For most companies, marketing spend can be considered a material expense, often running at 5% or more of annual revenue. Yet, a majority of these organizations have not included marketing in their corporate governance and risk mitigation efforts, conducting limited or no supplier compliance, financial management and performance testing.
Given the complex nature of the marketing and advertising space, the less than ideal levels of transparency and the murkiness of advertiser supply chains, this creates a precarious situation.
It must be noted that this is an industry which is largely predicated on the concept of “estimated billing,” where advertisers are invoiced in advance for approved activity by their agency partners. These funds are then disbursed over time by the agency to third-party vendors or realized as agency revenue in accordance with remuneration agreement terms. An underlying tenet of this billing model is that estimated costs are “trued up” to reflect actual costs incurred once a job is closed, supplier invoices tallied, and an agency’s time-of-staff investment is fully posted. However, reconciliation efforts do not always occur and approved but unused funds, for which advertisers have been billed, are not always returned in a timely manner or at all.
Many Client/ Agency contracts contain solid control language to protect the advertiser and to provide explicit financial management and reporting guidelines to their agency partners. That said, many agreements are outdated and do not contain the requisite terms and conditions necessary to adequately safeguard an advertiser’s marketing spend. Ironically, good contract or not, too few organizations review supplier compliance with agreement terms or conduct financial and performance reviews of their agency partners… even though most agreements provide advertisers with the right to audit the agency to review the financial documentation that supports the agency’s billings.
In our experience, advertising agencies expect their clients to conduct periodic compliance and performance testing. The fact that more companies are not following through on their audit rights is a mystery. Why should testing be performed? Because periodic compliance reviews drive accountability and improve transparency, addressing questions such as:
- Did we get what we paid for?
- Were we charged the appropriate rates for the work performed?
- Were third-party expenses billed on a pass-through basis, net of any mark-up?
- Did the agency reconcile fees to reflect its actual time-of-staff investment?
- Were third-party vendors paid in a fair and timely manner?
- Were agency and third-party vendor billings accurate?
- Are future projects being estimated and approved using accurate historical information?
Beyond providing financial management assurance and recoveries, compliance testing identifies gaps in control, yields recommendations for improving contract language and reporting and can drive process enhancements that result in future savings.
In the end, sound Client/ Agency agreements backed by a formal risk mitigation program can protect a company’s marketing investment, converting risk control measures into business growth opportunities. This, while driving accountability and providing company stakeholders with a sense of trust and confidence that its marketing team, agency partners and third-party suppliers are properly stewarding the funds entrusted to them.