The Agency-Survival-Guide

Creative masterpieces, effective campaigns and strong communication. Good agencies deliver real added value for their clients. Added value that these companies would otherwise never be able to create themselves. But what is behind the often spectacular results? After all, an advertising campaign is only the result of a long process.

This process consists of three things: Creativity, implementation and, above all, good organization. Good organization forms the basis for the course of a project. It brings together the various building blocks of an agency and withstands the medium and long-term challenges. And that is why we are focusing on everything that will be important for the organization in 2025 in this survival guide.

Countless agencies in the DACH region organize themselves with awork. That's why we naturally use these learnings and incorporate them into this guide. But that's not enough: we also need to hear directly from leading agencies about their assessment of the current and future situation. That's why we invited Jung von Matt, getpress and Remazing as partners and experts to share their insights with us.

Why organization determines happiness in agencies

[.toc-name]Organization determines agency happiness[.toc-name]

The dream of agency life - for many, this means unlimited creativity, exciting projects and the opportunity to achieve great things in a dynamic environment. Above all, creative minds are looking to turn their passion into a job and finally have fun in the process. After all, creativity is at the heart of agencies.

But this creative energy can only flow properly if the people who generate it are happy at work. The Work Happiness Report 2024 has clearly shown this: A lack of happiness at work not only slows down commitment (quiet quitting sends its regards), but also innovation and creativity.

[.b-important-block]Since 2022 we conduct the only representative study on happiness at work in the DACH region: Every year, we ask 1,000 knowledge workers what makes them happy at work. And the results get more interesting each year. [.b-important-block]

[$tag]🌟 Work-Happiness-Report[$tag]

[.b-button-primary]To the report[.b-button-primary]
‍

‍

At a time when agencies are desperately searching for talent and doing everything they can to attract and retain the best in the industry, the importance of work happiness should not be underestimated. However, it is often overlooked that there is one crucial point that forms the framework, so to speak, for happiness at work: Organization.

Organization is half the agency's life

Poor organization can derail even the most brilliant campaigns when deadlines are tight and chaos takes over. Efficiency and the entire agency culture suffer as a result. That's why good organization isn't just a nice extra - it's essential.

🤔 But where does good organization in agencies begin? 

An agency is made up of many different building blocks that all have to fit together to create the big picture. The real art lies in arranging these building blocks so that the end result is a solid, durable and welcoming building - a place where creativity and efficiency and even happiness can flourish.

In this agency survival guide, we show you together with experts from the agency industry how to master this art and organize an agency in such a way that it not only survives, but grows.

The most important building blocks for good agency organization 🧱 


[.toc-name]Building blocks for good agency organization[.toc-name]

Good project planning: A clear strategy on how to deal with many complex projects makes day-to-day agency work much easier. Without it, there is a lack of transparency and project managers have no overview. This is the basis for a structured process and good collaboration in agencies.

Keep an eye on capacities: Whether you need to get an overview on Monday morning or respond spontaneously to a last-minute request on Thursday, good capacity planning across the entire team is essential. This also includes planning capacities realistically and clearly. A dream come true for every team lead if this can be achieved. Planning for the next quarter, or even beyond, is also strategically relevant. Only then is it clear where the journey should go and how long-term capacities need to be planned.

Simple time tracking: Nobody likes time tracking. And that's why it has to be perfectly and intuitively integrated into the workflow so that it doesn't represent any extra effort. After all, it is essential for most agencies to track time and therefore know exactly how many project hours and therefore revenue they have. This means that monitoring is always up-to-date and nobody in the team has to chase after everyone to find out the current status.

‍External collaboration: Happy customers are the key to agency success. It's perfect for both sides when collaboration is quick and clear. Communicate easily with each other and don't have to search for files for a long time. All parties can access the current project status at any time and are not dependent on individual people. This pleases the customer and the agency - a classic win-win. ‍

The team is the superpower: there are few industries where this is more true than for agencies. The creativity and innovation, the long-term client relationships and the industry knowledge built up over the years - that's just a fraction of what makes a team with low turnover so valuable. However, low turnover is not a given, especially for young people who prioritize their happiness at work. ‍

Take advantage of trends: New trends will keep the world of work and agencies on the move. With AI, new platforms and constant changes, it is now a real challenge to stay up to date. Especially in an industry with a lot of competition, ignoring trends is a no-go.

