How Should Advertising Account Management Work

This month we have successfully concluded agreements with four new customers, four new projects full of stories to tell and a road that we will be happy to take, together, towards new goals. Unfortunately, we have encountered a similar problem in three of these cases. And it’s not the first time this year that we’ve had this problem.

The case in hand is that our new client has great difficulty retrieving data from the previous agency it worked with: Google Ads, Tag Manager, Google Analytics, Facebook and so on. Why is that?

Simply because the consultants they worked with retained all of the client’s digital advertising properties from the start. In a way that is legal by contract, but strategically harmful when the collaboration comes to an end, as in this case. The situation that is recurring is that all accounts are opened in the name of the agency, managed and administered by the same, while the customer has only access. Well, when it goes better than the usual: often they’ll have to settle for just a report export, without being able to evaluate with their own eyes results, costs and data of their own company’s account.

What happens next? Well, when their contract expires, the accounts magically disappear too.

This is a huge problem: within every account, there is all the information needed to continue the campaigns and to continue to improve the work. All digital tools work well thanks to data: conversion, history, keyword, audience and analytics data. They are all, inseparably, assets and incredible heritage of a company that invests in digital.

This malpractice causes enormous and sometimes very, very underestimated damage, which should, therefore, be given more attention before signing any contract. At RichClicks we have customers who ended their agreements with agencies much larger and equipped than ours, with crazy turnovers, but apparently, still need to use these unethical tricks towards the brands with which they have worked with.

Unfortunately, even at a company level, signing such a contract means not really knowing what you’re up against. We are currently working on three to four projects that are in this situation, and from the very beginning, the work has been completely addressed in the restructuring of all accounts and related data, including, even, those of Analytics. Needless to say, during these first months, acquisition costs and campaign lead costs are skyrocketing, lacking crucial metrics that would reconstruct a settlement framework.

Bottom line, the advice we give you, whatever your business and whatever agency you rely on, is to always check that there are no such clauses in the contract you sign: make sure that your accounts keep the name and control of your company, not of whoever you have chosen to make work on your digital management activities.

Keep your data alive to enhance what you invest, before you decide where you want to invest.