As a performance media buying agency, Sprout services e-commerce advertisers and operates across paid search, social channels, performance display, has an in-house creative team, and offers search engine optimisation consultancy services. Through programmatic media buying, Sprout can efficiently optimise towards a conversion objective and assess the true attribution value of online media spend.

In order to qualify for the Premier Partnership status, agencies must create and complete a Partners company profile, pass the AdWords certification in Google Partners, meet the spend requirement across the managed accounts, and demonstrate agency performance by delivering strong client and company growth.

Agency CEO, Stijn Smolders is thrilled with this news and the new found access to Google resources. He says, “Having earned our Google Partner badge means that we have passed Google AdWords product certification exams, and we’re up–to–date with the latest product knowledge. This badge affords us exclusive access to events, training, industry research, product updates, and the expert Google Partners Community. And this value and insight can, therefore, be passed onto our clients to deliver a superior service – one that is not readily available through all digital, marketing agencies.”

One of the major highlights this year is its appointment by one of the largest financial institutions in South Africa as the exclusive digital media agency. And now, in closing off 2016, the agency has more great news to celebrate. This month, the agency’s Programmatic Team was invited to attend a DoubleClick Programmatic Masterclass in London.

“We were nominated, invited, and have attended as the only agency from Africa,” says Smolders. “We have travelled with two digital marketers from client and delegates from Google/DoubleClick SA.”

The two-day Programmatic Masterclass included other performance clients from across Europe. The course was designed to help agencies use the power of automation and integration to transform online marketing efforts and combine data sources to be relevant at the right moments. It also aimed to teach the team how to further make the best use of dynamic creatives, define the right set of KPI’s according to the phases in the path to purchase and establish the right tech infrastructure. Furthermore, it was intended to help create better, collaborative relationships between all key stakeholders.

Smolders adds, “Sprout is committed to educating advertisers, publishers and key industry leaders as to how the digital media landscape has changed. Following this Masterclass, we look forward to imparting some of this knowledge, insights and experiences with the market.”

For more information, visit sproutperformance.com. Alternatively, connect with them on Facebook, Twitter or on LinkedIn.