Assessing the value of ads and their placement is one of the keys to unlocking greater efficiency. But, measuring and conveying that value to your clients can get your data teams stuck in a never-ending reporting cycle. Finding ways to optimize your team's productivity so they stay focused on delivering value and developing strategy is a challenge that marketers run into all the time. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to strike the right balance.

1. Lead with Coordination

With how fast the media landscape is evolving and its endless ways to analyze incoming data, you have to prioritize coordination. Ask yourself questions like:

• What data can you collect?
• What data does the client already collect?
• How can we share this information in a manner that boosts efficiency?

Remember, what you track on your end may not always align with what your client sees. And given the apparent shift to granular, detailed insights that clients are now expecting, that alignment is crucial. Gone are the days of broad-stroke recommendations.

Clients want to ensure their investments yield returns, prompting a closer look at how different audiences respond to specific messages. So, you have to understand mid-market audiences versus enterprise, how to dissect job titles, and create intricate UTM combinations to allow for precise campaign analysis.

2. Build the Right Tool Kit

When building your tech stack, take a comprehensive view that includes the many tools available that shape strategy, persona development, and competitive analysis. Integrate engines like Kantar (now VX Media), MRI, Scarborough, and eMarketer to help you understand target audiences and their values, allowing you to identify competitive opportunities for campaign execution.

Campaign management and data visualization are also critical to a modern tech stack. The use of Campaign Manager for ad serving and the adoption of Dataroma (now owned by Salesforce) allows for real-time data analysis. This shift towards analysis over traditional reporting enables marketers to distill raw data into insights that clients can actually use.

Tailor Your Solutions to Your Clients

Of course, not every tool works for every client and their needs. This gets back to the coordination piece:

Align your tech stack with your client's goals, whether that takes leveraging solutions you already have or introducing new ones to bridge gaps.

One of those gaps will likely be clients who have yet to transition from Google Analytics (GA) to GA4. While the consensus is clear that tech stacks must evolve to meet the demands of this transition, don't hesitate to enlist supplemental tools to create a smoother migration for your clients who have yet to make the change.

Establish Your Source of Truth

But whether clients prefer GA4, ad servers, or other platforms, your constant focus should be on centralizing metrics around a single source. Doing so fosters clarity, ensures everyone is on the same page, and paves the way for more effective communication and strategic decision-making.

Because of its ability to integrate data from various platforms and act as a centralized hub for performance metrics across multiple channels, Blueprint is an ideal candidate for that single source, providing both practitioners and executives with the insights they need.

3. Embrace the Evolution of Creativity

While using AI to drive content creation can boost team efficiency, don't do so at the expense of authenticity. Whether you're crafting videos, scripts, or any other creative deliverable with AI tools, make sure it all comes from your genuine thoughts, infused with human touch. Modern audiences can discern when something sounds AI-generated, making it all the more important that your content avoids sounding robotic and generic.

Understanding the dwindling attention spans of today's audiences is also critical. Sixty-second commercials feel like a relic of the past, and marketers need to embrace YouTube Shorts and TikTok Reels to meet new generations of consumers where they consume content. The key lies in harnessing the potential of sixty-second videos while infusing them with a cohesive theme that front-loads essential information, avoiding the pitfall of chaotic and purposeless creative work. The strategy of traditional end cards is no longer enough; instead, captivate your audience from the onset.

And whether you're producing a six-second snippet or something longer, just make sure you're aligning your creative output with the established norms of the platform you're using.

4. Jump on the AI Train

Integrating AI into your internal processes is not just a nice-to-have anymore; it's a need-to-have. By harnessing what AI is capable of, you elevate your agency's operations, paving the way for a more streamlined and agile workflow.

Of course, you can't talk about AI without addressing concerns about job displacement. But from what we can see, the agency landscape looks secure. Rather than replacing people, AI empowers them, enabling you to focus on high-value tasks that demand human ingenuity.

If you want some evidence to feel better about AI's place in the advertising landscape, look at the remarkable surge in client investments in agencies last year. 2023 was record-breaking, with clients allocating more resources than ever to agencies, signaling their enduring importance in the business ecosystem.

Unlock the Potential of Digital Advertising

Successfully promoting your clients’ businesses moving forward will require strategic experimentation across platforms. The digital realm is vast, and you need to understand that each major player (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, etc.) has unique strengths and limitations.

To overcome those limitations, think of your advertising efforts as a comprehensive experiment. Instead of confining your strategy to a single platform, explore the landscape by testing similar creatives across multiple platforms. The goal is to understand how each platform targets your audience and, more importantly, which provides the best value.

Beyond testing creative, try segmenting your audience on each platform. Doing so can uncover valuable insights into audience behavior and preferences, which allow you to tailor your content and strategy for maximum impact.

Of course, budget constraints are a reality all marketers deal with, prompting the need to approach all of this testing with a strategic mindset. Identify your largest opportunity to test based on your audience and business goals. While there's no one-size-fits-all answer, starting with the platform that aligns with your primary audience and objectives can be a smart initial move.

And while we're discussing digital platforms, it's worth mentioning that success on TikTok requires more than just jumping on the bandwagon to infuse your brand with a "cool factor." Make sure you have the right creative content and a robust content engine to sustain your presence there. TikTok can be fruitful, but a half-hearted approach could easily backfire.

Put it All into Action

Gaining efficiencies in analysis, reporting, and internal operations is just one piece of the puzzle when driving media results for your clients in 2024. If you’re seeking more insights and tips on elevating your advertising efforts this year, check out our webinar on the subject.