Why Conflicted Agency Relationships Sabotage Your Digital Performance
Every day, dealers choose to work with companies supporting their on-brand archrivals. This is a fundamental mistake because all the ills affecting digital marketing performance start with these conflicted relationships.
The core issue is simple: Do you really think these companies are acting in your best interest? If you believe that they will help you gain sales at the expense of their other customers, then you are paying a partner to steal sales from you.
The Problem: The Inherent Conflict
The digital marketing landscape is plagued by agencies that are conflicted, meaning they serve directly competing dealers.
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The Zero-Sum Game: Your goals—increasing sales and market share—can only be achieved if your competitor loses sales.
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The Vendor's Dilemma: A conflicted agency cannot help two competing dealers achieve these goals. They are selling gunpowder to both sides of the conflict. Their natural response is to appease all customers, leading to flat performance and rising costs for everyone.
The Impact Across All Digital Channels
The lack of exclusivity sabotages performance across the entire digital spectrum, from strategy to execution.
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SEM/PPC Campaigns: An agency won't invest heavily in data or smart bidding strategies to help you conquer your rival's market because they would create a "pump-out" problem for the competitor that they also serve.
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SEO & Content: An agency cannot engineer your SEO to win against a competitor if they are also managing that competitor's site. This results in weak, templated content that provides no competitive advantage, as customization would benefit one client over the other.
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Strategic Planning: Since the agency knows they cannot solve your core problem (winning against your rival), they focus on generic metrics (VDP views, traffic) that do not directly measure business outcomes like sales, market share, and cost.
The Solution: Demand Exclusivity and Transparency
More than ever, you need clarity and visibility into exactly what your marketing partners are doing.
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Refuse the Conflict: Demand an unconflicted partner. This is a fundamental competitive advantage you should not surrender.
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Use Data as Your Weapon: Leverage OEM reports (pump-in/pump-out, sales by ZIP) to identify lost sales and use that data to hold your agency accountable for improvement.
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Focus on True Goals: Align all metrics with sales, market share, and cost reduction. Stop accepting metrics that fail to reflect bottom-line performance.
Watch the Full Webinar
For a deeper dive into these topics and to hear directly from Rob Stoesser, watch the full webinar below.