Transparency and actionable insights have become non-negotiables for businesses partnering with marketing agencies. Recent research by ASK BOSCO®, the leading AI marketing platform for retailers, brands, and agencies, conducted in collaboration with OnePoll, sheds light on the growing dissatisfaction among marketing professionals regarding digital marketing reporting. With 75% of marketers admitting to sacking their agencies over poor reporting, the findings suggest a significant trust gap between agencies and businesses.

Key Insights: Clarity and Transparency in Reporting

The survey polled 100 UK marketing managers who either currently or previously worked with digital marketing agencies and were engaged in online advertising. The results paint a vivid picture of the industry’s pain points, with clarity, accuracy in forecasting, actionable insights, transparency, and customisation emerging as the top five most critical factors in agency reports.

Among the most alarming statistics:

• 62% of respondents have stopped, or considered stopping, their collaboration with an agency due to a lack of transparency.
• 73% have cut ties with agencies over poor analysis and lack of actionable insights.
• 95% of marketers reported that their agencies selectively highlighted positive metrics while downplaying negative outcomes.

These numbers are a wake-up call for agencies, emphasising the importance of comprehensive, honest, and accessible reporting to foster long-term client relationships.

The Need for More Transparency

One of the most striking findings was that 90% of respondents believe digital marketing agencies need to offer greater transparency, particularly by making data more easily accessible and insights clearer. This demand for openness and clarity reflects a broader trend in the marketing industry, where businesses expect more control over and understanding of their campaigns’ performance.

Additionally, 77% of respondents reported encountering inaccuracies in their reports, often due to human error. This highlights a growing desire for not just transparency but accuracy, as businesses increasingly rely on data-driven decisions to steer their marketing strategies.

Insights from ASK BOSCO®’s Head of Product, Emily Hakner

Reflecting on the survey results, Emily Hakner, Head of Product at ASK BOSCO®, emphasised the industry’s need for change. She stated, “The digital marketing industry is at a critical juncture. Data from the survey indicates a strong demand for greater transparency and more insightful reporting. The results underscore an urgent need for reform. Businesses are calling for greater transparency and accountability, with a clear preference for reports that provide easily accessible data and clearer insights.”

How ASK BOSCO® AI Reporting Aligns with Industry Needs

ASK BOSCO®’s AI-powered reporting platform addresses the key challenges identified in the survey by offering transparency, accuracy, and actionable insights. The platform consolidates all marketing data into a single, customizable dashboard, providing marketers with clear, easily accessible reports tailored to their specific needs. Its AI search functionality eliminates human error, offering precise forecasting and insights without the need for manual intervention. This ensures that businesses can trust the data they receive, enabling them to make more informed decisions and rebuild trust with their agencies.

For more information, visit ASK BOSCO® AI Reporting.

Time for a Paradigm Shift

The findings from ASK BOSCO®’s survey highlight a profound trust deficit in digital marketing. The selective reporting of positive outcomes, inaccuracies, and lack of actionable insights are driving businesses to re-evaluate their agency partnerships.

For agencies, the message is clear: transparency, accuracy, and customisation must be at the heart of their reporting practices to retain clients and rebuild trust in an increasingly data-driven world.

Accurately forecasting the performance of future digital campaigns is an important part of digital marketing. With PPC costs increasing and competition growing, and the advancement of AI, some businesses are starting to use tools to implement time series forecasting into their digital marketing planning. When used correctly, it can help stop overspending on Google, Meta and other key platforms and ultimately allow businesses to plan and allocate resources more efficiently.

What is Time Series Forecasting?

First things first, let’s explain what time series forecasting is.  Time series forecasting is the process of analyzing historical data to predict future values. Unlike static data analysis, time series data is sequential and often influenced by patterns such as seasonality, trends, and cyclical behaviours.

Some of the key aspects of time series data include:

Trends: Long-term increases or decreases in the data.

Seasonality: Regular, repeating patterns, such as higher traffic on weekdays.

Sales and Events: Spikes or drops in activity linked to specific campaigns, promotions, or external events such as holidays.

Noise: Irregular fluctuations that are not explained by a trend or seasonality.

