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January 08, 2007

Radio Advertising: Demand to See Full Data

It surprises us to hear that there are radio advertising agencies who refuse to provide full detail reporting to their clients. In the case we've heard about consistently, this occurs at one relatively large radio agency that seems to feel they aren't obligated to provide any details about how they are spending their clients' radio advertising dollars.

How do they get away with this? According to former clients disgruntled with this approach, they tell their clients that they are the only one's who can acquire radio media at the lowest prices. This is grossly incorrect, but apparently people believe it, and fearing that they'll be blocked from accessing low radio advertising rates, the client goes along with the "black box" approach to radio advertising. In fact, if your radio agency doesn't provide data, you can't know that they aren't marking up your media and absorbing a good chunk of your profits as their own.

Without seeing data, you have the following problems:

- You have to blindly trust that your radio agency is running the necessary reports, doing the required analysis, and eliminating underperforming radio media buys swiftly - because you have no way to hold them accountable
- You don't know for sure what customer profile your campaign is working on, and which it isn't - so you are held hostage to your agency. If you have a disagreement (and under this kind of relationship you likely will), you will have to start over with another agency.
- You leave yourself open to the agency inflating their fees, taking more if your campaign is very successful since they can do so without being caught by you. After all, without detail, you can't reconcile.

These are not insignificant problems. Bottom line: don't take NO for an answer when you ask for full detail reporting. Any refusal to provide you reporting is a sign that someone is hiding something.

Posted by Jeff Small & Brett Astor at 02:34 PM | Permalink