The Introduction
This Halloween season, we thought we’d share a story of an E-commerce business owner who called in a panic. He was being buried alive by too many third party vendors.
If you dare to read on - BEWARE - this spooky tale isn’t for the faint of heart. **Maniacal laugh**
Our tale begins on a dark, dreary fall afternoon. Rain had been steadily falling outside, while violent wind gusts hurled leaves through the air.
All of a sudden, the phone rang in the quiet Werkbot office.
1. The Call
“Thank you for calling Werkbot. How can we help you today?”
The phone line crackled.
"H-hello?" said a panicked voice on the other end. "Please! Hello? You have to help me!"
"We’d love to. What's the issue - how can we help?" we asked.
"Please. I am at the end of my rope. I'm having so much trouble with my Google Ad campaign. I'm working with so many third party vendors I can't even keep track of who is doing what. Our ads aren't running and our online presence is suffering. Please - can you help us?"
The call, which came after weeks of a diabolical circle of finger pointing and buck passing, was from a local business using a variety of vendors to assist with its Google shopping ads. What began as one vendor turned into five. The company was no longer in control and had no other choice but to get on the phone and reach out to a trusted team of creative developers and internet ghost hunters for help.
2. Third Party Potion Goes Awry
Certain “promises” can be almost too good to pass up. The “promise” or “guarantee” of an updated site that ranks at the top of the search engine results pages. A 150% increase in website traffic and online sales. Viral social media campaigns.
Just as scary as the third party promises is the “let’s mix and match potions and see what we can create” mentality. No strategies in place, no overall understanding of the business objectives, no goals or measurements.
When it comes to digital marketing, many ecommerce companies and manufactures start small and try to choose budget friendly options. While there's nothing wrong with this, it can become a problem when you have a growing number of vendors accessing your data or processes.
If even one single piece of your digital marketing puzzle is out of order, it can send your entire digital presence into freefall.
3. Feeding the Ad Beast
But back to our spooky tale.
The client who called that rainy afternoon had discovered several critical issues with a shopping ad campaign it had been running, including duplicate products and ad denials. Our Google Ad & Analytics-certified team spent the remainder of the afternoon discussing the issue with our frightened friend, reading through logs, untangling broken code, and cleaning up and removing unnecessary schema. All of the issues we unearthed stemmed from the fact that a number of different vendors had been "working" in the company's ad platform. After a snicker snack of the vorpal blade, we were able to slay the beast and pull the client out from under the digital marketing stack.
4. Escaping the Labyrinth
Although Werkbot was able to solve the immediate issue, many gaps and miscommunications between the client and its vendors were uncovered. The ad campaign catastrophe was just a symptom of a larger problem: using multiple vendors to handle varying parts of one process can become complicated and complex. Before they knew it, our client was lost in a confusing maze. Werkbot was able to lead the business around the obstacles and out of the labyrinth - this time.
Partnering with a team who has all of the expertise and skills under one roof can make your digital marketing experience much less frightening and much more successful.
What you can learn from this story
Make sure you know what services your agency can do for you. If it’s not a service they provide, maybe they have a recommendation of who can help them. If it is something they can do for you, then less vendors the better.
At Werkbot we are experts at Web Design, Web Development, SEO, and Pay-per-click advertising for E-commerce manufacturers and brands looking to grow.