Agencies what do they actually do? Hear first hand at a4uexpo London

This week the team at a4u spoke to Matt Bailey, Commercial Director of Performance Horizon Group to discuss his session at next weeks a4uexpo London ‘The Agency Head Grill’ Hear from Matt on his guest post below.

Recent years have seen a big shift in the number of clients entrusting agencies to manage their affiliate programmes. Next week at a4uexpo London 2011, we are holding a session to attempt to clarify exactly what this means for everyone involved in the process. Hopefully along the way, we will debunk some of the myths associated with agency involvement and outline the benefits that this brings as well as providing some advice on the best way of working with an agency.

We’ve put together a stellar panel bringing together the affiliate heads of some of the largest and most influential agencies in the space, and a leading publisher to shake things up a bit. The session will be moderated by PHG’s Commercial Director Matt Bailey, no stranger to this area having formerly been Head of Performance at i-level, winner of Best Agency at the A4uAwards in 2009. The panel comprises:  Ewan Darby, Business Director at neo@ogilvy who’s roster includes the British Airways, Sony, American Express and Apple affiliate programmes; Fiona Robertson, Head of Performance at Bigmouth Media who look after Play.com, Radisson Blu and Urban Outfitters amongst others; Ginj Pall of OMD who manage programmes such as Virgin Media, HMV and Shopping Direct Group. The panel is completed by Simon Bird, General Manager at Savoo, a large affiliate with experience of working with clients direct, agencies and affiliate networks.

We asked a couple of members of the panel to preview the session by asking them what they felt were the biggest misconceptions surrounding agencies in the affiliate channel:

 “Agencies are often construed as being an unnecessary middle man, with little knowledge of the affiliate sector.  Of course there are some agencies that rightly deserve that description, however the affiliate marketing sector has seen growth of a large number of professional, knowledgeable and committed agencies from various angles that do add real value to the mix – and are beneficial to all parties within the relationship, including affiliates themselves.”

Fiona Robertson, Head of Performance Marketing,  Big Mouth Media

 “That’s an interesting question, and depends very much who you ask.

If you ask networks their opinion will be divided according to the agency concerned.  Some agencies perform an intermediary role whereby they act as a conduit only between the client and the network and affiliates not allowing direct contact between them, but taking not taking an active role in affiliate management.  Others, like Neo, BMM and OMD are much more hands-on with affiliates and networks, developing key relationships to ensure the client’s campaign is optimised and dovetailed in to an overall media strategy.

Affiliates may not necessarily understand or see the agency role directly, depending on their size or role in a campaign.  Larger affiliates may welcome agency involvement simply because they have a better understanding of what the client’s overall objectives are and why certain policies and restrictions are in place.

Clients themselves often have internal affiliate resource, effectively acting as an agency would.  In these circumstances, with a devoted affiliate resource, clients may not require additional management support and expertise and may not see a benefit of agency management.  For clients I think it very much depends what their circumstance and requirement is as to how they perceive the benefit of an agency.”

Ewan Darby, Business Director Neo @ Ogilvy

It promises to be a fascinating debate and the panel would be delighted to see as many people there as possible to answer any questions you may have. You’ll find us in the Balmoral Suite on Day 2 at 4pm. If you wish to submit any questions in advance please use the session specific hashtag #a4ub11 and send questions via Twitter.

Matt Bailey

Commercial Director, Performance Horizon Group