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May 6, 2020 As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread across the United States, more and more local businesses are becoming victims of state-wide lockdowns being issued by state officials. At first, California, Washington, and New York residents were directed to ‘Shelter-in-place’, but now 24 state governors have issued the same warning to their residents. Although these orders are proving effective in ‘flattening the curve’, the same orders are also inflicting considerable pain on local businesses. Despite these widespread ‘Shelter-in-place’ orders, there is still room for advertising and there is still room for ad agencies to provide value to their clients. Here are 5 helpful tips that your agency can implement with your local clients, which will provide value even during this pandemic. 1. Help Client’s Build A Strategy That Maximizes The Opportunity That Is Still Out There Believe it or not, there is still opportunity out there; you just need to help your clients see it and get creative. One great piece of branding, intentional or not, that we saw in Conduit’s home state of New Jersey came from a local Pizzeria. The owner of the Pizzeria made it known that he had taken out a $50,000 loan so that he could keep his staff employed during the pandemic. This gesture of goodwill was so unique and impactful that it was picked up by several major news outlets within the state and was even trending on Facebook. What happened next was several Facebook users tagging their friends and asking them to buy pizzas from the restaurant. Over the past week, three Conduit employees have shared the story in our company Slack channel, encouraging employees that live nearby to purchase food from the Pizzeria. Although it may have been subconscious, this gesture appears to have had a positive impact on the owner’s brand. Now, we’re certainly not suggesting that you recommend your client take out a loan to pay employees, but helping your client develop a goodwill gesture could help put their brand in a positive light even in these dark times. Other examples of this have included companies helping with the production of personal protective equipment (PPE) to help frontline healthcare workers. Help your client become the positive news article in the sea of negative articles that are currently circulating. You can help your clients position their brand in an empathetic way that will benefit them long after the pandemic has subsided. Help your brand become the NJ Pizzeria. 2. Help Your Client Harness The Power Of Social Media (Both Organic And Paid) The lockdown of the majority of Americans has led to a dramatic increase in social media activity. In one study, one agency saw a 50% increase in engagement across social media platforms over the last two weeks. With social distancing now in full effect across the country, social media platforms are the easiest and safest way for many of us to keep in contact with friends and family members. This presents a huge opportunity for local businesses. Now is the time for local businesses to step up their social media efforts because that is where the eyeballs are. Helping your clients construct an organic social media strategy across the most popular social media platforms is an effective way of ensuring that your clients continue to communicate with their customer base. More specifically, posting within local community groups, such as ‘township chatter’ groups, has shown to produce high engagement for brands. Often these groups are a collection of local customers that utilize your client’s services regularly, so this is a great place to speak directly to them. If your client is still looking to spend marketing dollars on social media platforms, there is no better time than now, with several people reporting significant drops in CPCs. You can help them develop a social media targeting campaign aimed at their custom audience. Now could be the perfect time to keep your client’s message out there for a fraction of the cost. 3. Optimize Your Client’s Google My Business Listing Not every business has been instructed to close due to pandemic. Here in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy has made exceptions for the following business types: Grocery stores Pharmacies Medical supply stores Gas stations Convenience stores Hardware and home improvement Banks and financial institutions Laundromats and dry-cleaning services Pet stores Liquor stores Auto maintenance Printing Delivery services Nurseries and garden centers Restaurants (takeout only) If any of your clients’ businesses have remained open, having a fully-optimized Google My Business listing is a quick and easy way to guarantee that searchers can still find their business when searching locally. A simple act of adding your client’s business category to their Google My Business listing can greatly increase their chances of ranking in the local three-pack for non-branded, local searches. For restaurants specifically, a Google My Business listing offers considerable opportunity. Restaurant owners can optimize their listing by uploading their menu to the platform, making it easy for searchers to see exactly what food items they offer without having to call or visit a website. Enabling the delivery option within the platform can allow searchers to order food from a restaurant in less than two clicks of a button. If set-up properly, a fully-optimized Google My Business listing can be a virtual storefront for a business and greatly increase the number of sales or leads that a business receives. 