Of course, we could have seen it coming. More and more online advertising platforms switched to machine learning and smart bidding . Setting up campaigns will be a piece of cake in 2023.
The role and added value of our PPC specialists became increasingly thin. The only reason we could keep them was that most clients did not understand what they were doing. Until an extensive article appeared on De Correspondent in which the added value of PPC specialists was leveled to the ground.
In hindsight, we could have better retrained our specialists to generalists, who could proactively advise clients with a strategic view. But we didn't do that. PPC contracts were cancelled in droves, which qatar telegram data meant that we saw a large part of our returned turnover disappear like snow in the sun.
Roles: from execution to coaching
Actually, that was also the case for the rest of our team. We had an agency with specialists who used to each pick up their part in a process. In this way, they efficiently filled in campaigns and deliverables . The only problem was that more and more of our clients had started to see online marketing and communication as a critical process that also had to be secured internally.
Looking back, I think the pandemic that started in 2020 was a major catalyst for that. In fact, we had developed a blind spot for this. We believed that there would always be sufficient demand for agencies that would take the work off our hands.
The current reality showed something different. Every serious player in our focus sector now had at least 1 FTE in service, who was responsible for (online) marketing. If we had spotted this trend in time, we could have proactively changed. We could have focused more on coaching clients in (expanding) commercial teams. And we could have focused on secondment. Everything was possible. But unfortunately.
