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This mid-sized, New York City–based media agency is recognized for delivering smart, data-driven media buying, powered by human passion and common sense. They plan, buy, and manage campaigns for beloved consumer brands, helping clients maximize every media dollar.
But while the agency was busy driving efficiency for their clients, they realized their own operations could use a tune-up. Hiring surges, onboarding slowdowns, and unpredictable market swings made it difficult to scale fast without burning out teams or budgets.
Although the agency had worked with contractors before, it had never tried a true outsourcing partnership. That changed when a newly hired VP of Application Development, a long-time believer in strategic outsourcing, joined the team and saw a clear opportunity.
The VP recognized a familiar pattern: big wins often sparked big questions, “Can we really scale this quickly? Can we deliver the same level of quality for every new client?”
The challenge wasn’t capability, though. It was capacity. The agency wanted to seize opportunities without second-guessing whether their resources could keep up. They needed a way to expand and contract with the market, maintaining premium-quality delivery without premium-level costs.
Scalability became the mission. The agency sought a flexible and trusted partner who could help them move faster and smarter while keeping their creative energy focused where it matters most: on their clients.
In May 2024, the agency launched its first engagement with SEBPO, focused on advertising operations. What started as a three-person team quickly grew to seven full-time professionals, with five based in Bangladesh handling ad ops and two in El Salvador managing paid search and social strategy.
From day one, SEBPO delivered structure and speed:
The agency’s teams quickly saw the difference. We weren’t a “big box” outsourcer. We are a partner with deep media and advertising expertise, able to integrate quickly and deliver immediate value.
Confidence spread quickly across the organization. New departments began to lean in, expanding SEBPO’s role to include finance, accounting, and business analytics support. What began as an experiment soon became a catalyst for change.
The impact was undeniable. Within months, outsourcing evolved from a tactical fix to a strategic advantage.
Agency leaders who once hesitated to outsource began championing it. SEBPO’s teams readily adopted new workflows, freeing internal teams to focus on their core strengths: strategy, client relationships, and creative innovation.
Other key outcomes included:
As the VP put it: “Getting people better focused on the stuff they want to be doing anyway, by getting other things off their plate, not only makes for happier, more productive employees but it also denies people the default excuse for why they lack the time to focus on higher-value efforts.”
Today, outsourcing is a cornerstone of the agency’s operations. With SEBPO, the agency has built a business model that flexes with the market, adapts to opportunities, and keeps its people focused on growth, not just grinding. The VP explains, “No longer can it be said that we’re just not big enough to handle where we want to go or what we aspire to do for our clients.” By trusting SEBPO to handle the work that once slowed them down, the agency has positioned itself to scale smarter and stay future-ready, no matter what the market brings next.
We manage a wide range of executional and quality assurance tasks that ensure search and social support run smoothly across various platforms for the client. The SEBPO Team handles day-to-day functions, including pacing reviews, ad trafficking, QA of builds, dashboard and data checks, negative keyword updates, launch preparation, and platform-specific tasks. Using tools such as Crisp, Google Ads, Facebook Ads Manager, RenderSEO, SA360, Google Sheets, SharePoint, and various supporting platforms, the team ensures campaigns are set up accurately, monitored consistently, and maintained with high operational precision.
We create competitor-focused dashboards and performance reports that translate complex market data into actionable insights. By visualizing trends and benchmarks, we help clients gain a deeper understanding of their competitive environment and make more informed strategic decisions.
We support the full Record-to-Report cycle through reliable data collection and accounting processes. Our work ensures accurate financial documentation, timely reporting, and improved visibility into organizational performance—strengthening overall financial integrity and decision-making.
“Getting people better focused on the stuff they want to be doing anyway, by getting other things off their plate, not only makes for happier, more productive employees, it also denies people the default excuse for why they lack the time to focus on higher-value efforts. No longer can it be said that we’re just not big enough to handle where we want to go or what we aspire to do or become for the clients we serve.”