4. Help Your Clients By Building A Support Community There is one thing that is certain during these times: we’re all in this together and we will get through this together. Applying this attitude to managing your clients could help them greatly. Now is the time to bring your clients, help them share marketing and advertising strategies with one another, and help them get through this together! An easy way of doing this is by starting a Facebook or LinkedIn group of your clients that provides marketing resources and encourages collaboration. You should apply the same level of thinking to the clients that you work with. Right now, nearly all of our clients are going to bed at night anxious. The anxiety of the unknown that agencies are currently experiencing are also being experienced by our clients. An easy way of doing this is by starting a Facebook or LinkedIn group of your clients that provides marketing resources and encourages collaboration. Being seen as the leader and the instigator of this community could position you in a positive light both right now and in the future. A sign of a great partnership is being there for someone through the good times and the bad. Be the partner that offers help and guidance during these very uncertain times. 5. Help Your Client Master The Art Of Video As discussed earlier, social media engagement is exploding and it will continue to grow until ‘Stay-At-Home’ orders are lifted. Now is the perfect time to educate your client and help them build a winning video strategy. Several studies have shown that engagement with video content far exceeds that of static images. In 2020, nearly every American has access to a smartphone with powerful video-capturing capabilities. If you have access to video editing tools, help your client stay in contact with their customer base using the most engaging form of content available. Furthermore, helping your client master video can increase the reach of their marketing message by introducing them to marketing channels that they otherwise would not have utilized, such as YouTube, Snapchat, Tik Tok plus many more. Don’t Allow Your Clients To Stop Advertising As agency owners, now is the most important time to be a resource for your clients. The actions that are taken over the next few weeks and months could have significant impacts, both positive and negative, for your agency and your clients for years to come. One thing you must prevent right now is your clients putting their advertising efforts on the back burner. It has been written about in several articles the negative impact that no advertising had on businesses during the 2008 Great Recession. Not all advertising has to involve spending marketing dollars on platforms such as Google Ads and Facebook. If you do choose to continue running ads, use these helpful tips to maximize delivery on your Facebook and Google campaigns. There are several ways that businesses can advertise on platforms without spending a single dollar. Conclusion As agencies, we owe a duty of care to our clients to help them maximize these opportunities and keep their brand name top of mind and conversions and sales rolling in. By implementing these 5 essential tips, you will ensure that your local clients are well taken care of during this worldwide crisis. Conduit Digital understands the struggles that agency owners are facing during this time. We invite you to join us at #AgenciesUnited to begin a dialogue with agency owners around the world. Together we can stand by each other and get through this crisis stronger as an industry.

May 1, 2020 COVID-19 has forced many companies to make tough decisions regarding the longevity of their business itself. Whether running with a heavy payroll expense or an overabundance of software subscriptions that are in mid-contract form, agency owners are looking for cost-saving ways to help navigate the stormy waters in which we live today. Cutting costs is something that is often never spoken about when times are good and yet is always at the front of the priority list when revenue drops. Many owners will request a copy of the income statement and scan for the highest ticket items to cut right off the bat. The truth is that during a crisis the solution will not come from just one place but be the sum of many moving parts. When Do I Know Its Time To Cut Costs? Before you start slashing hours and prices, you need to first figure out if this is necessary step for your business. Though it may seem obvious, not many people know when they should start budgeting. Businesses and agency owners should start considering cost cutting techniques when they begin to see a decrease in revenue. Even if you were to maintain the same costs of doing business, the reduction in revenue means less profit for your agency and over time, the pricey over head will begin to eat away at your savings. The best thing you can do for your agency right now is to start to take inventory of your business and see if there are any costs you can begin cutting early in order to save more down the road. Use these tips below to help you navigate the critical job of cutting costs and keeping your business afloat. Steps To Cost Cutting 1. Know your business Hopefully, this is something that has been happening during normal business operations. Regardless, decision-makers must understand all facets of the cost structure supporting operations. The worst step a decision-maker can make is to cut a cost that can be a revenue source simply because it’s more expensive than the next item. Knowing your business inside and out will allow you to make the correct decisions when trimming the excess from your company. 2. Project the next six months After understanding the cost structure you must then take a look at what is the bare minimum you will need for the next six months of “on the books” revenue. This will look very different from company to company. Some companies are not contract-based and rely on day to day sales. In this instance, a projection must be made to estimate the next 6 month period. For those companies that rely on contracts, simply take “on the books” value for the next six months of operations. Outside of six months, the clarity of the data begins to diminish and accuracy is key during times of uncertainty. When calculating the minimums you must only look at what payroll, software subscriptions, inventory, etc. is needed to deliver on your six-month projection. This is not the place to skimp or cut corners! After all, this is revenue on the books. The last thing you need is to perform sub-par work and have to worry about credits to the consumer to make good. Perform at your best and people will remember you when things begin to turn for the better! 