Our Top Agency-Building Projects For 2021
Our Top 4 Agency-Building Projects For A Successful 2021
2021 is here! It promises to be an exciting year, bigger (and hopefully better) than 2020-the-year-that-shall-not-be-named. What does success look like for you in 2021? Whatever your company’s financial and goal setting cycle, now is a great time to reflect on what makes you successful, what you’re doing well, and where you can improve.
To give you some food for thought, we’ve written down some of our favourite agency-improvement projects. These are projects that you can kick off now to drive real and measurable change within your agency and within your team.
Project 1: Get Audit Ready
How often do you audit your own accounts? Whether annually, quarterly or monthly, auditing your accounts is a great routine to get into and will give you peace of mind that all accounts are delivering best practice for your clients and are being managed in line with your own agency processes.
- Put together a checklist of what a best practice account looks like for your agency. Not sure what to include? Keep an eye out for our soon-to-be-published standard operating procedures whitepaper that can serve as a template.
- Use the Google Optimisation Score/Recommendations section as part of your checklist. Google surface account recommendations that highlight areas of an account that can be improved. Use this to your advantage and include it as part of your list.
- If you have 2+ account managers, get them to audit each other’s accounts. A fresh set of eyes is often extremely helpful when dealing with PPC accounts. Plus, if someone takes leave, is absent from work, or needs to hand over an account, you’re building redundancy into your account management team!
An account audit can be a great relationship-building tool. Build trust with your clients by letting them know about your account auditing routine. Show them that you take account hygiene and best practices seriously — you can even surface insights from your audit as a discussion point about what is going well and where you want to take their account and strategy in the coming months.
For PPC Samurai users, you can automate a lot of this process by importing your account(s) and generating Insights. Using a combination of automated alerts and bespoke workflows, you can quickly and easily identify those areas that might need attention. Contact us for more information on how to set up your PPC Samurai account for ongoing auditing.
Project 2: Position Your Agency For Growth
What are your revenue and profitability targets for the year? Where are you super-efficient and where can you improve to drive incremental revenue? In an industry that is often squeezed on margin, we know these are big questions for a busy agency, so we’ve put together an ROI calculator as a guide to where you currently are and as a starting point to kick start discussions about what profitability, efficiency and all the other big questions look like for you in 2021.
Project 3: Do It Your Way And Own Your IP
Does your agency have a consistent set of best practices that all managers and accounts follow? What makes you and your clients so successful, and have you systemised that IP?
If the answer to either of those questions is no, this year could be time to think about systemising your agency processes. Not only will it increase your agency efficiency and consistency in client delivery, but it will also allow you to get set up quickly with automation tools such as PPC Samurai.
This project is a big one but can pay dividends once implemented. If you’re not sure where to start, keep an eye out for our soon to be released e-book ‘The PPC Automation Best Practice Checklist’ or drop us a line to chat about how we’ve helped other agencies to achieve this and how we can potentially help you!
Project 4: Be A Leader
This is a fast-paced, ever-changing industry. Whether it’s a new project, a new channel, a change to technology, or a change to legislation, there is always something new to learn. And with the current seismic shift in PPC management that is automation and machine learning, this year promises to be no different.
Take the time now to reflect on your internal unique selling propositions and the pace of change that you and each of your clients are comfortable with. Then, schedule in regular times with each client to step back and reassess opportunities in the market. Be proactive with new opportunities but also comfortable saying no or not right now when the situation isn’t right or could be detrimental.
This particular project can feel daunting but you’re not alone! This year the changing PPC landscape and its implications for agencies are top of mind for us. We’re planning a lot of content and training that will cover topics like new skills required by PPC Managers, how to develop PPC strategies that are business-led, etc.
We look forward to hearing how you go! And if you need a hand at all, please reach out. You know we’re a helpful chatty bunch and we love to hear from you.
