Where Does Advertising Budget Get Wasted? (Archive, 2020)

Recorded in 2020 during Simon's s.media agency era and published as part of a dated historical record. It reflects the market then, not current advice — and it's an early statement of the marketing-accountability position.

Where does the waste come from?

Are you spending thousands and thousands of pounds a month on paid media? If that's a yes, this video's for you. I've got 20 years' experience working on paid media accounts for clients large and small, and frankly I'm fed up of hearing clients say they don't know what their agency does for the fee every month. If I told you I could save you a minimum of 20 per cent of your media spend every month, would that be interesting?

The agency world is changing — it has to. There's been a complete lack of transparency. Many business owners talk about their agencies making the fees up as they go along: all proper cloak-and-dagger stuff, never telling the truth about what's really going on. Often PPC agencies start with great intentions; after a few months you're left wondering what they're doing and why they're taking a big fat fee every month. It just feels like they do very little and charge a lot. Communication is poor, and eventually the relationship breaks down. Do you even know how much of your media budget is actually getting spent on ads?

What does an audit find?

If you're going to let someone spend thousands of your media budget each month, they'd better be at the top of their game, with a wealth of experience gained over many years. My team has never, ever audited an ads account without finding savings on behalf of that client — and we've always been able to suggest new and improved ways of working on Google and Facebook ads.

It might be that you just want a second opinion on your ads account and the way it's being run. Worst case, you'll get some great ideas that save your business money just from the initial call. If you take one of our paid media audits, we'll show you things your agency won't. Maybe the report will come back and tell you your current agency is doing a fantastic job — at worst, your internal team gets loads of great ideas to work on themselves. The bottom line: we think we can guarantee to save you 20 per cent of your media budget straight away, in month one.