‍

Practical experience

All this is well and good, but what really happens in practice? Is this all just theoretical blah-blah or are these building blocks really part of the everyday project work of successful agencies? Let's ask them directly:

• how they organize themselves.
• what it takes to retain talent in the long term.
• which will be important from 2025 in order to remain successful in the long term.

We introduce:

[.b-testimonial]JvM is an award-winning, owner-managed creative and advertising agency headquartered in Hamburg with 24 subsidiaries in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, China, Poland, Sweden, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.[.b-testimonial]

[.b-testimonial]As a full-service agency, Remazing has been helping brand companies to increase their sales on Amazon since 2016. In addition to its headquarters in Hamburg, the team works from hubs in Barcelona, London, Paris and Turin.[.b-testimonial]

[.b-testimonial]getpress is a PR agency from Berlin that offers solutions for strong growth companies. With a 50-people team of PR experts, getpress has been managing PR for over 350+ scale-ups and innovators across Europe since 2017.[.b-testimonial]

Bringing the building blocks together: This is how it works

In the hustle and bustle of everyday project life, it is essential that teams communicate with each other, and yet one thing is clear: problems arise, which means there is always room for improvement.

Transparency is crucial in individual projects and across teams. Everyday work becomes more difficult and slower if project details and progress are not constantly visible. This is the only way to really keep an eye on the resources in the team - the resources that are so crucial for good work results. But how do our experts handle this?

‍

The agency voices: How they put the building blocks together

💜 awork: Looking at all the different areas of your agency, how do you organize yourselves so that you can bring them together well?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:

‍We work with an internal working model to create project teams and assign different roles and responsibilities from the outset. Depending on their role, the various team members then come together in different constellations and on a regular basis in project meetings and in turn lead sub-teams.

💛 Hannes Detjen, Remazing:‍

So we try to communicate as much as possible. Of course, we have regular exchanges, both physically when we meet in the office and in virtual meetings. In addition to Hamburg as our main location, we have several international hubs, which doesn't make it that easy. That's why the documentation in our wiki is very important to us. Our internal wiki helps us to ensure knowledge transfer. We also have a Remazing Academy, where videos are recorded on important topics so that everything can be shared. These are the central building blocks of our collaboration and knowledge transfer.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

We have various cross-functional meetings between our PR consultants, sales, communications and the leadership team. Team leads talk to management to pass on the most important topics. There are appropriate Slack channels for certain topics, e.g. so that team leads are directly in the loop if support is needed for a strategy call. Further exchanges then take place via Slack or in short meetings. 

[.b-button-primary]All information about DMEXCO[.b-button-primary]

💜 awork: Where do you see the biggest challenges or gaps in your agency organization?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:
Working efficiently and profitably while at the same time involving decision-makers and hierarchical levels appropriately.

💛 Hannes Detjen, Remazing:

In our organizational structure, we are currently moving more in the direction of specialist teams. Historically, we have grown in such a way that everyone masters all topics. However, our world has become too complex over the last few years, so it has now become very difficult. In the past, the fact that customers had a central point of contact who could do everything made us strong. But the complexity is too high and onboarding takes a long time. And here, too, we can see that we need to think much more in European terms. In other words, it makes little sense to have our local teams working in silos, but rather to have a large European team, because we mainly serve our customers for the entire European market, sometimes even globally.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

The topic of knowledge sharing is super important to us. We have 30-40 employees in PR and they are all building up their own wealth of knowledge and relationships with journalists. The challenge is that small knowledge silos quickly form here, which we have to break down. A large part consists of informal knowledge building blocks that are not so easy to hold on to. This makes cross-team exchange and formats such as coffee talks, where we can exchange ideas on a relaxed level, all the more important for us.  

‍

💜 awork: What trends in agency organization are you observing right now? Anything that seems promising to you?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:‍

The realization and willingness to break away from structures and processes learned in the industry, some of which are still based on outdated business models, as well as an increased awareness of how to manage the workload of individual employees.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

Less hour-based, more value-based billing. We at getpress have been doing this since we were founded, we sell targets and not hours. But more and more agencies are moving towards this. This means that partners know transparently what they really get for their money. For the agencies, however, this also means that they have to pay close attention to efficiency in order not to sell themselves short.

