The Agency Problem

Reflecting on his agency days, Andrew flags a counterintuitive fact about agency life: the more you grow, the harder things get.

“We were continually chasing new victories, we were always pitching, and we’d win a large majority. We were hiring like crazy and pulling long hours, but our bottom line seemed to be stagnant. That was a really big problem,” says Andrew.

“Many growing agencies find it very difficult to match their capacity with their overheads and outputs. It’s wonderful to win campaigns, but the more you win in your top-line revenue, the more it creeps into your bottom-line net profitability.”

Sound familiar? Well, it’s likely the problem isn’t your campaigns or content – you’re the creative ones, after all – instead it’s how you run the business. 

Set Up to Struggle

There are hidden inefficiencies in every business; all your agency needs to do is identify and eliminate them. 

Andrew cites the age-old problem of agencies simply not being able to find the right assets at the right time. Picture this. Your phone rings, it’s a client calling, and they say: “Hey, can you send over that old campaign we did, like, five years ago? The new CEO wants to look at it.” Suddenly, chaos strikes the agency floor, everyone starts looking for these assets that are… erm, somewhere… probably… on someone’s computer. After a few hours, if you’re lucky, you manage to find what you’re looking for.

This might seem a flippant example, but research suggests huge amounts of billable agency hours are lost searching for content which already exists. In fact, a whopping two-thirds of marketing professionals spend more than 3 hours a week locating assets, according to Canto’s State of Digital Content 2025 report. Let’s do some quick maths. If your agency has 50 employees, you could be looking at 150 hours each week – or call it 1,000 days each year – lost on avoidable admin.

As your agency scales up, these hidden inefficiencies pile up too, meaning your people work harder for less and end up burning out. But instead of setting yourself up to struggle, what’s the solution? AI provides some answers on how to boost your agency’s efficiency and profitability, but according to Andrew operational resilience comes from more fundamental tech-stack decisions.

Tools for Success

“There are three pieces of software I believe are fundamental to driving operational resilience and calming the chaos,” says Andrew.

Any guesses? Alright, we’ll tell you: accounting software, work management software, and a digital asset management (DAM) solution. 

Firstly, accounting software, which most businesses will be familiar with. This is what enables you to understand where billable hours are going, and gives you the ability to quote for new work, even at scale. 

Second on the list of vital tech for agencies is work management software. Andrew says that “the way this allows you to manage both your internal structures and how your clients engage with you, is just a game-changer.”

Finally, Andrew explains why digital asset management software is so vital: “A DAM platform has been purpose-built to intelligently store, manage, find, share and distribute all of your digital assets. It literally sits as a foundational piece of tech that allows creative agencies to scale their content properly. The more you create and the more successful you are, the more you need a purpose-built environment.”

There are a range of benefits for agencies which embed a DAM platform, according to Andrew.

Save Time

Those hours lost searching for content are quickly eliminated with a DAM platform. As Roxanne Lewington, Growth Marketing Manager at Canto, explains: “With digital asset management, you’re going to streamline your creative operations, and you’re not going to lose those assets that might be otherwise buried and hidden from view. And even better, it enables clients to self-serve.”

Unlock Efficiencies

A DAM solution also connects to your channels, bringing efficiencies when it comes to distributing and promoting your content. “Where it starts to get really intelligent, and a whole lot more useful for agencies, is that DAMs like Canto can automatically share images to live environments, like websites or ecommerce platforms,” Andrew adds.

Discover Data

Having a smart software solution around your assets gives your agency access to a whole world of data, which in turn can help drive better operational resilience. “The data you get out of a DAM is a massive benefit,” says Andrew. “Who’s been accessing your imagery? What are they downloading? What are people searching for? All these interesting insights can be really powerful for agencies looking to increase capacity and delivery, and make the right decisions.”

Time to Thrive

Canto believes agency life doesn’t have to be chaotic. With the right tools for success, your agency can go from surviving to thriving, and scaling up can become a reality.

Any final words, Andrew? “We’re at the forefront of DAM technology, I believe we’re a fundamental piece of technology to help creative agencies and organisations really thrive in what I think is a challenging but exciting time in the content creation space,” summarises Andrew.

Canto is an industry-leading digital asset management (DAM) solution, bringing innovative technology to help agencies scale-up and control their bottom line. Find out more about Canto for agencies.