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The Countdown Begins: The Uncertain Future of Solo Channel Agencies

Kasim and Ralph discuss why the days of solo channel agencies might be numbered. They emphasize that these agencies must adapt to a changing landscape, with automation taking over many tasks. They suggest that expanding into post-click services, multi-channel approaches, and improving attribution is crucial for their survival.

They also highlight that the role of media buyers is shifting, and while machines handle more of the work, human oversight remains essential. The video sheds light on the evolving dynamics of the marketing industry and the need for agencies to evolve to stay relevant, watch it now.

Transcript

Kasim: 00:00:00
If you are a solo channel agency, your days are numbered, period, full stop.

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: 00:00:05
you either need to expand horizontally,

expand vertically, or both.

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: 00:00:10
Or, if you're lucky

enough, go make an exit.

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: 00:00:12
because you're working On the

section of the assembly line

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: 00:00:16
that we just saw automated.

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: 00:00:18
And it has been automated by the way.

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: 00:00:20
It's just a matter of time before it's

automated across every level of analysis.

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: 00:00:23
And you can see that in various areas,

there are industries where it's man,

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: 00:00:27
you just hook up your URL and give

Google your credit card and say, go.

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: 00:00:30
And it goes.

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: 00:00:31
And anything that's not working is

because those specific nuances haven't

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: 00:00:35
been worked out by Google, but they

will be, and so you have to do what

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: 00:00:37
you've done, Ralph, which is expand

into post click or look at multi channel

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: 00:00:41
or really niche down into attribution.

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: 00:00:43
and so we did it solutions eight,

by the way, even though I sold

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: 00:00:45
the agency, it still needs to be

profitable and I still believe very

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: 00:00:47
strongly in our service offering.

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: 00:00:49
And so it's solutions.

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: 00:00:50
A.

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: 00:00:50
If you hire us today, one of the

prerequisites to being our client is we

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: 00:00:55
will not optimize on in app reporting.

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: 00:00:58
You can't come to me and

say, I want this CPA.

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: 00:01:00
I want this ROAS.

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: 00:01:01
I want this cost per lead.

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: 00:01:02
It doesn't matter.

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: 00:01:02
Everything's based off of Murr.

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: 00:01:04
Which is media efficiency ratio.

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: 00:01:06
And we are, I think,

the best in the world.

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: 00:01:10
I really mean that by the way.

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: 00:01:12
And I would actually challenge,

I'd love to play this game.

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: 00:01:14
I'd love to find other people that think

they're better at attribution than we are.

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: 00:01:17
And have a public attribution face off.

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: 00:01:20
And we'll find a way to make

that control group fair.

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: 00:01:23
Because there's nobody that knows

attribution the way, specifically

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: 00:01:26
my business partner and his team

of strategists know attribution.

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: 00:01:28
And so that's our value proposition

now is, Yeah, we can run your ads.

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: 00:01:31
That's the easy part.

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: 00:01:33
But how are you going to know where the

impact came from, what the influence

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: 00:01:37
looked like, what lever to pull, what

to not ratchet up, what to ratchet down.

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And you have to expand beyond

just the button pushing, because

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machines are now doing the buttons.

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: 00:01:47
and however it is you decide to do that,

maybe it is going back to the creative

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: 00:01:50
piece, or maybe it is funnels, or

post conversion, or follow up, or just

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: 00:01:53
getting, offering a broader service.

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: 00:01:56
stand alone.

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: 00:01:58
service provision is too far niched

and we just got took by the machines.

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: 00:02:02
Still needs to have somebody

overseeing it though.

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: 00:02:05
in that case, no touchy, you still

need a caretaker, so to speak, but

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: 00:02:11
do you need an expensive caretaker?

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: 00:02:14
Depends on the account, depends

on the complexity and I should

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: 00:02:17
be speaking on timelines.

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: 00:02:18
Right now, you still need an ads agency,

manager, freelancer, employee, whatever.

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: 00:02:23
In a year, two, three, four,

five, dude, I don't know.

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: 00:02:27
you probably still need somebody looking

things over, but that one person went

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: 00:02:30
from being able to manage 20 accounts

to being able to manage 20, With a

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: 00:02:33
software tool that just monitors KPIs,

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: 00:02:36
it's got depressing, didn't it, Ralph?

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: 00:02:38
No, I don't think so.

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: 00:02:39
think it's a hard truth for people to

accept, the media buyers in particular,

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: 00:02:44
is that the more work you do, oftentimes,

the less effective you actually are.

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: 00:02:50
I was about to say is that there's

a badge of honor with being busy.

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: 00:02:54
You know what I mean?

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: 00:02:55
it's a validation of you doing the

work, so to speak, whereas letting

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: 00:03:01
the machines actually do most of

the work is counterintuitive to, I

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: 00:03:05
think we all thought for Google media

buyers, it was going to be much more

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: 00:03:08
of a bigger transition because, is.

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: 00:03:11
Search and with pay per click in the

past, there has been an element of let's

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: 00:03:15
be tweaking this constantly, putting

in your negative keywords and thinking

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: 00:03:19
of new areas in which to expand your

market with new custom intent, the

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: 00:03:24
keywords and all those sorts of things.

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: 00:03:26
But then.

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: 00:03:27
Can I give, want to tackle both

those examples right now because

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: 00:03:30
they're perfect examples, right?

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: 00:03:32
So it's adding negative keywords,

sculpting, and then adding new audiences.

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: 00:03:35
don't even believe in keyword sculpting

beyond the massively obvious because I

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: 00:03:41
can't tell you how many times terms that

would have been included on a negatives

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: 00:03:46
list ended up resulting in conversions.

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: 00:03:48
A very specific example, we have

a client who sells hammocks.

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: 00:03:54
Highest performing phrases for

them is, hammocks made in the USA.

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: 00:03:59
And by highest performing,

highest converting.

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: 00:04:01
So it's not by volume, but by quality.

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: 00:04:03
Their hammocks are made in Thailand.

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: 00:04:05
But when somebody says hammocks made

in the USA, they're probably looking

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: 00:04:09
for just a higher quality hammock.

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: 00:04:11
you get to these hammocks,

they're handmade.

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: 00:04:13
They're two, 300.

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: 00:04:14
Yellow leaf hammocks, by the

way, go buy yellow hammock.

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: 00:04:16
They help take women out of poverty in

Thailand by teaching them a skilled trade

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: 00:04:18
is a phenomenal company, but that would

have been on their negative keyword list.

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: 00:04:23
So you don't want to.

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: 00:04:24
Negative keyword sculpt any

longer again, beyond the obvious.

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: 00:04:27
There's some exceptions to these

rules because the machine's going to

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: 00:04:30
go figure out where you were wrong.

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: 00:04:32
And then as far as the audio expansion,

the machine does that for you.

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: 00:04:36
Look at performance, max insights.

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It's unbelievable.

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It's a miracle of marketing.

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It comes to you and says, Hey, this

audience is performing 35 times higher

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than any audience you've given us.

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We're going to add this

by the way, automatically.

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: 00:04:45
You just need to watch it do that.

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And if you go try to get in its way,

you're just gonna get in its way.

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The Countdown Begins: The Uncertain Future of Solo Channel Agencies

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