Missing the brilliant basics will hamstring your objectives.
Alligator Solutions help marketing brands understand the pivotal but often ignored considerations when in-housing their media. Having extensive experience within the key martech and operational landscape, and within media agency groups throughout our careers, we know the benefits and disadvantages of working with media agencies and the associated adtech vendors designed to support media campaigns.
While it is of course understandable that brands will want ownership and control of their data, they need to understand that there are also multiple foundational basics that must be catered for when considering in-housing.
For example, do brands want to deal with the overall ad-infrastructure, financial reconciliation, campaign management, consolidated reporting efforts, and media optimisation often provided by outsourced companies? If not, will they want their incumbent media agency to continue to support these critical processes, build an in-house team to manage, or look to outsource this work to others?
Brands should also understand the difference between an agent and a principal when working with third-parties to esnure impartiality when it is needed.. Will the partners they select be acting truly on behalf of the brand. If your partners also act as a principal rather than an agent, then they may not have the brand’s full interests at heart. This may be due to:
- Conflicts of interest. Principals often work with multiple brands, which can lead to conflicts of interest. For example, a principal may recommend a particular media placement to a brand because it will generate more revenue for the principal, even though it is not the best placement for the brand.
- Incentives. Principals are often incentivized to maximize their own profits, rather than the profits of their clients. This can lead to them making decisions that are not in the best interests of their clients.
- Lack of understanding. Principals may not have a deep understanding of their clients’ businesses or industries. This can lead them to make decisions that are not aligned with the client’s goals.
It is also important to set clear objectives and align them internally, with a clear measurement framework for success. The road to in-housing is a staged approach, and will likely be considerably more successful if treated as a journey rather than to fully outsource or fully in-source operations, tech contracts, media buying, planning, etc..
Brands need to understand the multiple technological and data opportunities and limitations when running media campaigns. Unless they have their own measurement effectiveness team (potentially disconnected from the marketing team to ensure outcomes are not gamed to fit the solution), then internal in-house teams will likely meet similar issues as to when they outsourced to an agency. I have first-hand experience of an in-house media buying team having totally misaligned KPIs to the business KPIs, effectively gaming the system from the inside.
One last point: we shouldn’t dismiss the work that agencies do in providing efficiency gains in getting campaigns up and running. While this may cause issues from the standpoint of providing agility and ability to move at speed, as evidenced within the recent and excellent WFA study in partnership with Mediasense on the future of media models, but agencies have somewhat become aligned to efficiency due to the models expected of them, and so changing this model has proven to be difficult.
This is where a marketing technology solutions team can come in and help put in place the right people, processes, and technology to help support the in-housing journey.
There are, of course other consultants who provide this support, but they often fail to support the technology requirements, understand the people and processes required to deliver, and ultimately provide solutions. Worse still, some of these consultants may have a reseller agreement with specific technologies and therefore provide a biased view of the right tech for the brand (usually Google!).
Here are some additional tips for brands considering in-housing their media:
- Start by assessing your current needs and capabilities. What media channels do you need in-house? What skills and expertise do you already have in-house? What areas will you need to hire for?
- Develop a clear business case for in-housing. What are your goals? How will in-housing help you achieve those goals? What are the costs and benefits?
- Create a plan for in-house implementation. This should include a timeline, budget, and resource allocation plan.
- Invest in the right technology and tools. There are a variety of software solutions available to help brands manage their media in-house.
- Build a strong team. Hire experienced and skilled media professionals who can help you execute your strategy.
- Measure and track your results. It is important to track your progress and make adjustments as needed.
In-housing media can be a great way for brands to gain more control over their data and strategy. However, it is important to carefully consider the factors involved before making the decision to in-house. By following the tips above, brands can increase their chances of success.
How Alligator Solutions can help
- Assessing current martech stack needs and capabilities
- Creating a tech/data stack and operational roadmap for in-house implementation
- Evaluating and implementing the required technology and tools
- Supporting in-housing consultants with madtech, data, and operational expertise
Get in touch if you would like to know more.