My Marketing Agency Isn’t Driving Results. What Should I Do?
You hired a marketing agency to drive leads and revenue. Not getting the results you expected? Let’s uncover the reasons and the next steps you can take!
Based on 28 years and 3,212,407 hours of expertise
6 signs your marketing agency isn’t driving results
Hiring a marketing agency is an investment, so it’s natural to expect returns when you start working with one. Note that the results from your partnership with a marketing agency are not immediate. Like most investments, results may take time.
If you don’t see increased leads, sales, or revenue in three to six months, it’s time to re-evaluate your strategies.
Here are the telltale signs that your agency isn’t driving results for your business:
“If you feel like you are spinning your tires with your current agency, you probably are. Partnering with a good agency is a sizable marketing investment so you must feel confident in two things. One, your agency is aligned with you on what true success looks like and what your KPIs are. Two, the agency is hitting the agreed KPIs. If your agency doesn’t meet any of these, it may be time to start looking for a new partner.”
Trevin S.
Vice President of Marketing at WebFX
“Good agency partners will look holistically at your digital strategy to identify the strongest-performing campaigns and channels, and help steer spend to maximize your investment.”
How do I know my marketing agency isn’t driving results?
Unsure if your current marketing agency is good for your business growth? Take a look at these six signs that your agency isn’t driving results and determine it for yourself!
A downward trend in your website traffic and engagement for six months is an indicator that it’s time to regroup with your digital marketing agency. Typically, you’ll see results in your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts in three to six months, depending on a number of factors.
If your digital marketing agency is implementing other strategies like pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for your website, you must at least see an uptick in site visitors and engagement in some of your pages.
Expert insights from
Sarah B.Lead Web Marketing Consultant at WebFX
“Good marketing agencies take initiative when metrics shift. Besides determining what caused the change, they also come to you with recommendations on how to best respond — whether it’s making certain changes following an algorithm update or sitting tight during seasonal declines.”
Metrics to track website traffic and engagement
To find out if your marketing agency is driving traffic and engagement to your site, here are the key metrics you must monitor:
Metric
What it is
Page views
The number of times a page is visited by users.
Average time on page
The average time users spend on a page
Average session duration
The average time users spend on your site each visit.
Returning visitor session
Refers to visits to your site more than once from a user during a specific time frame.
Bounce rate
Refers to the percentage of site visitors who load a single page and leave without visiting another page.
Event tracking
Refers to desired actions visitors perform on site, such as submitting a form, clicking a link, or downloading a resource.
WebFX Approach
Custom SEO strategy: Every business is unique, so you get a custom SEO strategy tailored to your needs, goals, industry, and budget. Your on-page, off-page, and technical SEO strategies are personalized according to your business.
Comprehensive audit: An initial audit of your website, competitors, and other factors impacting your rankings is performed. From the beginning, you get baseline data on your site performance so you can quickly gauge if your SEO campaigns drive results.
Monitoring and performance reporting: A dedicated SEO team carefully monitors your site performance and SEO industry trends to ensure you’re on track to reach your goals. You get regular reports measuring the key metrics that matter to your business. You can rest assured that a dedicated team will pivot your strategy when needed.
Another indicator that your marketing agency is falling short of your expectations is a drop in your social media page’s reach and engagement, beyond the normal ebb and flow of social traffic. Address this early on with your marketing agency so that your audience won’t forget about your brand.
After all, social media is an excellent way to interact with your audience and foster a community among your prospects. You can also use it to lead them to your website, where you can nurture them into converting.
Metrics to track social media reach and engagement
Here are the crucial metrics that your marketing agency must report to ensure your social media reach and engagement numbers are healthy:
Metric
What it is
Why it’s important
Click-through rate (CTR)
How often social media users click a link from your post to visit your page
CTR tells you how engaging your post is
Conversion rate
How often users convert after following a link on your page
It tells you how effective your social media posts are driving desired actions or conversions, such as downloading gated content
Cost per click (CPC)
How much you pay each time a boosted post or social media ad gets clicked
It tells you how efficiently you’re spending your ad budget and how effective your paid posts are
WebFX Approach
Understanding your audience: Our team will take the time to know and understand your audience and customers, so we can effectively communicate with and engage them on social media.
Thorough social media audit: Our team will examine your social media pages and ads, and provide you with quick wins you can accomplish to improve your social media content and ads.
Personalized social media strategy: You get social media strategies tailored to your business and needs. Content and ads are also customized according to your audience, so you can build rapport with and nurture your relationships with your audience.
3. Decreasing email marketing campaigns’ open and click-through rates
Whether you’re a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-consumer (B2C) company, you’ll benefit from running email marketing campaigns. Email marketing is a cost-effective way to stay in touch with your customers, promote your offerings, and nurture your relationships with prospects.
