This post is by David Angell, TrinityP3 General Manager and Head of Media. David has extensive commercial and media experience gained through a fifteen year career in media agencies, which he uses to help drive optimal results for TrinityP3 clients.

Recently I was interviewed, in my role as Head of Media and General Manager at TrinityP3, by Tracey Porter for an article in Marketing Magazine, the Trust Issue June / July 2018. The interview is provided in full here because it provides a comprehensive view of the practical media advice we provide advertisers and marketers across the globe at TrinityP3.

The final article is published here in Marketing Magazine. But the original interview, which informed this industry view of the issues, is more than twice the length, filled with details that could not be accommodated in Tracey’s final version due to a limitation of space. So here it is in all its gritty detail. We hope you find it interesting and informative.

Tracey: The media agenda is a complex beast, what practical advice would you offer marketers running activity through media owners, agencies and programmatic campaigns in terms of using external third parties for their media buying activities or buying in-house?

David: Marketers should understand that between ‘in house’ and ‘third party’ there are a range of different options they could explore – essentially ‘hybrid’ structural approaches that split the responsibilities and ownership of digital media trading between advertiser and agency.

If a marketer is considering a change in model, there are a number of areas to consider.

First, is the marketer aware of the range of models offered by the agency? Most tier one agencies now provide a range of different servicing models, offering different levels of transparency, cost and scope. Have a conversation with your agency, be honest about your intentions and be prepared to explore the options.

Second, is the agency-marketer relationship properly set up for success, and what does ‘success’ mean? Marketers who are looking for the cheapest possible media at the broadest possible reach have a very different definition of success from those who prioritise the acquisition of quality leads or conversion in regulated or brand-safe environments.

Third, what is the base level of capability that already exists in-house? Digital trading, particularly in the programmatic area, requires specific skillsets that generally speaking are in high demand and short supply. Is the marketer prepared to increase head-count by bringing such skillsets in house? Is there no capability and no resource allocation to acquire it? Or is there a better way of mixing your current resource and skillset with that of the agency?

Fourth, what is your appetite to acquire, license or engage with the technology required to deliver effective digital advertising? Many Demand Side Platforms (or DSP’s, the platforms required to trade digital media programmatically) are basically plug and play models, so there isn’t much problem.

However, agencies perform a number of other tasks. To list some examples, agencies also invest in or partner with ad-fraud prevention and verification organisations, they work with data management platforms (DMPs) to develop stronger audience profiling and segmentation, and they develop proprietary tools and systems to aid the process.

Fifth, will bringing your media trading in house actually deliver a genuine performance lift? This is an obvious but amorphous question, as it depends on what the marketer’s performance metrics are, how strong the current performance is, and the scope of the current agency partner in delivering them.

But there are some immediate things to consider. For example, agency trading desks will generally aggregate a number of different DSP partners, which increases the pool of available inventory and therefore can benefit both cost and quality.

Agencies will generally have a number of bespoke deals with key publishers (sometimes known as ‘PMP’ or ‘Private Market Place’) deals that are designed to benefit the marketer via access to high quality inventory. Can these kind of things be replicated, and how much do they contribute to success?

At the end of the day, my recommendation is that marketers should always open a dialogue with the agency about the potential routes involved rather than try to go it alone; and they should approach that dialogue with an initial point of view on all of the above. A smart agency will not see the words ‘in-house’ as a threat, but as an opportunity to optimise the relationship and the operational structure with its client over time.

Tracey: Whether $10,000 or $10 million, ideally what percentage of their marketing budget should brand marketers look to allocate on media spend? 

David: I assume you mean in relation to cost of buying media, rather than agency remuneration? On that basis this is no longer a question that can be answered in blanket terms – perhaps it never was, but increased complexity over recent years has made it even less fathomable, without taking the individual needs of the marketer into consideration.

How complex is the brand or product proposition and what effect does this have on messaging; what does the cadence of messaging need to be; who are the consumers and how are the consumers segmented or targeted; what is the hierarchy of needs/prioritisation between top of funnel and bottom of funnel communications; what is the optimal balance between retention, acquisition and organic customer growth; how strong is the competition and what effect does competitive have; what’s the baseline of results off which the marketer is working and what is the need for improvement; what does historical spend data, channel insights and messaging insights tell us; what owned assets does the marketer have that can be brought into play? These are just a few of the questions that need to be asked. Continue reading “Practical advice on navigating the media supply chain (An interview with David Angell)”