Even in the modern virtual era, manual tasks can still take up so much of our day-to-day working time. It's especially true in digital advertising — in spite of pains taken to keep up with the latest Google and Facebook ads or to adopt a new ad platform, it can seem like account teams work harder every day. At the same time, it can seem like nothing becomes easier or more efficient for people managing these processes.
Wasted time has a serious impact on ad account management. Using the wrong tools for processes can mean less time spent on strategic vision, and reduced ROI for managed accounts and that of your business.
That's why automation is an ad account manager's secret weapon. It's a silver bullet — the right automated ad account management tools eliminate long-term worries about wasted time and KPI oversight with a few clicks. Read more to learn why automation is a key part of any competitive account management tool, and how it has the potential to transform managed accounts, team capacity, and ROI overnight.
Why automate?
Automation is the future of competitive advertising and is here to stay; experts anticipate that by 2022, over 80% of all advertising will be automated.
It's an attractive solution for overworked teams of ad specialists. Many teams still have to spend hours or weeks—even months—inputting campaign information or revamping managed accounts to reflect customer needs or updates.
Simply put, automation powers re-imagination. It means that you and a handful of experts on your ad account team can manage thousands of campaigns and programs in seconds. Automation also powers insights — what would better data and the ability to make instant changes allow your business in terms of nimbleness in the market, or strategic decisions on behalf of clients?
Automation has the ability to free up creative brainpower on teams and reduce friction from manual processes across workflows. It's critical for the future of advertising, as well as for many other industries.
How does automation actually work for better ad account management?
Automation seems like a no-brainer when it comes to incorporating it into ad account management tools, right? But how does this work in reality, and what should businesses look for when it comes to automation for account management?
First—and most importantly — you should look for a tool that offers flexibility and customization. After all, you know what's best for your clients, and you should look for a solution that not only automates but adapts to, the type of work and your clients do regardless of industry type.
Following this, there are other key features you should look for in your automated platform:
Notifications for immediate insights
Teams may manage many ad accounts at once. While this is good for business — more accounts mean more revenue — it can have a negative impact on the amount of strategic attention given to each account.
Why is this? Humans can only give attention to a few accounts at a time. Managers may not have the time in their day to check in on each account.
When an ad account management tool has automated notifications and dashboards, managers gain:
- Immediate insights into which accounts may have issues with budgets
- Notifications regarding quick ways to optimize account performance
Accounts are managed much more efficiently, and managers can get ahead of issues, rather than having to constantly react to crises they didn't see coming down the pipeline. Clients end up being far happier with proactive management of their budgets and accounts.
Budgeting tools for underspend/overspend mitigation
In the old days, people were responsible for checking in on spending for ads. It was a game of finding the sweet spot — budgets needed to be strategically maximized. Limits weren't to be exceeded but money left on the table meant wasted potential in terms of audiences left un-reached. In fact, it is common for agencies and businesses to spend as much as 35% of their time budgeting accounts.
With automation, an ad account management tool can automatically choose where and when to strategically spend individual account budgets.
- The proper RPA advertising automation tools also have the ability to budget across channels
- One budget can be shared between channels and adjusted to reach unique account goals.
Users can automatically pinpoint that sweet spot: making sure budgets are spent in a strategic way; the system can use other data to maximize spend, while making sure that underspend— aka wasted potential — never happens again, which is another key factor for client sentiment and ROI. Better management is key for glowing referrals — and great for growing business.
Messaging for broadcasts across accounts
One of the biggest pains for ad accounts that leads to many wasted hours? Time-sensitive changes that need to be made to campaigns. These can be based on holidays, or other one-off events that digital marketers may want to capitalize on to drive traffic. Think Labor Day sales, or something as granular as changing weather conditions— who wouldn't be tempted by the idea of purchasing a convertible on a sunny day?
As stated before, making manual changes to campaigns can quite literally take months. With that in mind, the time-consuming nature of manual labor makes it impossible to align with a larger marketing strategy based on catering to consumers in real-time.
Automation works within an ad account management tool to help managers make changes across accounts.
- With the click of a button, wording can be changed across accounts — even subdivided based on geography — and changed back once an event is done.
- This helps ads meet customers where they are, and potentially drive more business by meeting rapidly changing needs and desires.
An entirely new marketing strategy based on real-time events can be unlocked with better technology — what would this mean for your business?
How do automated tools help teams?
Automation is the key to better ad account management. So what does this look like in terms of payoff for teams?
Firstly, automation doesn't replace talented team members. It simply helps them do their jobs more strategically, and also frees them up to make more creative, strategic decisions. It also helps companies focus less on hiring someone off the street to run an ad account, and instead focus on hiring skilled strategists.
Based on our experience, the right tool can help businesses reduce headcount by 50% and increase our book of business by 200%.
As the only cross-tenant tool designed to automate ad account management, Fluency is here to help. No matter the industry, Fluency works with both agencies and in-house teams to achieve more, faster. Get in touch with our experts today.