3. Compile the excess Once you have what is needed to perform the 6 months of booked revenue it’s time to organize the excess! Like in a home, businesses have luxury items that we can honestly say are not 100% needed to continue operations. When looking at your expenses, you should divide them into 4 categories: Must Have, Nice To Have, Luxury, and Payroll. Must Have The must-haves are not required for a 6 months projected revenue but instead are things you need to maintain a business such as utilities, rent, etc. Nice To Have The Nice To Have are items that are exactly that, nice to have. You can do business without them but it would make life a little more difficult. Luxury Luxury items are those items that are more perks then anything. These items don’t tend to add up to much (depending on the business) but will help save money right away. Payroll Finally, there is payroll. Excluding those salaries that are needed for the 6-month projections, organizing your team into two different buckets will help you make those tough decisions. In every company, there are those employees who are directly tied to revenue. These people are your direct salaries (Cost of Goods sold salaries). They can range from your analysts to the salesman but either way the job they perform is what brings in revenue. Then you have indirect salaries. This team handles the business operations and ranges from your accounting team to customer support teams (in some cases, the customer support team can be tied to revenue). This is why Step 1 is so important! 4. Cut Time Here you are. At the moment where tough decisions are to be made and you need to eliminate wasted costs. When you look at the Four buckets in excess there are some obvious conclusions. You can easily cut the luxury items. These items will be there when things progress to normality but tough times call for trimming the fat. Analyze your “nice to have” bucket. Automations are not a place to cut right now. The goal is to produce more output with less expense. If automations are in place, they may be worth keeping for the client to get their expected deliverables. This is the perfect time to begin vetting those more affordable options that have emerged since you build the process. One subscription might be a bigger name but during the recent bull market run, many companies emerged that should now be vetted! The goal is to cut costs not eliminate the actual process of the business. I want to spend a few moments talking about payroll because this is an area that decision-makers jump to first since most of the time it is the highest $$$$. For every drop in revenue, you can always find a reason why. That reason could be as simple as sales are not coming in, or it could be a global pandemic like we are currently in. Either way before cutting payroll you must look at the options! In times of crisis like these, the federal government tends to offer programs to help ease the hit payroll as on a company. For instance, the Federal Government will offer payroll tax credits, grants, or in the case of COVID-19, develop an 800 + page CARES ACT. This allows companies to move their employees to part-time and have the employee collect unemployment to help balance the reduction of income. Other options include the workshare program. Not all states are enrolled in the program. Check here to see if your state is a participant. Under normal times, the program will not make them whole (in regards to salary) but will allow companies to keep employees on staff and maintain benefits for easy recall to full-time status. Many of these programs come with stipulations regarding layoffs but before letting go of an employee that you have invested time and funds in, look into your federal programs first. Be prepared that any employee you let go you may not be able to get back. The Process This process should be done on a regular basis and more often when times get tough. Running this cost savings process on a rolling monthly basis will allow you to monitor your costs and keep the company running lean during those tough times. By keeping data up to date you will be able to adjust on the fly when decisions need to be made and when business ramps up the proper decision can be made based on the most up to date data. We must always remember what the end goal is: Grow the revenue back to normal levels. Whenever going through this process you must always remember that goal. Stripping the company too bare will prohibit that growth. Sacrifices made today can propel your company to higher goals later on. Even when times are not as tough, running this process is still an important factor to ensure profits are not being wasted. It is recommended that you go through this cost savings process at least twice a year to help you run an efficient business that allows you to put otherwise wasted dollars toward growing your company! When making these tough decisions the reality of the situation is that there is no one size fits all solution. During times of crisis, there is no correct way of doing things especially when information is changing by what seems the day. In order to help mitigate the stress, use the cost-saving tips mentioned above to gain better clarity. If you want to know how to increase your agency’s ROI, we’ve got you covered too! Be flexible, be adaptable, stay strong, and always remember, this too shall pass!

