Most enterprises are keen to work with partners that offer an integrated media and creative offering when they’re building or revamping a website, whether that solution is offered by a single agency or two that work together in a tight collaborative relationship.
As advantageous as this can be, my experience in digital media suggests that it’s even more important to find a partner that brings together digital media and website development in a single solution.
Over the years, I have worked closely with dozens of clients embarking on major website builds. As anyone who has been involved in such a project knows, the dev team will need to crunch through a massive backlog of tasks to meet the go-live deadline.
The focus inevitably falls on getting the important features into place and making sure that everything works properly. Media tends to fall by the wayside in the rush to launch the website.
Long laundry list
The result is that the website will usually go live, more-or-less on time and without any showstopping bugs, but also without generating the expected volumes of traffic. Many companies see traffic, leads and conversions take a dive after making a substantial investment in a shiny new website.
Fingers will generally be pointed at the digital media agency for not meeting its brief of bringing in sessions and conversions.
However, the root cause of the problem is usually that the website hasn’t been configured to work properly with multiple third-party advertising platforms. There is a long laundry list of requirements here that will usually fall out of the scope of the website development project as well as outside the expertise of most standalone web development agencies.
The checklist
- Setting up Google Tag Manager with all the appropriate ad platforms
- Linking catalogue feeds such as Google Merchant Centre (GMC)
- Ensuring the correct tags are in place and that they are working as they should
- Implementing server-side tracking
- Configuring Meta CAPI, Google Merchant Centre, Meta and TikTok catalogues
- Integrating first party data for custom audience lists
- Setting up GA conversion goals
- Building real-time reporting dashboards to provide the necessary data to make informed decisions
Why it makes sense to have media and dev under one roof
Without this functionality in place, it is near impossible to attract and convert users or to optimise campaigns. That’s why it’s important for companies to work either with a website partner that can offer media and web dev under one roof, or that has a close collaborative relationship with a digital media agency.
This will ensure ad spending to promote the new website generates a return on investment from the day it launches.
Teething issues are inevitable when a new website goes live. If there’s a tag out of place or the GMC is not correctly set up, site performance in terms of traffic will drop. If the media and dev teams are closely aligned, they will be quicker to identify and resolve these challenges.
The media team is responsible for tracking conversions as they move through the website. If there is a break in this flow, they can spot it fast and work closely with the dev team to fix it.
Having one contracting party responsible for media and the website also improves accountability. It avoids the finger-pointing that is commonplace when two separate agencies work independently on media and development.
Don’t miss out on traffic
Instead, there is a single team that works together to not only ensure that the website is stable and functional, but also that it supports the conversion objectives.
I reiterate that this isn’t meant to minimise the importance of creative or of the development work that goes into a website. However, the mistake that every company wants to avoid is building a beautiful website with rich functionality that no one visits.
If digital media isn’t set up correctly from the outset, a company may miss out on months of traffic and conversions, even if it scrambles to catch up and optimise.
Aligning media and website development is essential to ensure that campaigns to promote the website yield the highest possible ROI from the moment it launches.
Grant Lapping is digital executive at new-age solutions and systems integrator, +OneX. He joined the +OneX team in May 2021 after the company he founded in 2012, DataCore Media, was acquired by +OneX, a new-age solutions and systems integrator. He manages the digital media and marketing team within +OneX. Lapping has worked in digital media and strategy since 2005, and has a holistic perspective on the market due to the roles he has held across the agency, client and publisher spectrum.
