Performance is at the heart of the client-agency relationship

Performance is often a catch-all term that can be tough to navigate. And yet performance is the focal point of all client-agency relationships. The value of industry professionals’ expertise, from advertising to digital, is directly linked to performance.

And while the ability to measure results is becoming increasingly advanced, we all too often focus on indicators that don’t necessarily translate into real brand success.

This is why our platform highlights the most common performance indicators, allowing advertisers and agencies to align their efforts while using a tool that ensures good goal-setting and a better communication of expectations

Our goal is to simplify the use of performance metrics, while providing solutions that will optimize your business results as much as your client-agency relationships

This platform is an A2C initiative and was co-written by Jean-François Bourdeau of Omnicom Media Group and Anne-Marie Castonguay of Sid Lee, in collaboration with various committees of industry-renowned professionals, both on the agency and client side.

An introduction to the performance metric

It’s never too late to implement good business practices! Here’s where to start to tackle the issue of performance.

First, no matter what your situation is, one condition is essential: advertisers and agencies need to agree at the outset about the objectives and performance indicators they want to measure. This will help them define the relevant data sources they need to monitor and the evaluation criteria of communication initiatives they want to use.

If you’re an advertiser, you should be able to:

• Identify the goal of your communication initiative.
• Share certain business results with your agency.

If you’re an agency professional, you should be able to:

• Determine the relevant KPIs for your targeted objectives.
• Have access to media placement tracking tools.
• Monitor KPIs.
• Optimize communications initiatives according to your observations.

Beyond your own practices, here’s what else could have an impact on whether your initiatives are successful and effective:

• Technological capacity or access to IT. To have performance data, you need to set up certain internal measurement tools or procedures to get as many relevant results as possible.
• Sharing of data between advertisers and agencies. A lack of results sharing between advertisers and agencies can diminish the overall quality of the evaluation of the initiative, regardless of how knowledgeable each party might be. A relationship built on trust is key to encouraging data sharing.