Transcript
VO Guy
Hello and thanks for coming along too. And we have an office dog, the digital agency podcast where we’re talking to the people behind the agency, the service providers, coaches and mentors to discuss what it’s like working with you. The agency leader with your host, Chris Simmance, the agency. Accelerator talking to a different agency growth partner in each episode, what they love about working with you, what they wish you knew all will be revealed. OK. So let us begin over to you, Chris.
Chris Simmance:
Thanks voiceover guy and on the podcast there we got Nate, the CEO of Diginius. How are you doing, Nate?
Nate Burke:
Yeah, very well. Thank you.
Chris Simmance:
Welcome to the podcast. Welcome to podcast. First of all, let us know a little bit about who you are, how you got into this field that you’re in, and what you guys are indigenous do.
Nate Burke:
Yes, I’m the the founder of the CEO of the Diginius. I guess I’ve kind of come from a long history in the the industry started out back in the we’re based in London now, been here for the last. It’s close to 15 years, but started in the US I was. Computer science undergrad and I sold books door to door for straight Commission this summers to to pay my my school fees. And when I I went to Business School and met a guy and we started a company and and in the kind of garden sector and and we tried all sorts of different ways to sell our products from door to door, trade shows and direct mail and then eventually put up a website and and started getting orders from different places and. You know, it was intriguing. And and so we focused on that for quite a while and eventually the first, you know, kind of before Google, the first PPC engine came out called goto.com and started buying traffic and it. You know for. A. A you know, technologist. To be able to programme and and kind of do your sales and demos automatically with paid traffic and it back then it was opinion click and no competition. So $20.00 for you, you know Desmond.
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
Nate Burke:
And and yeah, we grew it and eventually became known as to. Kind of top garden guy in the US It’s the largest privately held company and and you know, if you wanted to buy a gnome, it was probably from me. I used to rule the sundial world and you know all these little niches eventually help run companies like garden.com.com.com and and then and then the Diginius was founded with the idea had a lot of friends asked me how do you do this? How do you do that? And it just seemed to be. Quite a big gap in the market. As the whole industry evolved. It went from a lot of the guys I started with. Eventually all got bought up. They changed it this and and you had a a monopoly situation where you’ve got companies like Google and Amazon and. And Facebook that can control the media and attack and and it it, it becomes very difficult. It’s they’re very they have very large resources and they’re very good at extracting money out of companies. But for the kind of the normal business owner, the normal companies for them to make money online, but you know, got very difficult. They don’t have the infrastructure and so.
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Nate Burke:
So the Diginius was set up. Give normal businesses the infrastructure to manage their online layer and and and we found through working with a lot of direct clients and then with agencies we found agencies to be a very good route to market because a lot of the. The small medium companies don’t have the in-house resources and so they work with agencies. And agencies and the digital kind of skill set is. Incredibly more advanced than kind of a lot of companies. So. So we found agencies as kind of a natural partner to work with.
Chris Simmance:
And and so agencies coming along they, you know, I I know from from running agency days that PPC initially when I first started running paid accounts relatively simple obviously there’s complexities but now there’s. Multiple multiple layers of complexity and all sorts of hoops you have to jump through to then spend £20.00 for a click on something. That not sure whether you actually need to need to pay for that. What does? What does the Diginius do? Specifically, now that agencies should really listen up and and and take note on?
Nate Burke:
Umm. So yeah, so there’s, I guess a a few different areas that one of. Like the the, the, the. The the point you referenced there about 20 spending £20.00 on a on a click it it’s difficult sometimes to. Control things. So yeah, we we do have fitting engines and algorithmic trading engines and so forth to kind of give the agency control and and and and we do that not through scripts. There’s a lot of. Scripts out there you can use and the problem with scripts we find is that you still give the information to the auctioneer. So you tell Google exactly what you want to do, how you want to manage it, and we don’t. We feel fundamentally. That’s not correct. And so, so and then and. Client data is very sensitive. And so to give I mean, why do you think Google Analytics is free? Because they want to know everything. So to so to kind of put a thin layer between client very sensitive information like profit margins and all those sorts of things is we work with the agencies to kind of to do that and put it and then. And then give them keep that reserved so it’s not given to the platforms. So so there is, we do have all these different ways to trade traffic online, all that that are tools just for ages. We don’t typically give them to the in clients because it’s it’s more kind of an agency expertise sort of things. And then. But the the other way we work with agencies, which is quite a big way is we we we did have some kind of large clients a number of years ago push us really hard into Microsoft. Advertising or Bing? And because the the performance was so much better than on Google’s 50 percent, 100%, just significantly better performance. Just not. Not the the volume. And so because of this push we we started working closely closely with Microsoft you know four or. Five years ago and. And we’ve, we’ve now become their largest partner globally and and we currently work with over 600 agencies in over 50 countries. And we help agencies get better performance on the Microsoft Channel. So we’ve got 4050 people working on the Microsoft Channel and and that expertise and so we’re able to work with our software and our analysts to help agencies get better performance. And we do this in a. In a programme with Microsoft’s no charge to the agencies for this service.