Hybrid work is the present and the future. Of course, on-site client appointments are particularly important for the relationship. But I don't think it's necessary or sensible to work entirely in the office. Our remote-first approach gives us the opportunity to hire talent from completely different areas of Germany.  Of course, this requires a certain willingness to travel - it's a give and take.

[.b-stats]of the agencies that use awork use time tracking. For more than half of them, we can be sure that they charge by the hour.[.b-stats]

66%

[.b-important-block]The division into project teams is taken into account when staffing a project. This makes capacity planning even more relevant. The right skillsets help to make projects as successful as possible. Generalist roles are not dying out, but they can no longer meet today's customer requirements. This means that each department is valued, as they are consulted for their expertise on projects.[.b-important-block]

[$tag]💡 Best practice: Clear distribution of roles[$tag] 

Mastering collaboration with externals

The internal organization is often structured and set up with intention. Externally, it tends to be chaotic. Does it have to be like this? A clear solution is needed here to bring internal and external organization together without losing the overview. How do Jung von Matt, getpress and Remazing achieve this?

The agency voices: How they collaborate with external parties

💜 awork: If you ever had a wish: What would working with externals look like? What are you already doing to get closer to this wish? What challenges do you still face?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:

Equal treatment and working at eye level, which is what you expect from your own customers.
A good example of a positive change is that in pitch processes with service providers, which are often demanded by the compliance and purchasing departments of clients when it comes to commissioning production companies, for example, we now also commit ourselves and the client to paying pitch fees, just as we do when we take part in pitches ourselves.

💛 Hannes Detjen, Remazing:

We rely heavily on feedback from our customers. We send an NPS survey to our customers at least twice a year. And yes, my wish is actually that everyone is as honest as possible and clearly and transparently shows us where we can improve.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

We don't see ourselves as a service provider, but as a partner on an equal footing and that's how cooperation should be - seamless and based on a good foundation of trust. A lack of communication quickly becomes a blocker for good PR results. Simple and fast communication is therefore extremely important. Ideally via tools such as Slack, Teams and co.

Best practice: Good results through working at eye level

[.b-important-block]The agency as a service provider that has to get the best out of things without any insight or rights. That is a thing of the past. Or at least it should be if outstanding results are required. Transparency, honest exchange, in-depth insights and appreciation. These are the foundations of good collaboration with agencies. Increasingly, this also means that the initial pitch is remunerated, because after all, a lot of work goes into it. Joint collaboration in a tool should not be underestimated. Constantly changing tools and preparing the project organization twice in different places is time-consuming and leads to a lack of overview.[.b-important-block]

[$tag]💡 Best practice: Good results through working at eye level[$tag] 

‍

How agencies attract and retain top talent

Happiness at work has essential components and yet the ideal measures are different for every company. Without work happiness, not only does innovation and creativity decrease, but above all, staff turnover increases. So the answer is clear: work happiness is the key to retaining top talent in the long term. For more insights, we refer you to the Work Happiness Report 2024. But what does this mean in everyday life? Is it “just” part of the values or are there specific measures that ensure appreciation and development?

The agency voices: How they support top talents

💜 awork: Beyond the fruit basket and the foosball table: How do you ensure that you inspire and retain top talent for your agency in the long term?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:

We try to be an attractive employer through mentoring programs, professional and disciplinary training, cultural events, infusions, lectures, but also new work approaches such as hybrid working, working time models, exchange programs with various international locations and ongoing competitive trade fairs.

💛 Hannes Detjen, Remazing:

Culture is our most important asset. We started conducting regular employee surveys five years ago, where we can see how happiness and commitment are developing at team level and across all groups. We try to highlight career paths and use regular feedback. Our locations allow us to offer more than Workation, because anyone can theoretically move to any of our locations.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

Appreciative and intensive feedback processes: Everyone knows where they currently stand and what the next steps are - there is a scorecard for each position, i.e. a role description with targets and KPIs. We have regular check-ins with the direct manager and additional development meetings every three months. We also cultivate a feedback culture in which everyone is encouraged to give each other feedback - regardless of their position. 

Well-structured onboarding: New team members are picked up and integrated from day 1. At the beginning, everyone goes through our boot camp - whether trainee or senior - to get to know our working methods and processes. Step by step, the newbies are integrated into the teams and can familiarize themselves directly with projects with customers. By quickly taking on responsibility, you have the opportunity to develop very quickly.

