When will Internet vendors learn how to service their clients?

The figures are slowly coming in and as the year wraps up it's clear that 2005 is yet another growth year for Internet advertising in the Middle East. Furthermore, the recent showing by both agencies and vendors at the latest "Media & Marketing Show" in the Dubai Trade Centre, it may be argued that 2005 will be seen as the year Internet came of age in the Middle East.

But does this hold true for region's Internet vendors? Have the websites which have driven the early years of advertising in the Middle East still hold up to their international peers with regards to service levels and ad offerings?

It's a little confusing to answer this as one could say YES with regards to a hand-full of websites who are likely leading the way with market share, and an unfortunate NO to everyone else. And the scary part is that the "everyone else" group seems to be growing fast whilst the small YES group seems to be getting even smaller.

Ask most Media Agencies in around the world what the three most important factors are when deciding which media channel to use for a given ad campaign and you would likely get a mixed bag of answers around the following:

1 - Audience relevance and size: This of course is singularly important as all other factors pale in significance if the media channel cannot provide this key component.

2 - Ad offerings: And by this I mean more than just sizes, but prices and variety as well. Especially important in Internet advertising as accountability is maximized with regards to performance and even final business value contribution.

3 - Service: Do vendors reply in a timely fashion? Are they knowledgeable with regards to their products and pricing? Can they add value and give input to even improve a campaign or are they just there to sign the booking orders?

To quote Waseem Afzal, in an earlier article in AME's Digital Marketing:
"Campaign management is as important as planning". It is argued that only 50% of a media planner's job is actually planning the media and getting the client signoff. The rest is down to trafficking the ads, managing and optimizing the ads delivery (through the vendors), and ensuring that all elements work together to achieve the objectives set out in the tight timelines.

Now just to be clear, that remaining 50% is a lot of work. It requires coordination across 20+ companies and involves up to 40+ individuals all working together to achieve this common goal. Add in the fact that we are all managing many campaigns at the same time and you have nothing short of bedlam ready to break out at any given opportunity. Clearly if a vendor is switched on and understands what a mess this can be, there is an opportunity here to be had by offering superior service levels to their advertisers and agencies to ease this process. As long as they have traffic, their service could mean the difference between 2% and 20% market share of online ad spend.

More revealing is if you ask most professionals in our industry what the biggest differentiator is amongst vendors they will likely answer their service. Yet I mentioned earlier that this is the one biggest area of problem across 95% of vendors operating in our region. For that sharp vendor out there, this means great service can be an even bigger opportunity to success.

So what are the major areas that an Internet vendor can offer that differentiating service to build relationships with advertisers and agencies alike? As always there is likely too many to answer but if you concentrate just on the following you will see quick results (forgive me if I'm being obvious but you'd be surprised):

1. Communication: If you receive an RFP do you reply the same day? The same week? Year? Most likely the advertiser is running last minute due to creative delays, production delays, last minute changes and this is only exemplified in Internet which is always the last medium to be finalised in the mix. Many times if we haven't heard back the same day (at least acknowledging receipt) they have lost out as we don't have time to chase. Harsh but true.

2. Market Knowledge: What is the total spend in the market? What is your share of this spend? Who are the big advertisers? Who are the big agencies? How much do you know about an agency's clients? Where they spend, who do they want to reach? This list goes on and on...But a little research can go a long way.

3. Product Knowledge: How much should I price my inventory? How does this compare with other online media, offline media? How can I improve my products offering/options? What are the traffic trends across my website? Who is going where, when and for how long? A vendor who can not only support an advertiser but actually make detailed recommendations gets more business. As does a vendor who knows how to price and present their products based on advertiser value not competitor prices.

4. Campaign Management: This after-sales service should get a 5 star rating for importance. Don't hand the booking order over to a low-level exec and leave it. Take the responsibility to ensure that all booking orders are properly placed and delivered as per instructions. Keep abreast of campaign timelines, advise advertiser of traffic bottlenecks, and suggest optimizations based on the performance. A vendor who is watching out for an advertiser's campaign is like a financial advisor who looks after your investment.

5. Flexibility: We all work in the most flexible medium of all so why are we often so inflexible? A sure fire way of building barriers to relationships. There is always a solution but it most often comes down to whether the vendor is willing to support it or not.

6. Resource: How many account managers should a vendor employ to manage their advertisers? Notice I use the term account manager and not business development person. Highly likely that you have most of the key advertisers right under your nose so rather than spending huge resource going out to find new ones why not develop the ones you already know about? If you think you already have achieved optimal spends with these advertisers/agencies, think again.

7. Relations: How well do you know your advertisers? What are their biggest challenges they face professionally and personally? I always say that in advertising we are here to make our clients look good, so perhaps as a vendor you should be thinking the same. This is the vendor-client relationship after all.

8. Supplier reality: You are not the advertiser's partner. You are selling them a product with a service attached, and they pay big money for it. Hence as a supplier you need to focus your energies around keeping that advertiser satisfied (even delighted) at all times. Learn to bite the bullet when appropriate and learn to support in the same way. Simple marketing 101.

I'm sure that there are many more points out there which differentiate a world-class vendor from one who has stumbled on some Internet traffic. I of course speak from my own experience and so any disagreements; feel free to share or debate. Overall it is clear that our industry is growing so fast that we often need to pause and reflect on our business relationships as we move forward. As the industry heads to the future and naturally increases product homogeneity it will be areas such as client service which differentiate the successful vendors from the recently expired vendors with urls for sale.