The Tao of Digital Agency Profitability

CRANK

It’s 2019, and despite years of people espousing the death of the “digital agency”, the industry is thriving and confident. Amazing work continues to be produced by top digital agencies around the world, and clients continue to hire agencies to complement their internal teams, in particular when creative or technical innovation is required. And not only that, well managed digital agencies are producing world class work whilst also achieving strong profit margins. Yes, it is possible to balance the creative Yin with the operational Yang. But it requires focus and discipline. And maybe a little luck. Our objective for this article is to distill and understand the main drivers of agency profitability, and provide tips, tactics and techniques that agency leaders can put into practice in their own businesses. To do this, we asked the leaders of ten digital agencies from the SoDA membership for their secrets of success in the pursuit of healthy profit margins — what has worked for them,…