How Can Agencies Acquire New Paid Ads Clients in the Age of AI?
With the advancement of AI, the barrier to entry into the paid ads space appears to be very low. But here's the truth - it's not.
In fact, it has gotten even harder due to the black box data affect with more automation being implemented into the platforms. Now, anyone can build a basic website in an afternoon (basic not professional) under cut everyone’s pricing, get the client and then blow their entire budget without producing a single quality lead that results in a paying customer.
So how do the agencies combat this? Let’s break it down one issue at a time:
The Personal Networks and Client Referrals Are Not Enough
Agencies have heavily relied on referrals for at least the past 2 decades and thrived. So why are the referrals coming in fewer and far between? Unfortunately, the low quality overseas outsourcing and hiring junior button pushers to manage bids have cost the industry deeply on reputation and reliability for quality results. This translates directly to the end client who is tired of spending their entire marketing budget and the agency not being able to deliver ROI.
While not all agencies did this and you who are reading this may have not done this, these low level vendors did not evolve with the ad platforms and pace of technology – which now costs you your main new client pipeline. Agencies are now having to run their own paid ads, cold email, LinkedIn outreach, etc. and most have no idea how these platforms work for their own new client acquisition.
Industry Expertise Needs to be Proven Now More Than Ever
For the agencies who do not have their own case studies or experts in their corner with proven case studies to leverage – closing new clients can be difficult. In addition, your outbound and inbound marketing tactics for your agency need to have a prominent position as an industry expert. Every piece of content, ad and cold outreach message you put out there needs this.
A lot of clients have been burned by other agencies and now they want proof that your agency can be trusted with their marketing budget. If you website looks with every other agency’s website; has no portfolio or case studies, your cold email has no reference to case studies and your inbound content is generic with no proof – it will not bring you new clients.
Clients Are Demanding More Evidence of Where Their Money is Going and Question Your Fees
Most agencies have been able to get away with not providing proper attribution to trace what they spent to the paying customers they have sent their clients. Attribution software is complex and if not installed correctly, you won’t get the accurate results your clients need in order to justify keeping you as their agency.
Fischer SEM offers our clients our proprietary attribution service that was built by a 25+ year paid ads veteran – eliminating this issue. In addition, with the attribution veil lifted, we send the data the AI in the ad platforms need in order to produce better results.
What that means for your agency is better results, less client churn, more proven case studies under your belt and industry expert status.