In the world of retail media and marketplace advertising, great sellers track every dollar spent or made across their business. Many come to Quartile after managing their ad campaigns manually for years. While not a passion for many sellers, advertising is a customer's first impression of a brand, and trusting that to a partner can be a very personal experience.
While not a passion for many sellers, advertising is a customer's first impression of a brand, making it inherently personal. And if it doesn't go as expected, or they find another vendor claiming they can offer the same services or more for cheaper, there are few barriers to keeping them with us. Inevitably, some clients may leave, lured by those offers. And in the process, many clients tend to get candid when they're walking out the door.
While departing clients can't comment on the integrity of promises from your competition, how your solution compares to others, or the realities of replacing your team with in-house staff, Boomerang clients are generally more than happy to provide this level of information. At Quartile, we find ourselves welcoming more and more former clients back into the fold these days, and thanks to our conversations with them, we now have some valuable insight into their reasons for leaving and coming back:
"It was our first time spending money on advertising, and it just seemed like a lot, but the loss of sales cost us more."
"The artificial intelligence made it look so easy that we figured we could do it on our own, and then we found out we couldn't."
"A larger agency told us that we could save money by consolidating advertising into an expanded service offering, they promised results wouldn't suffer, but results did suffer."
Three Key Lessons Learned
The core to our improvement was simple: Communication. Quartile is a new company with best-in-class AI, and many of our clients are new to the discipline of advertising. And when it comes to anything new in life -- whether it's a new relationship, a new job, or a new concept – communication is critical. Here are the three primary lessons we have learned from the clients that returned to us and shared their stories:
- Lesson #1: Despite the advancements in transparency, accountability, and attribution, Artificial Intelligence still requires a leap of faith from the client. While we developed our machine learning solution for ease of use, many of our clients are new to the practice of advertising automation. They have trouble fully appreciating the crucial role that our artificial intelligence is playing. We have responded to this with a concerted effort to be less opaque and more transparent about our technology, methodology, and processes.
- Lesson #2: If a client remarks that what you're doing looks easy, it can mean that they're uninvolved, unengaged, and possibly undervaluing you. We bring clients into the process at critical intervals, providing granular information such as keyword selection, and sharing our AI's expansive reach and tangible results. We work hard to build stronger relationships and empower clients with the information they need to stay and grow with us.
- Lesson #3: Optimizing retail media advertising is a profoundly intricate process that still requires specialization. This lesson has reinforced our commitment to stay in our lane. In any emerging business succeeding at its primary mission, the temptation to "kitchen sink" the service offering and become a one-stop-shop for all client needs inevitably crops up. At Quartile, we've embraced the view that you can't be all things to all people.
As the retail media advertising ecosystem grows more complex with advancements in transparency, accountability, and attribution -- and our competitive landscape expands to accommodate a proliferation of cheaper and flashier options -- we are committed to keeping the conversation with all our partners going strong. As we have learned from our boomerang clients, many of tomorrow's problems can be solved by simply listening in the here and now.
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