How can time series forecasting benefit a digital marketing strategy?

There are several ways in which time series forecasting can benefit agencies and brands when it comes to making better, data-driven decisions. These are:

Budget Optimization: The ability to predict future campaign performance to allocate budgets in a more efficient way.

Performance Benchmarks: Being able to produce realistic KPIs by understanding what’s happened in the past, using historical patterns.

Audience Targeting: Knowing peak engagement times to forecast and schedule ads for maximum impact.

What are the barriers to implementing time series forecasting into your digital marketing strategy?

If you ask most agencies or brands, they will probably say that at present, they do not have a sophisticated system for forecasting the future performance of digital marketing campaigns. One of the main barriers for implementing time series forecasting is the lack of technical expertise. Implementing and running forecasts often require significant time and data science skills. The cost requires significant investment in technology and tools (not to mention the cost of a data science team) so may not be feasible for all.   

Another challenge is the fragmentation of data. Many businesses have their 1st-party and 3rd-party data spread across different platforms or systems, making it difficult to centralize and use the data for accurate forecasting. Without consolidating all relevant data into one place, the insights from time series forecasting can be less reliable, or worse, inaccurate

Additionally, time series forecasting often requires high-quality, consistent data. Missing data or inaccuracies can significantly affect the reliability of predictions.

How to integrate time series forecasting into your digital marketing strategy

Understand your metrics and your goals.

Define what you want to forecast and why, including the metrics you want to measure your performance against. For example, ‘How many clicks can we expect on our ad campaigns next quarter?’  Or ‘How do we achieve 700% ROAS in our ad campaigns in the next month?’

ASK BOSCO® helps you easily set clear forecasting goals by integrating your data and providing real-time insights into performance. You can quickly ask the platform for a budget plan to get future predictions and tailored forecasts for your specific marketing objectives.

Consolidate and prepare your data

Collect and consolidate all your historical data relevant to your target metric, such as website visits, ad impressions, or conversion rates. Ensure the data is clean, complete, and consistent.

With ASK BOSCO®, you can consolidate your data from over 400 sources into one place, ensuring that you have accurate and comprehensive data without the hassle of managing multiple platforms. This eliminates manual error, data fragmentation and ensures your forecasts are based on high-quality, unified data.

Choose a Model

If you have an in-house data science team, the choices for implementing a time series forecasting model include: 

• ARIMA (AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average)

• Pro: Effective for data with clear trends.

• Con: Struggles with data that has strong seasonality or irregular patterns.

• Exponential Smoothing (ETS)

• Pro: Good for handling trend and seasonality.

• Con: Assumes future patterns will closely resemble past behaviour, limiting its flexibility in dynamic environments.

• Prophet

• Pro: Designed to handle strong seasonal effects and holidays.

• Con: While optimized for Facebook-type data, it is flexible enough to work on a variety of business datasets, though it may not capture complex patterns as well as other methods in some cases.

• Machine Learning Models (e.g., LSTM)

• Pro: Good at capturing complex, non-linear patterns.

• Con: Requires large datasets and significant computational resources, along with significant data science expertise for tuning. 

ASK BOSCO® streamlines forecasting using AI-powered statistical modelling, with features developed and continuously refined by our in-house data scientists.  This means that the most suitable model will always be applied to your data, without you needing deep data science skills. By integrating time series forecasting for daily pacing and our own custom algorithm to calculate expected costs and outcomes for monthly forecasts, ASK BOSCO® provides you with actionable insights to optimize your budget allocation and drive better performance across all your campaigns. Saving time, optimizing budgets and eliminating guesswork.

Act upon the model’s forecasts and use human intervention too

Once your model or platform has provided you with a plan or forecast, you may wish to create multiple forecasts based on various scenarios. For example, you could simulate different budget allocations or test varying targeting strategies or swap metrics. This approach enables you to assess potential outcomes and make more informed decisions, ensuring your marketing strategy remains flexible and resilient.

The forecast you create can then inform your marketing strategy, but remember that while statistical models are powerful, human intuition and expertise are also invaluable to add to the work that the model has predicted.

