media Mix
Mastering your marketing funnel and media mix is a more in-depth conversation I have written about. But, at the highest level of understanding, your marketing funnel has three parts: (i) upper funnel, driving awareness of your brand; (ii) middle funnel, driving consideration for your products; and (iii) lower funnel, driving transactions and revenues for your business. There are different media tactics for each stage of the funnel. For example, consider television media for the upper funnel, social media for the middle funnel, and search engine marketing for the lower funnel.
That’s why understanding your goals is so important, so we use the right media to help you hit those goals. So, at this stage, you are deciding how much of your budget to put into each funnel stage (e.g., 20% upper, 30% middle, and 50% lower funnel), which tactics for each funnel stage (e.g., social media for middle funnel), and which specific publishers for each tactic (e.g., spend the social media budget evenly between Facebook, Pinterest, st and Twitter).
7. Ensure Real-Time Collaboration
Bringing your team to one place to collaborate on various tasks is essential. Instead of using emails and feedback as an option for conversation, try using a collaborative platform where they can update each other on every task.
8. Create Replicable Documents and Procedures
Our onboarding was so messy that we knew we needed better processes. Now, when a client onboards, it's all automated, and each client has a smooth experience. And getting sales was always just a matter of chance. Now, we have a strategic and focused sales process that gives us a steady stream of leads. Picture this–your agency’s brand reputation begins prospering, and suddenly, you've onboarded ten new clients in one day! It’s excellent news, but it won’t mean much if you try to do everything from scratch and fumble during onboarding.
To avoid unnecessary hassle, create documents and procedures that can be easily customized and sent out when needed. From professional SEO proposals using a pre-built proposal template to client contracts to onboarding checklists and dashboard templates, automated processes save your agency time in the long run. The proper management system is a game-changer!
9. Set the Analytics and Reporting
The best advertising agencies these days are as many technology and analytics businesses as creative and branding businesses. They will ensure your website and campaigns are set up so that most clicks, contacts, and transactions can be traced back to their originating source, including assigning cross-channel marketing attribution metrics.
They will build dashboards enabling you to quickly see which marketing efforts are working towards hitting your desired goals and which are not. So then, they can easily “dial up” or “dial down” any winning or losing tactics within the campaign. The key business goals must be measured in these reports by funnel stage, channel, publisher, campaign, creative, etc.
Ensure you get these summary reports sent weekly to track their progress and make changes quickly before you waste a lot of money on a “losing” campaign. Also, ensure you use the right metrics at each funnel stage (e.g., CPV upper funnel, CPL middle funnel, and CPA lower funnel).
10. Invest in Infrastructure
When scaling their agency, Yanira M. Castro, CEO of Humanity Communications, found that the most important thing was to build out the infrastructure. It makes sense because workflow automation is non-negotiable for scaling agencies. As your roster grows, you need proper systems to ensure your agency can keep up with numerous marketing efforts and evolving demands. I understood the value of having sound systems to communicate and track work, even when we were just three people.
Infrastructure building helped us grow because there wasn't wasted time searching for something stuck in one person's email inbox. It also allowed us to become more responsive to clients, which leads to better quality work. For example, say your client wants to run several large-scale marketing efforts in conjunction (e.g., a Facebook Ads campaign alongside a Mailchimp drip campaign).
Relying on unscalable processes (such as tracking metrics through a manual spreadsheet) will only work for so long. Not only is there an increased likelihood of copy-and-paste errors, but there’s also an unnecessary waste of billable hours on tedious work. Having the right marketing agency software at your disposal makes life much easier.
11. Set the Communications Frequency
Your communications with your agency depends on the size of your budget and how often things are changing. You could get away with monthly meetings if the budget is relatively small and the campaign is primarily optimized and static regarding changes. If it is a large budget, the campaign is still being set up, and lots of testing and changes are being made, you will likely need weekly meetings with your agency. However, meetings will be required to communicate both ways. You will want to ensure the campaign is achieving your goals, and your agency may need guidance from you for anything they are not clear on or if there is a “fork in the road” that needs your input.
12. Hire the Right People
There’s power in diversity and hiring resources with various skill sets. This will bring new perspectives to your agency and ensure proper resource management while scaling. We guarantee that we have the right mix of people and support their individual needs, all while staying focused on the company as a whole. When building a company, you don't want to hire all the same people. Just like in a recipe, you need different ingredients to make a dish shine.
Yanira M. Castro, CEO of Humanity Communications, said that a part of hiring the right people is trusting them to do their jobs. As CEO of SEOMCR, Simon Thompson, says, “I hire good people with specialist skills that can–annoyingly–do every job better than me.” After all, you have an agency to run and can't stretch yourself thin by focusing on everything.
