Advertising and marketing software continues to revolutionize the way that brands deliver their messages to consumers. As digital media has altered the way that consumers consume content, it has made this software all the more important, which has attracted investment and Wall Street attention.
Across many industries, the influx of software has removed middlemen from the process, putting the controls in the hands of end users. In travel, for instance, agents are far less important, replaced by direct buying and online aggregators. In advertising, this is seen as a potential threat to ad agencies, who have long functioned as the core partner that helps brands develop creative, buy media and reach their target audiences.
But while ad-tech has grown – in both importance and number of providers – it shouldn’t be seen as a threat, especially for agencies that cater to SMBs.
Software can serve as an enabler as much as a destroyer, according to a recent column for MediaPost by Simulmedia’s Dave Morgan. Agencies should view technology as an opportunity that helps them develop and provide “far superior advertising services for marketers than they have been able to receive historically,” Morgan writes. Any agency serving the SMB advertiser audience should be hungry to adopt the kinds of tools that help them create, plan, buy and evaluate advertising on behalf of their clients.
Of course, agencies who serve SMBs might experience some of the same problems themselves, with small or in-house shops feeling overwhelmed when it comes to partner selection, rate of adoption and marketplace education. Fortunately, partners like AffinityX exist to help agencies implement the latest technology.
Instead of investing time and budget into analyzing several new technologies, agencies can partner with experts that will do the work of learning new software tools and assembling those into comprehensive solution stacks. This lets agencies maintain their stance as trusted advisors for SMBs, while utilizing advisors of their own to ensure that they stay on top of the latest ad- and mar-tech innovations.
