In an industry that is always evolving, it’s no surprise that what is required from a digital marketing agency has changed over time.
If we go back around 10 years, simply being technically stronger within your specialised channel could elevate your agency and your clients above the competition.
Over time, that evolved - and today the gold standard is an omnichannel approach.
The best agencies understand how all the different pieces of the puzzle (i.e. the different marketing channels and onsite activity) fit together and ladder up to the overarching business objective of the brand. That shift naturally raises the question: what’s next?
Here are three areas that look set to shape the agency landscape moving forward.
The buzzword for the past few years, AI in itself isn’t new, but its publicity and the ease of access to it have changed quite radically. The general consensus is that AI is not at the point where it can be trusted fully without human intervention for a lot of its applications, but it's a rapidly developing field. Staying aware of those developments and testing its various applications to find those potential efficiencies is an obvious evolution facing not only agencies but all businesses. At Genie Goals, we have always had the mantra that - we are smart people, using smart technology, but we’re not dictated by them.
You should always be ready to adapt.
With bidding automation well established and with the new campaign types being released across the major platforms regularly providing less and less control to marketers. It means reduced options available to outperform competitors in terms of account set-up, in turn really placing the emphasis on the one area you do have control over and a point of differentiation - your creative assets.
Something that should already be top of mind, in particular for your Social activity. We should expect to see creative come under the microscope even more due to its ever rising importance.
Attribution, web analytics, marketing mix modelling, cookie depreciation, privacy laws, the measurement landscape can feel like a maze. Cross-device and web tracking have always been a contentious area in digital marketing.
With more focus and pressure from regulatory bodies and changes by the big platforms, more businesses than ever are looking towards alternatives to provide them this further clarity.
These areas of data analysis and marketing mix modelling can be confusing, and will create the requirement for agencies and partners to provide support and guidance towards reaching that point of truth, and building the trust within it.
How these three areas will progress and how agencies and businesses will adapt to them will be very interesting to see. One thing is for sure that the evolution of digital marketing agencies will never stop!
