Addie vs. Agencies

We’ve worked at and run agencies. Now we’re building something better.

Here’s something most agencies won’t tell you: a surprising amount of what you’re paying them to do isn’t particularly complicated.

It’s just time-consuming.

Setting up campaigns, building audiences, finding wasted spend, reviewing search terms and bids, etc.

It’s important work. But does it really require paying an agency thousands of dollars every month?

We don’t think so.

Here’s how the agency model actually works:

We’ve seen how this works from the inside.

You go through a sales process with a founder or senior executive. They learn about your business, propose a strategy, and convince you they’ve got what it takes to transform your ad performance.

You sign the contract. They do some initial setup. Everything looks promising.

Then your account gets handed off to someone relatively junior.

That person spends a few hours a week managing your campaigns. Every couple of weeks or once a month, you hop on a call to review performance.

They make some small tweaks but things mostly stagnate.

You ask about trying something new you read about or heard about from a peer. They “look into it” but nothing really gets done. And they certainly don’t “get it” the way the founder did during the sales process.

Next month, it’s more of the same.

Meanwhile, you’re seeing competitors experiment with new strategies and technology, and you’re wondering what exactly you’re paying for.

You’re paying thousands of dollars a month for a few hours of work a week.

And much of that money isn’t even going toward managing your account. It’s paying for the sales team, account managers, administrative overhead, and everything else required to run an agency.

The little things are the big things.

Strategy matters. But once you’ve established the right audience, messaging, and goals, a lot of the work comes down to execution.

Which bids should change? Which search terms are wasting money? Which audience members aren’t a good fit? Where can you get more out of your existing budget?

This is where a lot of your performance improvements can come from.

And the problem is that doing all of this manually takes time. More time than most marketers have, and often more time than an agency is willing to spend on your account.

That’s exactly why we built Addie.

Addie connects to your LinkedIn and Google Ads accounts, understands your business, and continuously works to improve performance.

Not just during the couple of hours someone has allocated to your account this week.

And you’re still in control of the decisions that matter.

Addie does the heavy lifting so you can focus on the big picture.

You probably know your company better than an agency ever will.

You know your customers, your competitors, your product, and the deals you’re trying to win.

With Addie, you can spend a few minutes making the strategic decisions that require your expertise, then let the software handle the execution.

And if you need help with strategy? Our team has experts ready to help.

We’re not suggesting marketing expertise is unnecessary. There are some fantastic agencies out there, and we know how much value a great strategist can bring.

But great agencies are hard to find, and you shouldn’t need to hire one just to get your campaigns managed properly.

The best use of a great marketer’s time isn’t busywork. Leave that to Addie.