It may be challenging to pass essential responsibilities on to someone else, but it is the only way an agency can continue to scale. The solution? Focus on hiring resources with the appropriate skill sets and trust them to do the job. That way, you won’t have to worry about micro-managing competent employees or excessive workflow management, which gives you more time to focus on agency operations.
13. Invest in Employee Development
Scaling your agency means putting measures in place for your employees’ development. As your workforce grows, your staff must be able to manage their workloads at a steady and realistic pace. Here are a few practical steps to ensure your staff is well-equipped to reach their full potential. Identify and Nurture Employee Strengths Your employees are valuable assets with particularities and interests.
By understanding their strengths and taking the time to cultivate them, you encourage your employees to bring their best selves to work. This leads to their professional and personal growth, as well as your agency’s. Invest in your employees and watch your agency thrive. I like to identify my employees' strengths and play to their strengths. I also try my best to pay attention to my staff's time management and hire at critical times so that they have the support they need to do their jobs well. Linda Rooney, Founder & CEO of DandeLions Digital
14. Set the Roles & Responsibilities
Think of setting up multi-leveled roles and responsibilities at both your company and your agency. Those levels most likely include (i) executive oversight (e.g., a CMO in your business and a Head of Strategy at your agency) that is not too involved in the day-to-day but is being kept abreast of the significant picture issues; (ii) day-to-day project leadership and management (e.g., a VP-Media Buying in your business and an Account Executive at your agency).
That is “quarterbacking” their subordinate teams and keeping everyone on task and plan; and (iii) the teams in the trenches living and breathing the campaign and the resulting data (e.g., a Social Media Marketing Manager at your company and a Head of Social Media at your agency). Ensure you have the appropriate teams at your company and your agency to optimize at each level—strategic, planning, and execution.
15. Outsource When Needed
Knowing your team’s strengths is key to running and scaling a marketing agency. Don't be afraid to outsource if your time is stretched or you’re not as experienced in a particular aspect. Our biggest challenge was finding the right people. We found that hiring an HR consultant was the best way to manage that. It was the right decision, and I am glad we did it early. Yanira M. Castro, CEO of Humanity Communications: Whether it’s policy creation or creative tasks, handing it over to another professional frees up time and lets someone else take the reins for other tasks.
16. Rinse and Repeat
Just because you followed the above process doesn’t mean your job is done when you have completed the six steps above. This is an iterative process every quarter, you should go back to step one to restudy everything and adjust for any changes in business goals, customer learnings, media learnings, etc., and then reset the campaign in steps two through six for the new learnings—plan for quarterly campaign review meetings with your agencies and internal teams at that more strategic level.
10 Best Advertising Agency Management Software for Enhance Productivity
1. Orchestra: Streamlining Creative Scaling
Orchestra launches productized services for creative teams. Their all-in-one growth toolkit includes client portals, task management, and analytics to help agencies scale. With customizable integrations, Orchestra enables you to build a branded client experience for your services to enhance your offering and grow your reputation. Start a free trial to see how Orchestra can help your creative team scale today.
2. Asana: Perfect For Agile Teams
Asana is a project management tool that helps teams organize, track, and manage their work. It’s especially great for cross-functional teams with agile methodologies, like website project development companies. However, agencies with more robust needs might find that certain features, especially regarding budgeting and financial performance, could be more developed.
Pros
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It offers a free plan.
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Several integrations
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Time tracking.
Cons
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New users need help understanding the Asana interface.
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Asana could be better for small teams or single projects.
3. Productive: Powerful Agency Management Software
Productive is a well-rounded agency management software with robust functionality that gives you the tools and data to keep an agency running smoothly. The tool was built by a team with a decade of experience in founding, managing, and scaling a software development shop, so it's especially well-suited to digital agencies. The tool's features fully satisfy my criteria for agency management tools. You'll find client and prospect management in the Sales Pipeline (manage deal flow, get sales organized). The Resource Planning feature, time tracker, and task collaboration tools fit the resource and project management criteria I look for in an agency tool or platform.
Billing and invoicing can also be managed straight from the tool, along with valuable reports on profitability and costs to help with finance management. The reporting feature goes beyond that, with real-time reports on margins, utilization, and much more—including reports on individual employees' or contractors' history with the company, salary reports, etc. Productive's integrations include Zapier and Jira, Open API, QuickBooks Online, Xero, and Exact.
Pros
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Customizable Dashboards
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Integrated Financial Management
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Client Portal
Cons
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Learning Curve
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Customization Constraints
4. Hubstaff: Smart Time Tracking Software
A simple, highly efficient time-tracking app that pulls no punches, Hubstaff is the ideal way to determine how long it takes teams to complete different tasks. There are apps available for Chrome, desktops, and mobiles, so you can easily keep track of performances. Hubstaff is designed to improve productivity, and with over 40 integrations, it works like a charm.