ASK BOSCO® makes it easy to turn your forecasts into actionable insights. You can set budget recommendations, allocate resources efficiently, scenario-plan based on different criteria, and adjust campaign strategies based on predicted trends, ensuring your marketing efforts are proactive and data-driven.

What does the future hold for Time Series Forecasting

As time series forecasting continues to evolve, there are several key trends and advances that will shape its future in digital marketing. The integration of cutting-edge technologies will further enhance forecasting capabilities, making it more accessible and impactful for marketers. Here are some of the exciting developments to watch:

Automated Machine Learning (AutoML)

Platforms such as ASK BOSCO®, H2O.ai and AWS Forecast are simplifying the modelling process, making it easier to build and deploy forecasting models without requiring extensive data science expertise. This democratization of machine learning is helping businesses harness the power of data without a large investment of in-house data science teams.

Real-Time Forecasting

With the rise of streaming data, marketers will be able to adjust as needed, ensuring that campaigns stay optimized in real-time. This capability will allow for more dynamic decision-making and immediate responses to changing conditions, providing a more agile approach to digital marketing.

Causal Impact Analysis

This approach helps marketers understand how specific actions, such as a price change or campaign tweaks, affect trends and outcomes. By isolating the impact of these actions, businesses can make more informed decisions and drive more effective strategies.

ASK BOSCO® is at the forefront of these innovations, offering an AI-powered platform that integrates advanced forecasting techniques into your digital marketing efforts. The platform ensures that your forecasting is not just accurate but also actionable, empowering your team to stay ahead of the competition.

If you’d like to find out more about, ASK BOSCO® and its forecasting and media planning capabilities, please contact our team. You can also view this blog to understand more about how the Budget Planner feature within ASK BOSCO® works. 

The Agency Forecast Report, which was released October 2024 by Agency Hackers in collaboration with Wix Studio, provides an in-depth overview of the current agency landscape.

Collecting insights from over 80 agency leaders worldwide, the report highlights key trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the industry.

For agencies, this report is a great resource, offering insights into how other agencies are changing their strategies to adapt and are improving client relationships. Here, we focus on the report’s implications for agencies and explore how they can adapt to stay competitive.

Agency Effectiveness and Efficiencies

Agencies are increasingly focusing on enhancing their operational effectiveness and efficiency to remain competitive. A significant 72% of agencies identified talent acquisition and retention, particularly in tech roles, as a major challenge. This shortage underscores the need for streamlined processes and effective resource management to maintain productivity. 

Additionally, 55% of agencies reported a rise in client demand for shorter contracts or project-based work. This shift shows a need for greater flexibility and efficiency in project execution to meet client expectations within short deadlines. 

Confidence in the Agency Landscape

Despite the challenges, agency leaders remain resilient and have an overall positive outlook. The report indicates an average confidence level of 6.6 out of 10 among surveyed agencies, reflecting a cautious optimism for 2025 and the evolving market dynamics to follow the new year. 

Strategic Focus Areas

To address the challenges highlighted in the report and leverage emerging opportunities, agencies are adopting several strategic initiatives:

Exploring New Markets and Niches

62% of agencies are diversifying their services and targeting niche markets to expand their client base and revenue streams. By choosing a niche market agencies are specialising and focusing on individual areas meaning less competition against others.

Investing in Marketing Efforts

In response to intensified competition across the scope of services, 75% of agencies plan to increase investment in their own marketing to attract new clients, establish thought leadership, and reinforce brand identity. By investing in their own marketing, agencies are creating trust and building relationships with potential clients before working with them.

Strengthening Client Relationships

55% of agencies are prioritizing deeper engagement with existing clients, recognizing that strong relationships are key to securing repeat business and long-term success. Making their current clients feel valued is important to maintaining a strong client relationship, this includes regular check in’s, taking on board client feedback and continuing to produce high value work.

Embracing AI and Technological Integration

The report also highlights a growing interest in artificial intelligence (AI) within the agency sector. While 80% of agencies plan to increase their use of AI, integration challenges and team resistance are slowing progress. This indicates a need for effective change management strategies to fully harness AI’s potential in enhancing agency operations.