Chris Simmance:
That’s awesome. That’s really cool.
VO Guy
Hey, voice over guy here. Sorry to interrupt. If you’re looking to accelerate the growth of your agency, then check out OMG Centre forward Slash info. Oh, sorry Chris.
Chris Simmance:
You pay one guy on fiver to do a voiceover and he just keeps wanting to talk.
Nate Burke:
Now I love it. It’s uh, growth is kind of, you know, that’s what our platform is about as well. It’s it’s. How do you get the costs under control and find those growth levers and really scale those up?
Chris Simmance:
It’s it. It it it. It’s all the same. It’s just different applications, isn’t it? In in many senses, like, you know, you’ve got lots of data and there’s numbers to crunch and and and like you say leave. Just to pull, when you’re when you’re when you’re working with accelerating digital agencies, it’s not that far off. The same thing. It’s just the different facets of business growth. So what is it that you guys love the most about working with agencies? Then why focus where you are in terms of agencies, space versus going direct to consumer? Or director business.
Nate Burke:
One of the things we love with agencies is the it’s like dealing with colleagues, more people in the industry, people that under you know work with multiple accounts multiple. So so when you spend an hour on a call or 30 minutes on a call, the transfer of knowledge is just so much. Greater than than kind of an incline. Typically so it’s it’s in a way, it’s it’s, it’s a very rewarding. To be able to do it now you have to have as a result of the team that deals with them and so forth have to be, you know, high level we can’t hire grads and talk to agencies. You have to have very experienced people in the field to talk. To to agencies because. They’re very sophisticated, so agencies are some of the most sophisticated, both in the digital technology and in. It depends who you talk to. When we do a lot with the owners, so they’re by definition. And almost all good at sales. In addition to being.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah. And they and they certainly know when they’re being sold too as well, Nate.
Nate Burke:
So yeah. Yeah, exactly. So you can’t ******** him. You gotta you just straight direct this. What we do this how we. Do it this that will help you. And UM, yeah.
Chris Simmance:
Awesome and and and if you were to sort of think about it from a perspective of like you, you must work with how many agencies roughly are you guys working with at the minute quite a lot I imagine.
Nate Burke:
Yeah, I think last I heard 620 at the moment.
Chris Simmance:
OK, so you’ve probably got a a good handle on this on the answer this one. So what do you think separates some of the best from the rest in terms of the agency space?
Nate Burke:
So I mean, you can cut that a lot of different ways. I mean some of the things that we see work well is it could be vertical specialisation. So they get really good at a certain vertical, operationally, some are just incredible operators. Others the relationship with clients and kind of driving that through. Yeah, it’s. It’s the thing about an agency. It it’s like I I spent my first part of my career running e-commerce companies and. Uhm, there’s like 100 things that moving parts and things that can go wrong and so forth. And so an agency is very similar. You’ve got a lot of clients with a lot of moving parts and then in the agency itself too, and so being able to kind of manage chaos. Is kind of the key and so how to do that it it’s a very tough job.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s the right application of balance to a certain degree because you you can’t focus in one area on in, in an agency if you’re if you’re leading it, you gotta kind of have a the right level of surface area coverage, so to speak. But as you grow with the leadership team working with you, you can you can focus on your on your specific areas. It’s UM. They are like you say, by nature, very good at usually very good at sales. But then there are some that are coming that come into the sector as as agency leaders who are like incredible operators, there’s there’s some that come in that are subject matter experts but that’s terrible operating cause they can’t get it out of their head. What it is that they need someone else to do, or they find it hard to to to sell to a new client, but they’re OK, you know, picking up referrals because they’re so good at what they do and and the and defining kind of what their future looks like having that long horizon makes that management of the chaos a hell of a lot, lot less stressful, I think.
Nate Burke:
Yeah. And with them and we deal specifically with PPC agencies or the PC teams in a integrated or a larger agency. And the thing about PC is it’s it’s very technical and it’s financial management. And it’s creative.
Chris Simmance:
It’s a good old mix and.
Nate Burke:
Yeah. So get those all. All those right is. Yeah, it it’s a yeah. It’s a tough ask, but if you do get those all right, then, you know, it can kinda go. Yeah.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah. And I think some of the best agencies, they almost certainly realise that you can’t be good at all of the things that that you’re that that exist in, in that service line. So you know, if you’ve got a large enough agency and a large enough amount of clients, then you can have a creative team in PPC, do creative and things like that. And then you’ve got your analysts and then you’ve got your. Yeah, you know, account managers and the accounting get. For your, for your and everything along those lines. So it does. You do have to kind of there’s a approach I I like to to if you if you’ve got the budget, you should probably be hiring from the top down as opposed to the bottom up because you’re you’re likely to have, you know, better people that keep your clients for longer. But if you’re a new agency living on cash flow. It’s not as easy a balance to keep.