It automates team management and frees your time, thus allowing you to focus on things that matter. You no longer have to worry about check-ins, and you will receive detailed activity reports for each employee. It’s one of the most popular marketing agency management software programs. You can easily plug in money leaks by checking profit margins for different projects. It’s an excellent tool for project management.
Pros
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Affordable enterprise plan
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Mobile app
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Free version and trial
Cons
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One-user limit in the free plan
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No video screen recording
5. Notion: The Ultimate Workspace Organizer
Used by giants like Verizon, McDonald’s, Pixar, and The Wall Street Journal, Notion is a robust agency management software program that you should be using as well. It is the ultimate workspace organization app designed to empower your teams and give them unprecedented collaborative control when dealing with different projects. From creating product roadmaps to codifying processes and building CRMs, Notion has it all.
You can use it to create content calendars, prepare notes and documentation, decide on participants, send out meeting invites, and integrate with other apps. If you are using multiple B2B lead generation strategies, you can also track performance with Notion. Many leading tech giants have also introduced their Notion integrations, so if you use other apps like Slack, you can integrate them with Notion to track your data across multiple apps. It’s one of the best ways to collaborate with teams, which is why many web design agencies worldwide are already using Notion. It’s one of the best creative agency management software tools out there.
Pros
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Great note-taking capabilities
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Very easy to use and customize
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Affordable pricing
Cons
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Lacks advanced project management features
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Keeping multiple projects can get tedious
6. Monday.com: Create Visual Project Workflows
Some of the biggest companies in the world, like Hulu and NBC, use Monday.com, and there’s no reason why your agency shouldn’t give it a whirl, either. Monday streamlines workflows and task visualizations. It’s an excellent agency management system tool. You can create boards or visual tables to sync items and updates in real-time.
There are status buttons and other presentable options, including Gantt, maps, forms, Timeline, Calendar, Kanban, and a lot more. Available on Android and iOS, this highly responsive agency management software tool allows you to manage and collaborate with remote teams easily. You can assign owners for different tasks and let their AI bots focus on mundane matters. This also reduces the chances of human errors.
Pros
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Forever free plan available for up to two seats
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Modern, intuitive, and visual dashboard
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Highly customizable
Cons
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Confusing pricing plans because of per-seat (user) pricing
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Minimum team size of three for paid plans
7. Wrike: Work Management Software For Agencies
Wrike is a powerful work management platform built for teams and organizations looking to collaborate, create, and exceed daily. Wrike's solution for agencies creates a central hub that allows teams to monitor all client projects and resources in one place, improve workflow, and track progress. Key features include real-time collaboration, time tracking, cross-tagging for complete visibility, proofing and approvals, resource management, insights, and analytics. Wrike is where agencies unite to delight their clients by completing more projects in less time.
Pros
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Unlimited projects in a free account
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Unlimited subtasks with unlimited levels of nesting
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Kanban, Calendar, and Table views
Cons
- Gantt chart view available only in paid plans
8. Harvest: Simple Time Tracking Tool
Harvest is an easy tool to use to track time and expenses. It provides clear reports on time spent on a project and the agency’s billable hours. Harvest’s integration capabilities make integrating with your current workflow and tech stack easy.
Pros
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Clean interface and easy navigation
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Option to generate invoices and share them with clients through email
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Comprehensive integrations (50+)
Cons
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Per-user pricing can be costly for larger teams
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Customization and reporting capabilities are limited
9. Kantata: The Comprehensive Agency Management Tool
Kantata is an agency management system that can manage everything from client relationships to workflows and project tracking. This highly customizable tool allows agencies of all sizes to streamline operations and increase profits. Kantata has various features designed specifically for agencies, including tools for client onboarding, project planning, time and resource tracking, invoicing, contracts, communication management, and more.
With these features in place, you can easily monitor your team’s progress against deadlines or budgets and track the status of clients or projects at any given time. You’ll also have access to key performance data such as team utilization rates or revenue forecasts. Kantata's core function is to provide users with comprehensive data management solutions.
It allows you to store customer information, generate reports, manage tasks and projects, track expenses, collaborate with colleagues or partners remotely, and share information organizationally. Additionally, it offers real-time insights into customer trends and market conditions so that you can make informed decisions quickly. This makes Kantata an excellent solution for businesses that need to stay ahead of the competition by utilizing data-driven insights.
Pros
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Intuitive Task Management
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Real-time Collaboration
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Robust Reporting
Cons
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Limited Integrations
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Learning Curve
10. Bonsai Agency Software: All-in-One Agency Management Tool
Bonsai Agency Software is an all-in-one agency management tool that simplifies agencies' lives. It handles everything from project management to client collaboration so that you can focus more on the creative side and less on admin headaches. This integrated approach makes it easy to organize tasks, track progress, collaborate with both your team and clients, and give you a clear idea of how your agency is performing.