Team culture: We have an intensive recruiting process in which team fit also plays an important role. This means that only people who are a good fit for the team and our agency really join us. Value fit is extremely important, and you can see that in the team spirit.

Lots of teamwork: Even though our team is scattered across Germany, we regularly exchange ideas, for example through daily team check-ins and fixed weekly formats. This means that no one feels like they are working alone, even if they are not in the same office.

Summer and winter days: These are our on-sites, where the entire team meets twice a year in Berlin. Here we work together in workshops on strategic topics and celebrate the year's successes together. 

[.b-important-block]The support measures are at least as important as pure flexibility. Many people work in agencies in order to learn a lot quickly. If they are actively supported beyond the day-to-day project work, that's a big plus. The gap between decades of experience and university graduates is wide - and that is an opportunity. Actively managing the exchange of ideas has even more potential here than in many other companies. And keyword reverse mentoring: this can apply to both sides.[.b-important-block] 

[$tag]💡 Best practice: Home office and workation is not enough[$tag] 

The perfect plan: how customer projects should run

Taking the time to plan well before starting a project is not always fun, but it is still the perfect basis for successful project work. It becomes even more important when many projects are being worked on at the same time. There are only two options: Chaos is inevitable or project management makes collaboration smooth and easy. 😎 Here, our experts have concrete measures to avoid precisely this chaos.

Planning customer projects: The agency voices

💜 awork: Planning customer projects: What is something that every plan must include from the outset?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:

A clear briefing as well as expectation management and budget clarity.

💛 Hannes Detjen, Remazing:

For us, it actually starts with pricing, that we define. What we actually do and when. The service package is very individual. We then define this together in the timeline and in milestones. We start with strategic aspects, then we move on to content optimization and then we get started with the campaigns. Ideally, monitoring is carried out right from the start. And at the end, we look at what needs to be optimized.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

We always start by talking to our partners about their specific goals and wishes and then create an individual PR strategy. This is where we define sensible PR goals, target media and storylines. We usually plan the topics on a quarterly basis so that our partners always know where we currently stand. Realistic expectation management and clear responsibilities are important to us when planning. And finally, a certain flexibility and adaptability - PR never sleeps and we are always ready to adjust plans if, for example, external circumstances change.

‍

💜 awork: How do you keep track of several projects at the same time?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:

Ongoing management of resources and capacities as well as the distribution of responsibilities, status deadlines and dailies in various hierarchy levels and project management tools.

💛 Hannes Detjen, Remazing:

First of all, we don't try to have one consultant working on many different projects. The focus is important to us. We try to reduce the number of clients a consultant works with. In functional teams such as Content Creation, you may have many different customers at the same time. But the usual approach here is to tackle them one after the other. Self-organization is important. We also do a lot of training in this area. And our tool landscape helps us to keep an overview.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

We create individual campaign boards for all customers. The current status of the individual projects is always recorded here, pitches are filed and to-dos are tracked in Kanban boards. There are also weekly internal check-ins in which the team discusses the current status and next steps.

‍

💜 awork: How do you ensure that spontaneous changes (whether internal or external) do not jeopardize the project?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:

Through the constant management of risks and planning. Specifically, planning in buffers that give you enough time for well thought-out reactions as well as open communication and naming watch-outs, timings, points of no return and their influence on budgets.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

There are almost always spontaneous changes in PR work. We plan buffers for this and usually always have a plan B or C in hand. In concrete terms, this means alternative contacts or topics.

[.b-important-block]Chaos and spontaneous requests are almost inevitable. What sounds bad at first can, however, be anticipated. Years of experience have made it clear what is needed in every project. This turns every project plan into a clear to-do list. Deadlines, responsibilities, resources, etc. All this and more is planned down to the last detail and agreed with the most important stakeholders. So everyone is happy or at least informed. And once the plan for spontaneous changes on the part of the customer is in place, nothing can stop the project team from successfully completing the quest.[.b-important-block]

[$tag]💡 Best practice: The plan must be in place[$tag] 

How agencies will remain successful in 2025

Is so much really changing? Are the crises and economic developments having such a big impact on the day-to-day organization of an agency? We find out from our experts what they expect for 2025.

