• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, August 7, 2019

IgnitionOne is formally introducing a customer data and media consultancy to help marketers navigate the complexities of advertising and marketing technologies.

While the company has long supported global marketers in areas ranging from search management and managed services in display to advertising operations since being founded, the new consultancy pulls trending topics into bundles, said Chris Hansen, COO at IgnitionOne.

The pricing for these formal and structures services differs based on goals. Separate teams support channels and services.

“This happened just yesterday while talking to a marketer,” he said. “They wanted to really bring social, search and display in-house, and wanted to do it all before the fourth quarter of this year.”

Despite the challenge to support many channels, it would become IgnitionOne’s job to structure the team and get the resources to support them and the services to provide a bridge to accomplish the task.

The offerings include data integration, audience management, paid media management, ad operations, creative input, and analytics. 

The addition of the formal consultancy is in direct response to the growing industry trend of bringing marketing service in-house.

The consultancy doesn’t run on a separate profit and loss statement, but “ultimately it will,” Hansen said. “If the consultancy grows how we intend it to there’s a possibility to create another division.”

In a sense IgnitionOne will compete with some established agencies, many without the technology to carry out the task.

Advertisers with in-house agencies rose to 64% in 2018, up from 42% a decade ago, according to a study from Forrester and the In-house Agency Forum, cited by The Wall Street Journal.

The consultancy model differs in that it supports search, paid media, analytics and other aspects of advertising and marketing through dedicated teams within IgnitionOne.

The biggest benefit to brands seems to be support for new technology they do not have the resources or capacity to implement and use.