Nov 3, 2021 You’ve reached a point in your agency leader journey where you’re deciding “what’s next?”. If you’re looking to scale your operations higher and say “yes” to more of the right opportunities, an agency partnership might be the solution for you. Today, we’re going to cover 5 key signs that your agency is ready for a digital performance partnership. First, let’s discuss what an agency “partner” actually is. Understanding The Difference Between Platform, Vendor, and Partner Before you can decide if an agency partnership is something you’re ready for, we have to cover the difference between white-label platforms, vendors, and partners. 🎛 Platform Platforms are most commonly software systems that help automate specific digital marketing processes. These are suitable for those that want a “quick fix” with little-to-no human involvement on the other side of the screen. However, platforms offer limited personalization and require you to bootstrap your campaigns with little resources to draw from. When dominating digital performance is your main goal, platforms may not prove the best solution. 📦 Vendor A vendor is a limited-scope service provider – often a specialist or another agency with a limited product offering. Common examples could include an agency that only offers a single service or a freelance web developer on Fiverr. Vendors operate on a purely transactional basis and the quality of the deliverables you pay for varies. This can be difficult to guarantee quality. Once a vendor crosses their t’s and dots their i’s on their contractual agreement, they often disappear back into the digital ether. 🤝 Partner A digital performance partner acts as a true extension of your in-house team. With real certified experts handling your client’s campaigns on your behalf, they’re just as invested in your success as you are. Partnerships can be identified by the way the relationship with your agency touches every aspect of their own operations. From communication to measuring performance, your partner team is working in lockstep with your own. At Conduit, we partner with successful agencies by acting as their complete ad operations fulfillment solution or as an extension of their in-house team.  Performance and communication are the two equal pillars of how we define and measure partnership with the agencies that we work with. Signs You’re Ready for a Digital Performance Partnership ☝️ 1: You Have a Strong Client Base with High Expectations You’ve mastered how to get the right clients for your agency. Your roster is in excellent shape with great businesses you’re proud to serve. With a roster of can’t-miss clients also comes high expectations for performance. This requires that your agency have the holistic product suite and internal capacity to meet these demands consistently across the entire list of businesses that you work with. ✌️ 2: The Numbers Support It We get that not everyone wants to talk numbers. You didn’t start your agency to balance budgets, but it is part of keeping the office lights on. Agencies that are ready for a performance partner need to have an airtight grasp on their numbers to scale profitably. Margins and expected revenue need to be in a position to furnish to the partnership. Digital performance partnerships are all about scaling profitably. The right partner will provide you with a transparent rate card that will give you a complete picture of the internal costs for services so that you can price them externally to meet your necessary margins. 🤟 3: Clients Are Asking for More Than What You Can Do In-House As the account relationship matures with your client, they might ask for more digital services than you provide in-house. The first reaction to this might be “we don’t do that here” or “we can’t do that right now.” With today’s digital ecosystem, though, that answer no longer suffices. For example, if your client wants OTT advertising and knows they cannot receive that service from you, they will find a competing agency that can and will fulfill this need. Staying competitive requires a full product suite. Partnership helps by rounding out your agency’s core products with the other digital products your client wants to use for their campaigns. ✊ 4: You’re Growing Faster Than You Can Hire In all the conversations we have with agency leaders daily, we’ve heard one common pain point above the rest: hiring. There seem to be exponentially more job listings online than there are people to fill them right now. When you need to add an expert to your team, but can’t find the right person, you’re risking operating dangerously beyond your internal capacity. Overcapacity can result in a stressed-out, time-strapped hustle that does not benefit your agency or your clients. Digital performance partnership inserts a team of expert analysts into your operations. You do not have to worry about seeking a qualified candidate, hiring them, and training them. Instead, with your partner’s own analysts, you can launch an expert campaign for your client with minimal ramp-up time. 