Think of how much a child changes from birth to 10 years old. A lot can happen over a decade: first steps, first words, first day of school, first baseball game. Similarly, a lot has happened throughout Agency Edge’s 11-year span conducting agency client research.
Since 2014, agencies have experienced considerable ups and downs, including significant economic hurdles, a global pandemic, and a technological revolution, including the rollout of AI software, which is fundamentally changing the way agencies and their clients work on their marketing initiatives.
We’ve heard from countless agencies about the struggles to get hired by clients in the last few years, and many have been anxiously waiting for prospecting efforts to turn a corner. We’re thrilled to share that when we look at the year-over-year data from Agency Edge, there’s good reason for hope in 2024.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane to 2014, the first year we researched agency clients. We’ll show you how much we’ve learned about them, and then we’ll bring you to the present day so you can see how bright the future looks for agencies.
Shifting Attitudes From 2014 to 2019
When we began researching agency clients 11 years ago, we found three distinct attitudinal segments with varying enthusiasm for and loyalty toward agencies.
In 2014, about one in three agency clients came from the Looking for Love segment. These clients were defined by their full-on investment in agency relationships. Some of their most striking attitudes were that:
A marketing/advertising agency is a critical partner for business success.
Advertising/marketing agencies are the best resource for the latest marketing trends.
Advertising/marketing agencies are the best resource for strong marketing strategy.
Since 2014, there have always been devoted agency fans. These are not the clients most agencies worry about; they’re all in, see the value, and are coming back for more.
Comparatively, the Playing the Field segment (38% of agency clients overall) stood out because they believed hiring a marketing/advertising agency was a necessary evil. Ouch. That was a huge chunk of clients who worked with agencies because they felt they had to, not because they saw the value.
The Single and Satisfied segment (33% of clients) saw agencies as a means to an end, primarily using them as a source of ideas they could execute on their own. Agency relationships were more transactional for these clients; they saw some value, but it was limited in scope.
When we looked at what stopped clients from working with agencies in 2014, 11% of Playing the Field clients said agencies weren’t worth the money; none of the Looking for Love clients felt the same, and only 3% of Single and Satisfied didn’t think agency work justified the cost. While these were small percentages a decade ago, they show us there have always been clients who did not see the value in working with agencies. These are not the clients to aim for.
Five years later, when we surveyed agency clients again, we kept the segment names the same because their mindsets were almost identical, with the exception of a few attitudinal shifts.
For example, Playing the Field clients represented an even larger proportion of clients and showed a lack of confidence in their marketing abilities. They also said marketing was not a priority for their organizations and was too expensive to invest in. So, marketing was no longer just a necessary evil; it was an expensive and hard-to-swallow pill.
A lot has happened in the last five years, even more than the previous five. So, let’s discuss what we know about agency clients in 2024.
New Segments for a New Era
In 2024, we updated our nomenclature for client segments because we’ve seen significant changes in their attitudes, though the size of each remains roughly the same.
Looking for Love → Agency Advocates
Since 2019, Agency Advocates have increased their belief in agencies’ abilities to:
- Be outside experts
- Be experts in a variety of marketing disciplines
- Develop strategy
- Bring new ideas
- Provide unbiased opinions
For these clients, agency relationships are only getting better.
Playing the Field → Begruding Buyers
Begrudging Buyers still believe agencies are a necessary evil, but the percentage that strongly agrees with this sentiment has dropped by 10% since 2019. Yet, these clients change agencies as frequently as they always have; they believe mixing it up yields better results. Don’t expect them to be in it for the long haul.
Single and Satisfied → Exacting Experts
The Exacting Experts are a departure from the Single and Satisfied clients of years past.
Rather than playing the field and being passively interested in agency relationships, these clients are confident in their abilities and look for agencies to be an extension of their internal team. They say they are experts, and they expect their agencies to be the same.
Since 2019, their belief in their in-house marketing capabilities has increased by double-digit percentages, and we’ve also seen double-digit percentage increases in the extent to which they value small agencies as ideal partners.
Clients See Agencies’ Value in 2024
If your agency has had a rough couple of years in terms of client attraction and retention, you’ll be happy to know that we also see double-digit percentage increases in the value clients see in agencies across strategic chops, marketing execution, knowledgeability about trends, offering unbiased opinions about clients’ marketing, and supplying fresh ideas.
Clients are taking notice, and all of this bodes well for agencies emerging from challenging revenue cycles or simply wanting to grow and expand their client base.
When agencies are valuable to their clients, there are fewer variables that can impact those relationships. Budget constraints be damned, economic conditions are just a blip on the radar, and industry changes are opportunities for collaboration.
When confronted with threats to agency relationships, clients who value their agencies may be more willing to find workarounds or to prioritize the relationship over other factors.
What’s Next? Show Your Clients Your Value
We hope you’ve seen stronger relationships with your clients this year, but if you haven’t, you might want to consider which segment you feel they’re in. If they’re already experts (Exacting Experts), there may be limits to what you can offer them. Should your clients suddenly drop you without any other explanation than, “We’re looking to change things up,” they could be Begruding Buyers.
All segments have merits, but your best bet for long-term relationships is with the Agency Advocates. Rest assured, in the last decade, the value clients see in agencies, regardless of their segment, has increased meaningfully. What does the future look like? We can’t wait to find out.
If you have questions, let us know at questions@audienceaudit.com. In the meantime, check out the full results of our 2024 agency client research for more information about agency clients and how to reach them. In upcoming blogs, we’ll continue to explore this year’s Agency Edge results and provide effective strategies for getting hired by agency clients.
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