The ASK BOSCO® platform, looks to ease this growing team resistance within agencies, by making their work easier and quicker to complete. With its advanced AI capabilities, ASK BOSCO® enables agencies to connect all their data sources for seamless reporting, offering actionable insights at a glance, making it faster and simpler for agencies to complete complex client reports. The platform goes beyond reporting by predicting where to allocate media spend for maximum return and helping plan client budgets with precision. By integrating tools like ASK BOSCO®, agencies can overcome barriers to AI adoption and become more proactive with the use of data-driven marketing within everyday work.

The Agency Forecast Report underscores the dynamic nature of the agency landscape, marked by both challenges and opportunities. By focusing on operational efficiency, exploring new markets, investing in marketing, strengthening client relationships, and embracing technological advancements, agencies can navigate the complexities of the industry with confidence and resilience.

For a more detailed analysis and to read the full report, you can download the full Agency Forecast Report from Agency Hackers’ official website.

The definition of success is quite subjective, and from our point of view as digital marketing experts, we determine successful Shopify ecommerce businesses as ones where their online marketing performance matches their sales performance.

Shopify is a versatile commerce platform that empowers users to sell products online and in person, catering to businesses from solo entrepreneurships to global brands. We wanted to compare the leading 25 retailers who are currently leading by revenue vs their online marketing performance using our ASK BOSCO® Competitor Benchmarking feature.

Our ASK BOSCO® Index analysis involves evaluating the “credit score” or digital presence of leading retailers and comparing their performance using our competitive benchmarking tool.

Here are the top UK Shopify stores ranked by revenue, according to AI:

• Oh Polly 
• Gymshark 
• Victoria Beckham 
• Motel Rocks 
• Represent 
• Club L London 
• Public Desire 
• Jaded London 
• Hunter Boots 
• French Connection UK 
• Drake’s 
• Lucy & Yak 
• Skinnydip London 
• Twinings 
• Kick Game 
• Killstar 
• BrewDog 
• Pangaia 
• Hiut Denim Co. 
• Rocket Dog 
• Chubbies 
• HELM Boots 
• Asphalte 
• Dixxon 
• Negative Underwear 

What is the ASK BOSCO® Index Score?

The ASK BOSCO® Index, part of the Competitor Benchmarking section in our platform, is your go-to tool. It measures your digital presence and evaluates the impact of your SEO, paid search, website health, and other marketing efforts.

Unlike traditional metrics that focus solely on marketing budgets, the ASK BOSCO® Index takes a holistic view. It analyzes your performance across both paid media and organic traffic, using data from trusted third-party sources to provide a comprehensive and accurate assessment of your online presence.

So, what’s a good ASK BOSCO® Index score? Scores range from 0 to 1000, with the average for brands and retailers hovering around 500. A higher score signals stronger online performance. Think of it as your digital marketing “credit score.” The closer to 1000, the better you’re doing as a retailer online!

Top ASK BOSCO® Index by online performance

Who topped our league table?

Gymshark

Gymshark has shown that leadership in revenue and marketing go hand in hand, solidifying its position as a leader in the fitness apparel industry.

During Black Friday, the brand employed aggressive discount-centric marketing, offering up to 70% off to create urgency among shoppers. This was amplified through omnichannel advertising, leveraging email campaigns, social media ads, and paid search to maximize visibility. Collaborations with fitness influencers further extended the reach, adding authenticity to their promotions.

Beyond sales events, Gymshark’s “We Do Gym” brand platform showcased its connection to gym culture through storytelling, high-quality content, and events like community workouts and pop-ups. The brand’s retail expansion included a New York pop-up store and the launch of its premium ‘Everywear’ line in partnership with Selfridges, effectively positioning Gymshark in the luxury fitness market. These efforts were supported by cross-channel promotions using influencers and digital campaigns. On social media, Gymshark maintained dominance by creating trending short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram Reels, engaging their audience with fitness challenges, and generating hype with limited-edition product drops

Findings from our analysis

Our performance analysis revealed some interesting insights. Notably, a few brands in our top 10 rankings performed significantly lower in terms of revenue. However, Skinny Dip, Pangaia, and Asphalte emerged as standout performers in the ‘Website Performance’ category. Despite their success, competing with Gymshark’s dominance in paid search performance and market share presents a substantial challenge. The contrast between these performance metrics underscores the varying strengths and strategic focuses of different brands.

