Identifying Top Agency Talent - Anthony Tsigourakos-adMarketplace

Optimizing keywords match types bid prices and ad copy Managing multiple campaigns with Google adMarketplace and YahooBing Translating and understanding performance reports and trends Communicating with clients in a language that is easy to understand These are the daytoday actions of a digital agency39s search marketing team But for all the technical challenges these teams face the biggest may be hiring the right peopleWith larger portions of advertising budgets migrating to digital agencies must find topnotch talent to manage campaigns at greater scale than ever before This is crucial to a campaign39s success and directly related to an agency39s ability to retain and grow client relationships As clients get increasingly aggressive with managing profit margins and demand more from their partners agencies are left with little room for errorI recently spoke with several of adMarketplace39s agency partners to find out what character traits they look for when assembling their search teams As technical as search marketing can be I was surprised to hear the emphasis on personality traits over technical skillsAs simple as it sounds MediaVest39s Jeff Gores seeks out candidates who are thinkers Searchrelated or not Jeff wants to know they don39t just regurgitate information but acknowledge and absorb itquotI don39t even care if their direction is wrong just as long as they can show me that they can string along thoughts to come to a conclusionquot he saidWith the ability to think comes the need to understand the bigger digital picture PHD39s Heather Molina explains that when operating within a bigger agency individuals must understand the interconnectedness between their work and the team39s overall media strategy Team members must understand how the entire agency is charged with working for the client not just concerned with their piecequotEven though things may be 39siloed39 operationally they are deeply connected from a strategy levelquot she said quotHow does what they are doing feed back into the overall goals for the client that we have establishedquotThis concept plays handinhand with what Resolution Media39s Kristen DeLotto values Intuition She looks for someone who can anticipate client questions and requests quotwho is always prepared for what will likely be thrown our way because they are so in tune with the client and their businessquotThis intuition is essential to building strong client relationships and ultimately retaining business Molina understands the need for her team to have the ability to quotguide a client in a space that is living breathing and always evolvingquot Intuition is quotwhat clients expect from us as their agency to have such an immersed understanding of their business that we can operate seamlessly with them and explain to them what their opportunities arequotMindshare39s Danny Huynh looks for candidates who are visionaries in their own right as quotone must have the ability to deliver today39s needs and layer innovation for tomorrow39s opportunitiesquot he said SEM is truly a quottest and learn approach and employees should be fearless in their quest for learningquot When data is collected from test campaigns team members must be able to tell a story out of the dataEveryone interviewed values strong communication skills if one doesn39t have the ability to clearly communicate his or her thoughts or vision the agency could be underestimated by the client Mindshare39s Jonathan Cho feels that quotin our business the ability to communicate effectivelyamp8212written and oralamp8212is critical to our success This comes from building confidence through industry knowledge and practice speaking internally and with clientsquotAlso crucial is having a personality that fits since a team must be able to rely on and trust each member for support in such a fastpaced everchanging industry Gores said that quotif we didn39t like each other our group would implode I don39t care what kind of personality it is necessarily but as long as it is one that fits in our groupquotCho looks for people who put the team before his or her own agenda quotWith all of the curve balls we get thrown by current clients as well as the constant new business we pitch having someone commit to the needs of the team first is paramount This shows in their work and ends up improving overall team moralequotBut team cohesion cannot occur without accountability Huynh explained that his team39s best members are those who set clear achievable goals and work towards them without excuses Taking responsibility for one39s actions while understanding how individual work affects the entire group ultimately ensures that a team will work together wellThey must be able to multitask too howeverquotThis industry is fast paced and we can39t really afford to dedicate a lot of time to one specific task or projectquot DeLotto said quotWe need to be able to balance everything even though at times it is a heavy workloadquotYou may notice that no one mentioned mediaspecific skillsamp8212these can be taught and are learned over time While seniorlevel hires may require search and optimization experience overall the most valuable team members are highlyambitious thought leaders who have an inherent ability to fit in with a group yet are also able to lead othersAnthony Tsigourakos is the Director of Agency Sales at adMarketplace which delivers search performance at scale outside of Google Bing and Yahoo adMarketplace39s datedriven technology optimizes bids by both traffic source and keyword for the Internet39s largest marketers and their agencies With over 250 million searches performed each day across its network adMarketplacecom is the leading company exclusively focused on search syndication advertising Anthony can be reached at anthonyadmarketplacecomCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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