In part 1 of Shake it Off, we posed the question, “What happens when you use a vendor for your advertising campaign and things don’t go quite as planned”? In fact, it goes terribly wrong. This vendor fell short in almost every way for us here. We had learned early in the campaign that they did not meet any of our expectations and we parted ways with a refund of our media spend. Doing the right thing worked out in their favor because we were able to help them fix things that they didn’t even know were broken with their own platform, their reporting, and the delivery of impressions. The most important thing that they received was to possibly get another shot at our business down the road after some serious retooling was done. Doing the right thing will always turn out to benefit all parties.
We here at A3 Media are always looking for and researching new vendors that we think would be a good fit for our clients. As we were researching some new digital partners recently, we came across a vendor we had used in the past, went back in our notes, and even though our notes had told a sad story, reached back out to them, and requested a re-introduction to the company, their dashboard and what makes them different now. We are not much for living in the past here and would think after a few years, we will go into this open-minded. If they were able to address and resolve those issues in the past, they might be a great fit for some of our clients moving forward. Let’s see where we go from here.
We knew we were on the right path before this re-introduction as they had requested all our notes from our last buy as none of the people that we worked with in the past were still there and wanted to learn, how and when did it all go south? The company was purchased by another and brought in a new technical staff that was superior to the previous. Great way to start for sure!
It is great to go into meetings with people that do their homework. Our past buy was reviewed and those areas that needed “improvement”. Enhancements to their platform included a new geo-targeting option that we have not yet seen in any of our digital partners. This will be a great fit for our regional client. This new team had some technically savvy employees and were able to address and fix all of those issues we had in the past including a guarantee of a full return on our media spend if our expectations were not met.
This company will get another shot at our business. We went in with an open mind and if they can deliver what was promised and contracted, this could be a great partnership and another great tool in our toolbox. They were willing to spend as much time as necessary for us to feel confident that every one of our past issues was addressed and resolved, changes and upgrades in reporting, and a guaranteed return on ad spend. Time well spent!