The agency voices: So they're already ready for what's to come

💜 awork: Looking into the crystal ball 🔮: What do you think will be important for agencies in 2025 to remain successful in the long term?

🖤 David Giesen, JvM:

The ongoing further development of business and remuneration models in order to remain an attractive partner for customers under increasing economic pressure in the market and to be able to formulate service offers that create real added value for clients.

💛 Hannes Detjen, Remazing:

It's difficult to anticipate. Well, we started in 2016 and the only goal we had was growth, sales, sales, sales from customers. COVID has of course further accelerated e-commerce. With the war in Ukraine, the mood has already changed and there has been a strong shift towards profitability. Since then, people have been looking very closely. What are we spending our money on? We have also repositioned ourselves as an agency. Time tracking, customer profitability, etc. were not our focus before. We have only now established this measurability. This is also very positive in general. We are noticing that people are looking more towards growth again. People are also investing again. But always with profitability in mind. I expect the same for 2025.

🧡 Melissa Wagner, getpress

Value-based billing models and, as a result, the automation of internal processes. Agencies must work efficiently in order to be profitable in a value-based billing model. This also requires a willingness to engage with AI tools in order to be able to tap into new potential in the first place. Those who do not proactively address this now will fall by the wayside. 

‍

Statement by our CEO

[.b-testimonial]I can only speak from an organizational perspective: The most creative, agile and resilient agencies will be those that no longer allow themselves to be overwhelmed by spontaneous requests, that build a team culture that is in tune with the times and that continue to let off steam creatively.[.b-testimonial]

[.b-important-block]The interconnectedness between macroeconomic developments and trends in the agency world cannot be denied. Long-term strategic decisions influence the organization on a day-to-day basis and have a major impact. But what cannot be replaced is personal contact. In the agency world in particular, vitamin B will remain relevant far beyond 2025.[.b-important-block]

[$tag]💡 Best practice: The big picture counts[$tag] 

‍

Can it really be (organizational) love?

The learnings from our experts help us to understand what the challenges and solutions are in the organization of agencies. And if we're honest, it's all about one thing: Using the right system to focus on what you really love about your work. Being creative, creating brilliant results as a team, developing yourself.

But what can help us so that we don't have to walk this path alone? Fortunately, we are experts in this field and are ready to help. So let's look at the points together.

Automation in project management: Working value-based as an agency requires a focus on efficiency. This arises when automation takes over many small but time-consuming activities. In awork, automation is an important part of managing everyday project work more quickly.

Combining short-term and long-term planning: It is logical that short-term planning is the main focus and priority. Nevertheless, medium and long-term planning is essential in order to provide the entire team with buffers, to keep an eye on milestones and to minimize risks. Thanks to the different project views, this is super easy in awork. The timeline view helps with the long-term perspective, while the lists or the Kanban board bring light into the chaotic project routine.

What every project plan must include: A clear briefing, resources, workload, responsibilities and deadlines. Project templates help awork users to avoid having to start from scratch with every project. When many projects are started, important elements can be forgotten. With practical templates and an intuitive UI, this is a thing of the past.

Hybrid working is the future: a purely on-site policy is no longer enough to attract the best talent. Employees have become too accustomed to flexibility, which in many places also leads to higher productivity. The Work Happiness Report 2024 clearly shows that flexibility is the key to happiness at work. Hybrid teams work best together when they are digitally networked and work together on their projects from anywhere in real time. This is exactly what awork makes possible.

[.b-button-primary]awork for agencies[.b-button-primary]

Make good organization your mission

The world is going through crises and the constant change has an impact on the agency industry. Client growth is taking a back seat, while the focus is on profitability. It is precisely this efficiency that agencies have made their goal. Away from time for money and towards fixed prices that promote transparency towards clients. This requires agencies to carry out good monitoring in order not to lose sight of their own project costs.

But it's not just about efficiency and profitability. In the agency world, the creative minds behind the campaigns are more important than ever, and good communication on an equal footing with clients is an important factor for successful projects. In short: the human level has to be right. The team needs flexibility and freedom to be happy at work and yet it is important to know when personal exchange on site strengthens relationships.

All of these challenges are based on good organization. Make them a priority and make your way not only to better efficiency, but also to an overall fast, good and, above all, happy collaboration.