🖐 5: You Want Best-In-Class Campaign Performance The quality of work that you do for your clients reflects directly on your agency’s brand. If you want to continue your reputation and credibility, you need to deliver consistent, high-quality results. A digital performance partner treats your client accounts as seriously as you do. Because they’re all-in with you, quality drives each aspect of every shared campaign between your team and theirs. Activate the Power of Digital Performance Partnership Today At Conduit Digital, we strive to be the most complete digital performance partner for successful agencies looking to take their ad operations to the next level. With our own in-house teams of certified experts managing your client’s campaigns across a full product suite, world-class wholesale pricing, and a wealth of resources like custom Live Reports, you can position your agency to confidently say “yes” to those can’t miss opportunities. Learn more about true digital performance partnership today by visiting our Agency Partnership page or reaching out to us directly below!

Dec 15, 2022 According to a report from GroupM, global eCommerce will grow from 19% to 25% of worldwide retail sales by 2027. As consumers have altered their lifestyle habits drastically over the past few years, spending behaviors have also changed. As 2023 projects recessionary numbers for the economy and shoppers conduct transactions with greater scrutiny, this may seem like a horror show for advertisers. Can you continue to promote your client’s products when people may be more selective with their spending? In fact, a downturn in economic activity could pose an opportunity for many agencies to align their retail clients’ products more closely with their target audience. When spending decisions are heavily weighed, the quality of the purchase matters most. If a potential customer receives an ad for your client’s product that matches their exact needs, they may be more willing to spend if they believe it will meet their expectations more than other competing brands. What Can Retail Advertising Agencies Do to Strengthen Client Strategy in 2023? Double Down on Shopping Campaigns Seamless checkout experiences are no longer a luxury; they’re the new norm. Whether you are serving ads through Google or on social, being able to complete a purchase in as few steps as possible can lead to higher conversions and a better user experience. If you are to concentrate your eCommerce advertising efforts on any platforms, Google, Meta (Facebook & Instagram), and TikTok are three excellent platforms to start with. Google’s shopping ads serve across multiple surfaces across billions of pages on the web. These include Google’s Search, Images, and Shopping feeds as well as YouTube and other partner websites. Using Google’s Merchant Center, you can focus on aligning your client’s products by their attributes and features rather than a keyword strategy as well as show in-store inventory for physical locations. Meta’s top-two platforms, Facebook and Instagram, were 2021’s leading channels for influencer marketing campaigns. When customers learn about a new product from a personality that they admire and trust, they are more likely to feel confident in purchasing a product. Instagram alone is projected to generate $15.95 billion in global ad revenue by the end of 2022 through its Stories feature alone. Finally, we arrive at TikTok – the social video platform that has changed short-form content forever. This year, TikTok launched shoppable ads that can appear in their users’ feeds with the benefit of the app’s next-level algorithm. If your client seeks to target young adults with more disposable income, leave TikTok out of the campaign strategy at your own risk. Seek New Retail Clients in “Recession Proof” Industries An industry that qualifies as “recession proof” is one where there is always a consumer demand for products in these categories, regardless of economic conditions. Some categories that hold this title can include: Food Toiletries Cosmetics and Personal Care Clothing Pet Care Clothing Baby Products Automotive Parts Home Products OTC Healthcare Products and Pharmaceuticals Another major category to consider for your agency is cannabis. As more states permit the recreational or restricted use of cannabis products, consumer demand skyrockets and dispensaries become major retail powerhouses in their local markets. Many of these products like food and toiletries are perishable, limited-use, or single-use items that are designed to meet ongoing needs. If you want to specialize in one or more of these categories, build a strong base of industry knowledge among