Who own the clients?
Who own the client?
An very good question from Mike Grehan, my friend. When we came accross the reseller and agency issue in China, mike asked me this question.
This is quite a frequent question at traditional business. Mike is the first person from outside of China asked me this question. Basicaly, the agencies and resellers serve their clients, but, when clients grow up ( normally their budget and spends grow up), Search Engines will possibably go to the target client directly and manage the account as sort of VIP client.
That happens all over the world in different markets. It did happen in China too. Especially from the end the 2004, Baidu started the war between Search Engines and Resellers. A few resellers died in the past two years, they didnt own their “Baidu” clients, Baidu did.
Why just “a few” died?
Most of the resellers still own their clients. Although they are almost a reseller, they serve their client not only PPC services, but also a wide variety of internet related services. Domain, web building and maintaining, Email server, web hosting are the main services they have. Even PPCs, their offer more than just Baidu or Google.
Yes, a reseller also resell enough services, or a so called ” solutions”. The business owner of the reseller company or his/her saleperson even have a very good personal relationship with their clients. They go dinners at night, do parties at weekend, they know everything to maintain the client relationship. They own their clients. Maybe a few of their clients will also grow up to be big advertisers, maybe Search Engines assigned them some VIP accounts and VIP managers, but they will still want those reliable local partners (resellers) to help them. One or two clients will go to a specific search engine directly, that did happen before, but they still need other local service and assitance.
So, regarding the above question, I will like to say:” It depends!”