Waypointers
Waypointers is the go-to podcast for agency leaders. In this series, produced by Waypoint Partners, we bring together the brightest minds in the industry and our own in-house growth advisory specialists to share illuminating conversations to grow your agency.
Bringing you insights, analysis and knowledge from the leading lights of the UK agency landscape, Waypointers is a must-listen for aspirational agency leaders.
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Waypoint Partners is an expert global growth and M&A advisory firm providing support to businesses in the marketing services and technology sectors.
Waypointers
40. Is your agency truly change ready? Lessons from the performance marketing sector
Agencies in the performance marketing sector are arguably having to face up to change faster than other parts of marketing services. When the platforms you’ve built your career and businesses around over the last 20 years are suddenly transforming, you have to reinvent yourself or face oblivion.
For this Waypointers episode (link) partner Phil Gripton talks to someone who was there at the dawn of performance, Joe Procter, co-founder of Open Partners. Open Partners was founded around the concept of “agency of next”, which Joe explains as “preparing clients for a future that hasn’t happened yet, so that they can adapt to that future faster than their competitors can.”
How quickly this change is happening in performance is plain for all to see. Google’s share of search dropped below 90% for the first time in 15 years, driven by the fast-growing trend to use AI for search. A recent Gartner report predicted that within three years, 50 % of organic traffic from google will have disappeared. Fundamentally if performance agencies don’t prepare for that future, they face an extinction event.
There is no one silver bullet that allows a business to successfully face up to seismic change, especially change that is driven by external forces. But Joe’s approach provides a strong blueprint for any agency leadership team who is looking to prepare for an uncertain future.