yourself and your team to demonstrate to potential clients that you are an authority in marketing their products to their ideal customers. Some simple ways to brush up on knowledge in any retail industry can involve: Reading trade publications for these verticals Studying the marketing practices of the industry’s largest competitors Reading customer reviews of brands online Conducting keyword research for industry-relevant search terms Signing up for industry-leading brands’ email marketing lists Watching YouTube reviews of popular products in these categories Brush up on best practices for marketing in the cannabis industry These above tactics can provide you with a strong baseline to gauge the pulse of the specific marketplace your ideal clients want to advertise in. This can then inform the strategy that you propose to these clients to increase their confidence in choosing your agency as their growth partner. Encourage Pushing Through Over Cutting Back During an economic downturn, many clients tend to cut spending as a gut-reaction to financial anxieties. Will they have the money to spend on advertising, or will they have to give up another expense to keep their current budget? While these fears are certainly understandable, pushing through where possible always proves the wisest tactic on the other side of a recession. When other competitors are cutting back, maintaining your client’s current budget or increasing it can generate more opportunities to serve ads to target users that may have otherwise purchased a competitor’s product if the competitor had not reduced their own budget during a recession. Adopt a Multi-Channel Strategy Rather than concentrating all of your client’s ad budget on a single lane, adopting a multi-channel strategy allows them to reach all possible target users that are consuming content on high-volume platforms. This can also aid in remarketing efforts to help reach the same user as they navigate through various apps and websites in their regular media consumption activities. For example, you could create a holistic advertising campaign that combines search, social, and programmatic to reach individuals in every possible ad space online. You can also combine these with organic campaigns like SEO or social content to reach consumers that place greater trust in products they discover on their own rather than through advertisements. Deliver Elite Performance Across All Campaigns If a client feels confident in the strategy that you present them with, they are more likely to feel inspired to spend more on their digital marketing campaigns. This does raise an important question, though: Can your in-house team deliver the elite performance your clients expect across all channels? This is where a white label performance partner comes in. A white label performance partner helps to round out your agency team’s skillset by providing access to their own team of expert analysts in specific channels. If crushing paid social campaigns is business-as-usual for your agency, but you lack a PPC or programmatic specialist in-house, you can partner with a white label solution to run your client’s campaigns with help from a team that already possesses the knowledge and expertise to deliver results at a high level. As a solution-based service, a white label partner also provides additional cost-savings for your agency. Instead of the traditional overhead associated with hiring, training, and retaining a full-time employee, you have the ability to run campaigns through another team of experts for a predictable fee that you can then mark up to your clients and generate additional profit for your business. When you are searching for your ideal white label partner, look for one that offers the following benefits: A team of platform and product-certified analysts Live reporting and performance dashboards Sales success resources Responsive, timely communication A holistic suite of products to round out your own service offering Case studies that prove past performance Most importantly, look for a team that understands the responsibility of their partnership with your agency. When you succeed, they succeed, and vice-versa. Your partner should hold an equal stake in the performance and results of your client’s campaigns and treat them with as much care and attention to detail as you would for your in-house services. Start 2023 with a Conduit Partnership At Conduit Digital, we partner with established and successful digital agencies throughout North America to deliver elite performance across a holistic suite of channels, including Paid Search, Paid Social, Programmatic, SEO, and more. If you are looking to round out your suite of services and take your retail advertising clients’ campaigns to the next level in 2023, schedule a 20-minute discovery call today to learn more about the power of partnership.