– VP of Application Development
This is a story about a mid-sized NYC-based media agency that gets big results for its clients.
From strategy to purchase and execution to impact, the agency buys media and manages campaigns for brands you know and love, improving efficiencies along the way.
Their data-focused, nimble teams share a tagline with the world that celebrates delivering smart media buying with both human passion and common sense.
But providing human-focused efficiency to clients eager to buy media for their brand campaigns first requires the agency to get its own efficiencies right. While it has used contractors in the past, the agency had never explored an outsourcing partner.
Enter the agency’s newly hired VP of Application Development, who is a big believer in the value of outsourcing done right. He had seen BPO work well in previous roles and championed the idea to his new employer.
He knew outsourcing marketing services could bring a ton of benefits. For him, those benefits were about one thing most of all: scalability.
“At the agency, we can sometimes get super excited about the prospect of bringing in a big new client,” he says. “But then it hits us: Can we really hire and onboard all the people it will take to really deliver on this opportunity? Can we scale up that quickly?”
The doubt as to whether the agency can deliver to its own high standards can sometimes hold it back, he says. “After all, we’re committed to getting things right from the very start. It’s just who we are.”
Being able to scale quickly so the agency can get ‘things right from the very start’ was a big part of why the quest for a best-fit BPO solution was so compelling. Turns out, the ability to scale quickly really matters. It lets a business move with the market.
In good times, it can grow without missing a beat. In bad times? It can right-size without having to cut as many employees with skills built from years of experience.
No business, regardless of industry, wants to pay premium-level compensation for non-premium-level work. This is especially true when, as the agency has now experienced, it has found a flexible outsourcing partner that can deliver deep subject matter domain expertise at the right price.
In the first months after taking on its new client, SEBPO’s depth in media and advertising proved to the agency that it wasn’t dealing with a “big box” outsourcer but a specialty provider, primed to deliver.
The agency first engaged SEBPO in May 2024 to focus solely on advertising operations.
Since then, the SEBPO Team of three has grown to seven, with five FTEs in Bangladesh focused on ad ops and two more in El Salvador doing paid search and social strategy.
There’s…
Outsourcing teams have quickly gained trust across the client agency. New work is regularly added to SEBPO across the agency’s operations, including finance, accounting, and business analytics. With strong efficiency gains, SEBPO Teams quickly absorb new workflows and knowledge bases, lightening the load on agency employees.
The in-depth domain experience SEBPO has brought to the work allows for seamless transitions and rapid response to new needs.
Agency leaders, some of whom were once reluctant to admit their need to button up process documentation, standardization, and centralization, now experience outsourcing as a catalyst for new thinking and ways of working.
At the agency, things have changed so much that any initial reluctance to embrace outsourcing has given way to enthusiasm. Today, for many tasks in the agency, doing the work yourself (by failing to use SEBPO to get it done fast and right) is actually frowned upon. Outsourcing a task that can be handled quickly and efficiently by others is becoming the rule rather than the exception.
Outsourcing is no longer considered ‘outside the norm’ by agency leaders.
These days, the new VP responsible for introducing the agency to the benefits of outsourcing describes the agency’s people as “less in the weeds and more focused on strategy and building client relationships.”
The agency has been able to reallocate employee resources to more strategic and revenue-generating tasks, as opposed to back-end, still-valuable but lower-level work.
“Getting people better focused on the stuff they want to be doing anyway, by getting other things off their plate, not only makes for happier, more productive employees, it also denies people the default excuse for why they lack the time to focus on higher-value efforts,” says the VP. Does he feel validated in his choice to pursue a BPO solution?
Without a doubt, he says. “No longer can it be said that we’re just not big enough to handle where we want to go or what we aspire to do or become for the clients we serve.”
Having SEBPO Teams in place allows the agency to future-proof its business against whatever the market sends its way.
