Why Agencies Shouldn’t Fear AdTech

They say it’s coming. The digital revolution that’s going to wipe out your agency.

It’s understandable that agencies might feel threatened by the looming approach of adtech. What value do creative and media buying teams bring if design is manufactured, experimentation is automated, and buying is programmatic?

Automated media buying may be inevitable — it’s the natural progression of technology. But machines will never displace human-centered agencies.

Ultimately, technology allows agencies to do more of what they do best instead of less.

The thing is, advertising technology doesn’t replace the people who design the creative, write the copy, and build the strategy. All of these activities can’t be replicated with the same touch in a tech platform.

But their power can be augmented.

“Automation has given us more time — and mental energy — to spend on family, friends and our careers. It’s the same in the workplace.” –Brad Rencher

For example, in social advertising, let’s say you had 50 finely segmented audience groups and 20 ad creatives that you’d like to run in a major campaign. It would be extremely time-consuming to create the 1,000 unique ads needed to test every combination of audience and creative. If an employee spent even just 1 minute creating each ad in a native platform, it would take almost 17 hours — two whole work days.

In an ad optimization tool like Accomplice, this process could take as little as 30 minutes. What could your employee do with the 16 hours of extra time?

Develop and research a new strategy. Create brilliant new copy or visuals. Work on an important partnership or land a new client.

In this way, technology supercharges the value your agency can provide — not the other way around. You’ll be able to say yes to more projects. Experiment more. Add better insight. Do more research. Instead of wasting this precious time with rote tasks, automated media buying allows for growth and creativity.

“The evidence is clear that the most effective groups are those whose members most strongly possess the most essentially, deeply human abilities — empathy above all, social sensitivity, storytelling, collaborating, solving problems together, building relationships.” –Geoff Colvin, Fortune

By adopting the proper adtech tools, you won’t be diminishing your agency’s value. You’ll ensure its existence for the long term.

Originally published at blog.accomplice.io on November 24, 2015.