By Stephanie Sprayregen, CEO and Founder of Spray Marketing
Many brands think they know how their agency partners work, and often equate more team members recruited for their account as an advantage to their business. However, this isn’t always the case, and unfortunately, I’ve seen it all too often that a leaner team composed strategically, leads to increased efficiency in work performance and output. Conventional marketing agencies typically include an account manager, junior media buyer, senior strategist, project manager, creative team etc. Although this team structure is what most brands are familiar with, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s what’s best for your business.
The anti-agency agency model is the antithesis of what is familiar or traditional for digital marketing agencies. It removes the account manager role completely from the equation, as well as the junior media buyers. Account managers are the liaisons between team members, and whose main responsibility is to cultivate client relationships. The anti-agency agency model is designed to be more streamlined without losing the collaborative environment that fosters strong partnerships. By removing account managers, brands have direct access to the people on their team that are actively working on their campaigns, creative, or strategy. This leads to less time wasted telling a middle manager directive or questions that would then need to be funneled to the appropriate team member. The output is better communication.
Generally, junior media buyers (5 years or less of experience) are responsible for day-to-day management of campaigns at digital marketing agencies. This gives the agency additional bandwidth at a fraction of the cost of a senior level paid acquisition specialist (over 10+ years of experience). Ultimately, the senior level strategist or expert is brought in for two main reasons:
- When it’s reporting time to review, analyze, and provide go-forward next steps
- And to resolve any red flags or campaign issues in the account.
This is a reactive approach to digital marketing that can also lead to more missteps. The anti-agency agency model only stacks teams of senior level experts to manage campaigns on a daily basis. The additional years of experience is pivotal to the success of scaling efficiently, and staying ahead of any potential challenges.
Outside of costs, recruiting senior level specialists is not an easy task in-house on the brand side or for an agency. When you have 10+ years of experience, you’re generally managing a team of media buyers, and are no longer doing the “grunt work” so to speak. Vetting experienced paid media specialists, who have a deep passion for the tehnical craft of paid acquisition, is a rigorous process of qualitative and quantitative assessments and interviews.
Conventional agencies more often than not, will place senior level specialists on your account that are full-time employees in their payroll. The selection process is small, and may not actually fit the type of experience required for the success of your company’s growth. Anti-agency agencies understand that the talent needed for your growth goals may extend past an agency’s current W2 employees. They view recruitment for brand’s in multiple facets—years of channel experience, industry strengths, and any other qualitative traits that are important to that brand. This is why Spray Marketing stacks teams of senior level experts from all over the world, and strategically matches them to our clients.
About the Author
Stephanie Sprayregen is a digital marketing expert with over 13 years of experience as well as the Founder, CEO of Spray Marketing, a direct-to-expert agency that helps growth stage companies, go-to-market startups, and small to medium size businesses achieve their online goals.
She leads a team of expert paid acquisition specialists who provide data-driven solutions in social media marketing, online advertising, SEO, email marketing, and web design. They have worked with brands such as Mielle, Candid, Hampton Water, SuitShop, Ceremonia, Urban Skin Rx, Ever/Body, Chillhouse, Folia Health, and Uplift, and have been recognized by Forbes as one of the top 10 ecommerce marketing agencies in the US. Her mission is to deliver high-quality results and value to our clients, while creating a collaborative and innovative culture within our agency.
