Last Friday, my ‘Facebook Marketing Expert’ called me 5 times, I didn’t answer. The week before that, my ‘Google Marketing Expert’ called me a dozen times. They also sent several emails. Here is the problem: They are NOT marketing experts for their respective platforms. Both Facebook and Google take an interesting approach to account management. They place entry level employees on account management and swap them out every 3 months. This leads to a horrible experience for the advertiser. To make things worse, with over 10 Facebook and 10 Google advertising accounts in my name at any given time, I have a small army of these ‘experts’ hammering me for meetings.
A few times a year, one of them catches me on the phone. The call is always the same, they ignore everything I say and shove their recommendations down my throat. Maybe 1-2 times a year, either by phone or email, the ‘expert’ will be one assigned to an advertising account that we might be struggling with at the time, so i agree to a meeting. The result is always the same, no value and a complete waste of my time.
Why does Facebook and Google take this approach to account management? I have no problem with account management being an entry level position. My problem lies in the following:
- Account swaps every 3 months - In my humble opinion, part of account management success is the relationship. With a new account manager every 3 months, there is ZERO relationship. To make things even worse, the customer is forced to to retell their brand/account nuances every 3 months.
- The overconfidence that exists in this team - You would think these individuals were the founders of Facebook and built the platform. Their recommendations work 0% of the time and increase advertising spend 100% of the time. There is no accountability because by the time they would have to admit their recommendations did not work and all they did was waste your time and spend more of your money, they are no longer your account manager.
- Aggressiveness - While this does not happen every time and is the exception to the rule, with the amount of accounts I have, a few times a year their reach out attempts are borderline stalking. Last week’s Facebook expert and the prior week’s Google expert are examples of this. In the case of the Google expert, I explained to him that the account he was calling about was actually a part of a Google program where Google was actually paying for the advertisements and managing the account completely on their end. This was being done by a senior team at Google and his recommendations were going against the recommendations of his co-workers. However he continued to call multiple times a day after I replied to his email telling them such (I never answered his phone calls). In the case of the Facebook expert, I very kindly explained to him that we had an agency that managed the account he had been assigned, he was more than welcome to email me his recommendations and I would share them with the agency (which I did) and if there was interest in a meeting, I would let him know and there was no need to follow up with me. He still found it necessary to call me 8 times after that phone conversation. I am confident that both account management teams have metrics they are managed to, however clearly these are being hit with pure disregard to the customer experience.
With time being my most valuable asset, I am always looking for ways to increase efficiency and eliminate any sort of activity that hinders my time. When I look at the time that has been spent over the last 5 years communicating with these teams, it is quite embarrassing. So, besides clearly just a vent piece written by me, here is the takeaway tip: Do NOT meet with your Facebook/Google Marketing Expert.
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Check out Part 2 - An Agency Point of View by Kim Wright.
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John Roman is the Chief Marketing Officer of BattlBox and Managing Partner of Carnivore Club. While those are his flagship brands, John is involved in a over a dozen other ecommerce brands from a equity/partner/advisor capacity.
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