Nate Burke:
No, and it’s a very in PPC it’s a very it’s a very difficult practise. So we see a lot of agencies that partner with others that have a kind of a core like sometimes you’ll have a full service agency that that that their clients require them to offer PPC as a service where it’s not their core. And so they’ll sometimes partner with another agency to kind of. Provide some of that and we see a lot of different ways doing it. Cause yeah, if you have a poorly executed PPC service, it’s it’s almost worse than not having it. But if you don’t have it, you lose the client, so you almost. So you you have to have it. But you know, so there there are some agencies that are very strong PC, there’s a lot of agencies because it’s so ubiquitous. Just you kind of have to offer it and then how you offer that? Yeah, it’s because it’s such a fast moving field. Sometimes it’s it’s better to partner with another one and figure out how to to do it that way, but yeah, it’s it’s it’s not a simple solution and and you need a team right? So.
Chris Simmance:
Not so nice.
Nate Burke:
It’s very difficult as an individual, unless you’re a highly experienced freelancer. Freelancers can often execute very well on their own. But then only certain clients will deal with the bigger clients need teams and so you kind of limit it to a certain size of client as a freelancer so. So yeah, there’s a. So yeah, we we support freelancers, startups, large agencies, you know, kind of everything in between. So we. Workout kind of. The best we can do in the tools and and and all this to support support them, but it is very different in the different. I guess types of agencies, yeah.
Chris Simmance:
So let’s say for example you’ve you’ve just hired an entire research and development team. They’re the indigenous R&D team is in full swing and they’re determined to build you a magic wand, and that magic wand can only be used once, though cause it’s R&D phase. So you. Know one use only. And what are you using that magic wand on to change in agencies in one go?
Nate Burke:
So yeah, the the, the, the, the team that I’ve got working on right now, the magic wand we’re doing right now because we do have quite a. Big R and. D team is.
Speaker
There you go. It’s like I.
Chris Simmance:
Knew it somehow.
Nate Burke:
We are building a extending our platform to run PC agencies entirely. So from all the incoming stuff that logging. Gets the the developing the service plans, automating the key the the ticket creation so you can train people, communicate with clients, budget automation and all that because we see that as just incredibly complex. There’s not a lot of systems out there for it. And so to. If you’re able to kind of decrease the operational workload by 30 to 50%, then you can often double your volume. With the same team or or more so and that creates a much more profitable agency. And so yeah, the the 2nd if you had a second magic wand, one of the biggest requests we get from agencies is to build out a. Basically, nobody trusts the platforms anymore, so they want to they they they want an analytics tool that’ll give attribution to marketing channels correctly, cause Facebook over reports their numbers, Google reports they’re, you know. And so the what’s the the full record of truth. And every time I get that. Hey, it’s kind of on a radar. It’s kind of on a remember that’s an enormous engineering project. So it’s gonna, it’s gonna.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah, it really is, yeah.
Nate Burke:
Be a while so.
Chris Simmance:
There, there’s huge amounts of complexity in that one. That’s great.
Nate Burke:
That’s that. That’s the other magical. Yeah, crazy.
Chris Simmance:
Especially with the way that. Even devices, not just platforms but devices are tracking things differently now as well. Must be a minefield. I don’t know why you do. It mate I. Don’t know why. So agency leaders knocked on your door just now and they said. Right. What one thing can you do to do for me today that’s gonna help me grow my agency? What? What one thing is there out of the big old roster of all the features and all the cool stuff that you guys do? What’s the the key thing that’s gonna help me grow my agency?
Nate Burke:
So in in uh, yeah, today’s world, we give the best support in the world for Microsoft advertising channel, which with the and how to integrate AI into that and the offering and and to grow on that. And so that because of the few you know until six months ago nobody cared. You know, we’ve been working in this area for years and nobody cared. It was really tough and and now all the clients, all the people, everybody wants to. So. So yeah, how to get your ads in front of chat, TBT. And being API and all that sort of thing, they’re kind of we we can work with agencies to upskill them into kind of cutting edge very quickly. So yeah, so that’s probably the the, the, the the conversation.
Chris Simmance:
Yeah, that’s the necessity now more than another.
Nate Burke:
It’s reaping the best rewards at the moment.
Chris Simmance:
Awesome. And Nate, it’s been lovely talking to you on the podcast.
Nate Burke:
Well, thanks, Chris. Great. Uh, great to work with you.
Chris Simmance:
Thanks very much. And in our next podcast, we’ll be talking to another agency advisor or partner. In the meantime, have a great day.