Bonsai also includes time tracking, client onboarding, resource management, and automated workflows to keep your operations running smoothly, ensuring projects stay on schedule and within budget. It offers various visual tools like Gantt charts, Kanban boards, and list views to help you stay organized and see everything at a glance.
Real-time reporting gives insights into profitability, resource utilization, and your agency’s overall health. Additionally, Bonsai simplifies the process of managing agency finances. You can track expenses, send invoices, and handle budgeting in one place. Bonsai is a solid pick if you’re looking for a tool to streamline your agency’s operations and boost productivity.
Pros
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User-friendly interface
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Client-centric focus
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Strong focus on small businesses
Cons
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Limited advanced project management features for larger enterprises
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Bonsai integrations are fewer compared to some competitors
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What Services Do Advertising Agencies Provide
Ad Campaigns: The Heart of Advertising Agency Operations
Advertising campaigns are connected ads that focus on communicating a single brand message. Creative directors and their teams of art directors and copywriters produce campaigns to meet specific client business or awareness goals, often generating sales leads and conversions. To create the campaign, an agency works on a particular strategy, usually a product of client input, market research, and creative brainstorming.
Running an extensive campaign across many advertising media platforms is common. An example is the Nike ad campaigns built around the slogan “Just Do It,” originally conceived by the Wieden + Kennedy ad agency in 1987. Agency founder Dan Wieden found inspiration for the line in the unlikely source of convicted killer Gary Gilmore, who said, “Let’s do it!” just before his execution by a firing squad in 1977.
In the hands of the agency's creative team, the “Just do it” tagline became an inspirational rallying cry for amateur and professional athletes around the world. It has been used as the centerpiece of commercials, billboards, posters, print ads, merchandise, event signage, and other sundry parts of ad campaigns that helped turn Nike into one of the world’s major sporting goods brands. And its rallying cry is still heard today.
Social Media Management: Boosting Your Brand’s Online Presence
As social media consumption increases, so does the importance of marketing to audiences through their chosen platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, LinkedIn, and others. Online marketing could include display or pay-per-click (PPC) ads, social media ads, influencers, targeted content, and more. Social media management is often part of a larger digital marketing strategy, which could include Mobile apps. Blogs. Website content. Email campaigns. SEO (search engine optimization). Inbound/outbound marketing campaigns.
Content Creation: Engaging Consumers with Targeted Material
As consumers become more resistant to straight-out advertising messages, they often need to be wooed by soft sales like those delivered through targeted content found in blogs, site content, social media posts, and much more. This is also considered content marketing. Advertising firms and content agencies, often working hand in hand with SEO professionals, will create content, like landing pages on your site, according to different stages of the sales or marketing funnel: hooking interest and winning trust at first and then converting to paid customers later.
Graphic Design: The Visual Appeal of Advertising
Graphic design is an essential service offered by advertising agencies or provided by design partners or suppliers. It is the practical art of creating visual concepts by computer or hand—intended to communicate ideas that inspire, inform, and captivate consumers. Graphic design can be seen in everything from company logos to display ads and publication designs to websites that are pleasing to the eye, easy to navigate, and function well. The importance of design goes beyond graphics to cover online user experience, 3D and product design, software design, game design, and more.
Strategic Planning: The Roadmap for Advertising Campaigns
An advertising strategy provides an overview of and broad direction for a campaign, setting measurable objectives to ensure everything stays on track during execution. It outlines an ad project's goals, how you will achieve them, who will do the work, and what metrics determine success. Because strategic planners must pay close attention to the target audience, they’re often considered the “voice of the consumer” by the ad agency team. The duties of a strategic planner include liaising with other departments, aligning advertising and business goals, creating campaign calendars, and allotting budgets.
TV/Web/Radio Commercials: The Changing Landscape of Advertising
Traditionally, broadcast commercials for TV and radio had a much more prominent place in the hearts of advertising agencies because their budgets and the attention received were much more significant than traditional print vehicles. With ubiquitous high-speed internet connections, videos are increasingly crucial online marketing vehicles, often gaining more interest than simple picture-and-text posts.
An agency must usually differentiate its approach between traditional broadcast and online commercials. With network TV, for example, viewers expect to see commercials and receive direct advertising messages. However, people go to sites for specific purposes and expect any videos they watch to give them the information they need or answer a question they have. Online advertising usually costs less than traditional broadcast ads and offers the potential to reach a wider audience, but it must contend with a very competitive landscape.
Try Orchestra for Free to Grow Your Productized Service Today
Orchestra is a growth toolkit for marketing agencies that helps you launch, manage, and scale productized services. With Orchestra, you get a range of tools to help you hit the ground running with your new service, whether you’re a designer, a developer, or a copywriter.
With Orchestra, you can create a branded client portal, manage tasks, and track analytics—all without needing to code. Just connect your Stripe account, and you’re ready to get started. Try Orchestra for free and develop your productized service today!
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