Every day it seems like more and more marketing-related software companies out there are attempting to streamline and improve difficult or monotonous operational tasks. For agencies looking to scale, this is a particularly positive development as many of these tools and technologies have white label functionality.
If you are unfamiliar, “white labeling” in the technological sense, is when a product or service is produced by one company and given to third parties to rebrand as their own. White labeled marketing software allows agencies to brand services and capabilities as their own. For an agency looking to scale without hiring additional personnel, this can be a viable option in some areas. In this post, I’ll walk through six valuable white label tools that I’d recommend to any digital marketing agency.
1. Databox: Analytics and reporting
One of the most important—and arguably the most time-consuming—aspects of running a digital marketing agency is reporting. When you bring on new clients you are often responsible to report on any if all data related to projects that you have taken on. Having to connect the dots between Google, Facebook, Salesforce, HubSpot, and other platforms can be a huge task if done manually. For that reason, you would have to hire additional employees just to pull data and prepare reports for your clients, and even then, it would be done on a weekly or monthly basis. Databox has solved this issue by allowing businesses and agencies to connect multiple sources of data and create visually engaging dashboards and reports that update in real time.
For example, you have a client that you are running Google Ads campaigns for and want to compare that data to what they are seeing in Google Analytics and Salesforce. You can easily connect all three of these data sources and build a dashboard with pie charts, graphs, and funnels—all for the purpose of showing your client the flow of business that is being driven by your efforts. What is especially great about Databox is their white labeling features. You are easily able to brand your dashboards with your agency’s logo and color scheme. Once created, these dashboards are given their own unique URL that refresh in real-time so your client can always stay on top of progress. This eliminates the need for those ugly, cumbersome spreadsheets. And these reports are also templatized and easy to duplicate, which comes in handy when you have a number of clients who require similar reports.
2. Proposify: Proposal generator
In a previous post, I wrote pretty extensively about proposal generating tools for agencies. One of the most useful tools within that list was Proposify. For white-labelled proposals, preview links, and emails that all contain your agency’s branding, look no further. Proposify allows you to:
- Set up customized proposals.
- Customize the design of your emails.
- Send these emails from your own address without leaving the platform.
- Create custom domains for your client preview links.
The process of drafting and editing proposals is another task that leave you wanting to your hair out. Many agencies even have someone on staff whose sole job is to work with a legal team to draft and review proposals before sending them out to prospects. In that case, taking on a SaaS company like Proposify to do most of the heavy lifting for you will actually save you money. Products like these also allow you to create templates for all of the different combinations of your service offerings, which makes the production of new proposals simple and scalable.
3. HubSpot: Marketing automation
While not “entirely” white labelled, due to the fact that your clients will know you are using HubSpot, it wouldn’t be a list of effective agency tools without mentioning their agency partner program. The program allows agencies to offer HubSpot services and support for their clients. The HubSpot platform provides a CRM, content creation, social media monitoring tools, email marketing automation, and analytics.
Providing clients with this array of tools all in one place can be a fairly convincing competitive advantage. HubSpot also carries a well-recognized brand name along with it. The fancy “HubSpot Certified Partner Badge” on your website and email footers may do its part in providing your agency with some credibility and social proof.
4. SE Ranking: SEO
SE Ranking refers to itself as the “White Label SEO platform for everyone.” If that wasn’t convincing enough, the platform backs up these statements by offering a variety of SEO and marketing-related features on top of white labelling that allows you preserve your brand in front of your clients. You are able to use your own domain or client’s domain “without a single link to SE Ranking.” Additionally, you can manage users, get reports sent from your corporate email, and choose a color scheme along with your logo.
SE Ranking can save you a lot of time if you are an agency that offers SEO services. The number of tools available within the platform gives you the potential to scale operations without hiring additional staff or outsourcing work to contractors. Like many of the software on this list, the goal is to make your job easier. With the complete package within SE Ranking, you are able to accomplish more in less time for your clients.
5. Mention: Branding
Mention is a unique platform in that it allows agencies to “see what’s said about clients anywhere online, including social media, forums, news sites, and blogs.” This in theory helps clients understand their brand’s reputation online and gives agencies the opportunity to create strategies for improvement. A big selling point of this product is the insights into the client’s brand relation to social media marketing. This can be a powerful addition to any SEO or PPC client who is worried about their company’s image or who wants to see whether additional investments in branding are paying off. Mention also has a crisis management feature that lets you alert your clients when bad news breaks so that they can respond quickly.
Another great feature is the ability to generate reports automatically. Mention lets you easily export all data, mentions, and reports and have them sent directly to your clients. All reports can be customized to include the client’s logo or your agency’s logo. For any agency who is looking to expand their service offering without having to hire additional employees or outsource to other agencies, something like Mention is a great tool to do just that.
6. WordStream: Growing your business
It wouldn’t be a complete list of agency-focused white label tools without mentioning the WordStream New Business Center. Although it offers the robust client management capabilities of WordStream Advisor, the real power comes from its focus on helping agencies manage and close customers.
You are able to link prospect’s Google and Facebook Ad accounts and leverage a combination of tools within WordStream Advisor (like the Performance Dashboard, QueryStream, and the 20-Minute Work Week) in conjunction with white labeled performance graders and success reports. These tools are all aimed at analyzing and identifying opportunities within the prospects paid advertising accounts.
If you manage a PPC Agency, you’ll know how time-consuming account audits are. WordStream New Business Center, along with its arsenal of performance graders and reports, allows you to produce more in-depth and aesthetically pleasing audits faster. With more efficient sales tools at your disposal, growing your agency becomes a little easier.
Use tools to make your work more effective
Depending upon the type of agency you run and the clients you have, some of these tools may be worth giving a shot. When questioning whether or not to take on a platform for white labelling purposes, my suggestion is to treat it as an investment. You should ask yourself if the tool could impact your business: Could the tool make my operations more efficient? Could it make my agency look more professional? If the answer to either of those questions is “yes,” then there is no harm in giving these a try. The fact that many of these are SaaS models gives you the flexibility of trying them out for a couple months and then deciding whether to keep them or not.