Commentary

Despite In-Housing Trend, Clients Continue To Value Agency Relationships

While brands have taken numerous marketing capabilities in house in recent years, a new Forrester report — commissioned by the 4As and Google — concludes that agency-client relationships remain strong, albeit with room for improvement.

The release of the report was timed to the 4As Decisions 2021 Conference, convening virtually this week.

In the innovation sphere, the report found that 75% of the 310 U.S. brand decision-makers polled said they were satisfied or very satisfied with their agency rosters.

Tech and media partnerships received similar levels of satisfaction from respondents. Most respondents also found digital strategy, campaign execution and integrated execution strategies to be satisfactory.

But less than half (44%) indicated they were satisfied with agency fees and pricing. And a little more than half (55%) found the value that agencies provide to be satisfactory.

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While brands find many agency capabilities useful, “agencies have room to increase strategic value.” That will be addressed by evolving compensation models that better “align agency and brand priorities.”

Customer data insights and marketing measurement techniques remain areas where agencies can hone their capabilities, according to the report, and big opportunities remain to be exploited in the ecommerce sector, particularly given soaring consumer demand during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The report finds agencies could take better advantage of machine learning and automation technologies to help clients accelerate business transformation opportunities.

A summary of the report can be found here.

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