Account Managing Digital Projects in an Agency Environment
Is this you? You’re a fabulous account manager in a traditional advertising agency, well-trained in traditional ad products and lingo but when a digital project gets thrown your way, the first thing you want to do is dig a hole in the ground, bury your head in it and pray for it to go away? If so, here are some basic things you absolutely need to know to survive.
There are typically three types of projects that will come your way in digital advertising. Exceeding or varying from that, a seasoned digital-specific account manager would be needed for the job but chances are these types of projects will land on your lap whether you’re ready for it or not. Why? I’ll avoid answering the “big” question and simply tell you the obvious truth; because the client wants it and you have to give it to them.
BANNER ADS
The first and most horrific type of project to account manage is the banner ad. They are a pain because it requires an attention to detail no less than what is required of a tailor with one difference; you have to make sure the media plan is immaculate and ensure the banners produced and packaged for the media booked are perfect before it gets trafficked – and there is almost always a rigid trafficking deadline.
Media Plan
A media plan is quite simply, a big table consisting of all the details of the media booked, the different types, dimensions, and which website it will go to including all the animation and filesize restrictions. Before booking for a production job or asking for costs and timings, you will need to get the media plan ready and provide that to the person responsible for costing so that an accurate cost estimate can be raised. Why is this important? So that the guys at production know what the heck they are producing. If you think you can get away approving the production of a guesstimated set of banners, here’s some unadulterated advice… DON’T DO IT! This is a risk so huge you might not only lose your job if things go belly up, but your agency can be sued for damages from the client if a PR disaster happens. So take my advice, get the media plan. If there is no media plan, insist for the media to be booked before going to the producer for details and subsequently into production.
If you don’t heed my advice, you might feel a mighty invisi-slap across your face from Miss-I-Told-You-So when the cost climbs to double or triple the original, and you have no budget to make it happen. Even if you have the budget to make it happen, there may not be enough time or resources to turn it around. So be smart, media plan before anything else.
Now that we’ve covered the media plan, let’s go on to the…
Ad Specs
In the media plan, there will be fields where actual ad specs are described. Some media plans are shabbily constructed, with spelling errors, typos, and missing dimensions. It is your job, when you get the media plan in your hands to make sure the plan is immaculate. You might feel that you’re overwhelmed with your other responsibilities to have to go through 50 rows of boring information, but this is for your own protection. You can always assign an assistant to help with the plan verification process. Make sure the specs are immaculate (get the media company to correct it to perfection) before handing it over to the interactive producer/project manager. This will ensure that you’re covered if there should be any disputes with regards to what deliverables were promised.
Details such as sizes (leaderboards, banners, mpus), ad types (expandable mpu, rich media banners, standard banners) should be very specific and cannot contain errors. For instance, if standard media space is booked and you’ve created a rich media banner, that banner can’t be trafficked on the space booked. Ad sizes and specs are outside the scope of this article, but you can familiarize yourself with this how banner ads work article on HowStuffWorks.com
PROMOTIONAL MICROSITES
Microsites are just a fancy word to describe websites that aren’t as big as CNN.com or eBay.com. I have come to accept that microsites are generally no more than 10 pages wide and no more than 2 levels deep. To approach the producer asking for cost and timings with a regular creative brief is asking for trouble, since this is akin to going up to a construction company asking how much it is to build a building. It is a variable cost based on time and features, and online (unlike print) has more erratic production costs because of the nature and capabilities of the interactive medium.
Be honest with yourself and if you need a digital expert to recommend solutions, bring that upfront. If advice cost money, you will be duly informed and that can be professionally managed. I realized I opened a can of worms attempting this topic and by no means am trying to tackle a how-to on being a great account manager. My scope today is merely to suggest that the key to managing online projects successfully is to make sure the client understands the scope (and it is finite) and most importantly that you and the producer/digital project manager are on the same page.
HTML EMAILS
I shudder to think that I have to describe what an HTML email is but I’ve come across account managers who did not know what they are. It is obviously very unnatural for me to describe it without sounding patronizing or naive, so I will just point you to the Wikipedia definition and show you an example of what it could look like in an email.
When a client requests for these, you have to cover two areas of concern:
1) The design and production of the HTML page
2)The distribution of it
Never assume that all you need to do is deliver the HTML email in a zip file and the client will know what to do with it. Find out who is responsible for the distribution (upfront) and if no one is, find out how the client wants it distributed, whether you have a database to tap into, whether it is legal to do so, and if not what are your options, and if a mailing list software solution is needed this needs to be communicated to the client before they dream of going to Mars with their amazing idea. After you have covered all areas, scope your HTML email properly with the help of a producer.
A lot of account managers see their role as facilitative. Facilitation is the job of a project manager. Your job is to manage the client’s expectations, communicating the features of the product in development, and deliver them so that the client is ecstatically happy with the work, and you. Therefore, you have to be thorough and you have to care – because caring is your job. An account manager is for lack of a better synonym a professional carer of the client’s interest, within the confines of the business you’re doing work for.
Last word of advice and I cannot stress this enough… If you wanna be good at this, you have to give a damn.
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