Want to know more?

If you’d like to know more about the ASK BOSCO® competitor benchmarking feature and find out where your brand sits on our league table rankings, simply get in touch with us at team@askbosco.com – we’d love to hear from you.

The recently released “State of PPC 2024” Global Report by PPCsurvey.com provides a detailed analysis of the pay-per-click advertising landscape and highlights key trends and challenges for the upcoming year. For agencies, this report is a crucial resource, offering insights into how industry-wide changes impact their strategies, operations, and client relationships. Here, we focus on the report’s implications for agencies and explore how they can adapt to maintain a competitive edge.

Key Challenges for Agencies in 2024

Talent Acquisition and Retention

One of the most pressing concerns for agencies is hiring and retaining top talent. According to the report, 68% of agency respondents identified talent acquisition as a significant hurdle. The fast-paced evolution of PPC platforms and the increasing need for specialized skills in automation and AI tools make finding qualified professionals more challenging.

Action Point: Agencies should prioritize continuous training and professional development for their teams. Upskilling existing staff in emerging technologies can mitigate hiring challenges while enhancing employee satisfaction and retention.

Client Relationship Management

Agencies are under growing pressure to manage client expectations amidst a rapidly changing PPC landscape. With platforms rolling out new features and automation tools, agencies must balance the promise of cutting-edge technology with transparent communication about realistic outcomes.

Action Point: Establishing clear KPIs and regularly educating clients on platform changes and their potential impact can foster trust and alignment. Leveraging detailed reports and AI-powered insights will help showcase the value delivered by the agency.

Platform Dynamics and Budget Allocations

Diversification Across Platforms

Trust in major platforms, particularly Google Ads, has declined, with concerns over transparency and support. This shift is driving agencies to diversify budgets across multiple advertising platforms to reduce dependency and mitigate risks.

Action Point: Agencies should develop expertise across a variety of platforms, including social media and emerging ad networks. This approach ensures flexibility and positions agencies as strategic partners capable of maximizing ROI in a fragmented ecosystem.

Emphasis on Performance Max Campaigns

Google’s Performance Max campaigns are set to see a 63% increase in budget allocation. These automated campaign types offer opportunities to improve performance but require careful management to ensure they align with overall strategy.

Action Point: Agencies need to deepen their understanding of Performance Max and other AI-driven tools. This includes staying updated on best practices for implementation, optimization, and reporting.

Adapting to Multi-Channel Complexities

The rise of multi-channel advertising has introduced new challenges, particularly in attribution and data integration. For agencies, accurately measuring and reporting the success of campaigns across various channels remains a top priority.

Action Point: Investing in robust cross-channel reporting tools and attribution models will enable agencies to deliver holistic insights. Agencies should also explore automation solutions to streamline data collection and integration processes.

Opportunities for Growth

Leveraging AI and Automation

AI and automation are becoming indispensable in the PPC landscape, with a growing number of agencies incorporating these technologies to improve efficiency and scale campaigns. However, the human touch remains critical in strategy and creativity.

Action Point: Agencies should adopt a hybrid approach, combining AI-powered tools like ASK BOSCO® for data-driven optimization with human expertise for strategic planning and creative execution.

Positioning as Strategic Advisors

Clients increasingly look to agencies not just for execution but for strategic guidance. Agencies that position themselves as thought leaders in PPC trends and innovations will strengthen client relationships and enhance their value proposition.

Action Point: Regularly sharing insights from reports like the “State of PPC 2024” with clients through blogs, webinars, or newsletters can demonstrate thought leadership and build trust.

Conclusion

The “State of PPC 2024” report underscores the complexities and opportunities that agencies face in the evolving PPC landscape. By addressing challenges in talent management, client relationships, platform diversification, and multi-channel strategies, agencies can navigate this dynamic environment with confidence. Embracing AI and positioning as strategic partners will be key to thriving in 2024 and beyond.

Agencies that stay agile, informed, and proactive will not only adapt to the changes but also set themselves apart as leaders in the competitive world of PPC advertising.