How First Page Digital Delivered Exceptional Marketing Campaigns Fuelled By Aspire’s Corporate Cards and Spend

The Company: Singapore’s top digital marketing agency and global performance marketing partner

First Page Digital, an award-winning digital marketing agency with offices in Singapore, Australia, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Dubai and New Zealand, offers a comprehensive suite of cutting-edge online marketing services, including SEO, pay-per-click advertising, social media marketing, and content creation. First Page Digital was named among the top 10% of the Clutch Global Winner Circle in 2023 and earned Best SEO Strategy and Biddable Team of the Year at The Drum Awards. 

Since its inception in 2011, the agency has helped drive remarkable growth for startups and Fortune 500 companies, including renowned brands like Under Armour, iShopChangi, Awfully Chocolate, and Frasers Hospitality. With a strong emphasis on data-driven results, innovative solutions, and dedicated client support, First Page Digital has established itself as the market leader in digital marketing and advertising, empowering businesses to achieve their online marketing objectives and enhance their digital presence effectively.

The Challenges: Low visibility into finances impeded strategic decision-making

As a leading digital marketing agency handling hundreds of client accounts, from startups to large enterprises, First Page Digital lacked a robust and unified means to track and manage their expenditure. This impacted their ability to make informed strategic decisions quickly and adapt to the rapidly evolving digital space and changing market demands.

#1 Inaccurate tracking of advertising and marketing spend

Managing over 200+ SEO and SEM campaigns across major platforms like Google, Meta, Lazada, Amazon, First Page Digital must get timely and meaningful insights into company finances to optimise their marketing campaigns effectively. As clients typically incur varying amounts of marketing spend depending on the platform, it could be difficult to get a clear and accurate overview of advertising spend at all times.

#2 Costly and time-consuming end-of-month reconciliations

Managing expenses can become increasingly complex with First Page Digital’s growing business. For instance, despite having charged advertising expenses to credit cards from other service providers, not all transactions were fully captured in the monthly statement. Instead, these transactions would roll over into the following month’s statement. To account for the discrepancies, First Page Digital had to perform time-consuming and tedious reconciliations at the end of each month. 

#3 Needing more precise budget planning

First Page Digital recognises the importance of precise budget management and the potential for innovation in tracking and allocating spending. They needed an effective and centralised system to monitor spending closely, including pay-per-click advertising campaigns, to stay within the allocated media budgets. This would allow for more accurate forecasting, better resource allocation, and help First Page Digital deliver exceptional marketing campaigns for their clients.

The Solution: Earn cashback and improve budget control using Aspire Expense Management 

Using Aspire Corporate Cards allowed First Page Digital to easily track all advertising spend quickly while earning cashback rewards in the process. Furthermore, by leveraging Aspire’s powerful built-in Expense Management and accounting integrations, First Page Digital could streamline its financial processes and gain better control over clients’ different media budgets.

#1 Centralised dashboard to effectively track all advertising spend 

Before Aspire, First Page Digital relied on one credit card for their advertising expenditure, and could only track total spending on platforms. With the ability to issue unlimited virtual corporate cards for any use case, First Page Digital could tag each client to an Aspire corporate card or attach cards to different campaigns. Using the centralised dashboard, First Page Digital could easily see in real-time each client’s total advertising spend across different platforms. Having quick access to these insights allowed First Page Digital to make informed decisions and adjustments, optimising their digital marketing efforts across various platforms.

#2 Efficient and easy reconciliations with custom reporting fields and automated capture 

Aspire offers the capability to track expenses in real-time, enabling discrepancies to be quickly identified and addressed without having to wait for the month-end statement. This allows for a more timely and accurate allocation of costs to client accounts. First Page Digital’s finance team could also set custom reporting fields based on different expense categories. Combined with Aspire’s native accounting integrations, the team could save time with faster bookkeeping and reconciliations.

#3 Consolidated overview of individual client’s advertising spend to stay within media budget

Previously, First Page Digital could only set thresholds on platform spending and had to manually track advertising spend per client. With Aspire, they could easily set a budget limit for each card that could be tagged to a campaign, client, or platform. First Page Digital was able to enjoy peace of mind and not have to worry about overspending on specific campaigns or marketing platforms. They could quickly see how much of the allocated media budget has been spent, and adjust accordingly depending on the client’s requirements or market conditions. As a bonus, they also earned rebates through Aspire’s unlimited 1% cashback with their digital purchases.