If you observe decreasing open- and click-through rates in your email campaigns, evaluate your strategy with your marketing agency to understand why your audience isn’t as enthusiastic about your emails as before.
Key email marketing metrics
Find out your email marketing campaigns’ effectiveness by asking your agency about these metrics:
Metric
What it is
Open rate
Tells you how many email recipients are opening each email you send
CTR
Informs you how many recipients are clicking a link in your email
Bounce rate
Tells you the percentage of emails that didn’t reach your recipient’s inbox. The email either landed in their spam or was undeliverable to the email
Unsubscribe rate
It tells you how many people unsubscribed from an email you sent
You wouldn’t want your open and click-through rates to decrease, as they mean dwindling interest in your messages. Meanwhile, increasing unsubscribe rates may imply your audience doesn’t want to hear from you.
Bounce rate is also a metric you want to track, ensuring it’s not increasing over time. Your marketing agency must manage your email list and regularly purge incorrect email addresses. That way, you’re not constantly spending money to send emails to non-existent recipients.
WebFX Approach
Custom email marketing strategies and campaigns: Our team will tailor your email marketing strategy and campaigns according to your business and audience.
Email subscriber list management and segmentation: Our email marketing experts will segment and manage your subscriber list so they only receive relevant messages from you.
Subject line testing: To maximize your open rates each time we send out emails for your business, we’ll test two subject lines for each email by sending each version to a group of subscribers. The version with the higher open rate is then delivered to the rest of your list.
Ideally, your sales and marketing teams work closely together, and the sales team provides feedback on your lead generation campaigns.
If your sales team provides input about decreasing lead quality and quantity, inform your marketing agency immediately. The flow of leads may fluctuate because of algorithm or seasonal changes. However, a steady decline indicates that your agency might fall short of driving results.
Key metrics to monitor
Is your marketing agency driving leads for your business? Here are crucial metrics related to lead generation:
Informs you the total income you can expect from a customer throughout your relationship with them
Number of marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
MQLs are leads that the marketing team categorizes as prospects suited for targeting
Number of sales accepted leads (SALs)
SALs are leads that both the marketing and sales teams agree are interested in your business or offerings.
Number of sales qualified leads (SQLs)
SQLs are leads that the sales team considers a potential customer that they’ll nurture.
WebFX Approach
Personalized lead generation strategy: Your dedicated account manager will learn your business goals, industry, and audience. As a result, you will get a custom strategy that drives high-value leads for your business.
Regular reporting: Our team’s regular reports let you monitor your lead generation campaigns’ performance. Easy to understand and digest, they let you monitor your spending, lead sources, and conversions.
Return on investment (ROI) monitoring: Are your leads converting into customers? Our proprietary platform, MarketingCloudFX, can attribute your sales to your marketing efforts. As a result, it can identify which campaigns are driving results and which must be optimized to drive better quality leads.
While rising advertising costs aren’t a red flag, they become one when conversion rates remain the same. This means your marketing agency is spending more advertising dollars just to drive the same results.
Expert insights from
Kayla J.Internet Marketing Specialist at WebFX
“Rising advertising costs are a true test of an agency’s ingenuity and expertise, so they should be prepared to offer comprehensive and effective solutions.”
Key advertising metrics to track
Request your marketing agency to report these crucial advertising metrics so you can easily monitor your monthly advertising costs and their returns:
Metric
What it is
CPC
Refers to how much you pay every time a user clicks on your ad
Cost per action (CPA)
Refers to how much you spend for a user to do the desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or subscribing to your YouTube channel
Tells you the revenue you earn for every dollar you spend on advertising
ROI
Informs you of the revenue you get from investing in your marketing or advertising
WebFX Approach
Dedicated account manager: When you work with WebFX, you’ll have an account manager you can talk to about your goals and budget alignment. That way, our team can create a strategy that suits your needs and with your advertising budget in mind.
AdTechFX: Our adtech platform, AdTechFX, helps you use your first-party data for your advertising campaigns. You can create highly targeted ad campaigns and retargeting campaigns to nurture your target audience into conversion.
Data-driven advertising strategies: Every advertising dollar counts. To ensure you get the most out of your advertising budget, we employ data-driven advertising strategies and measure returns along the way. With MarketingCloudFX, you get data and insights on your ad campaigns, so your ads are optimized to drive leads, conversion, and revenue.
Perhaps the ultimate indicator that your marketing agency isn’t driving results is when you see a decrease in your ROI over time.
An early sign to watch out for is unclear reporting. “Unclear reporting is one of the biggest tell-tale signs that a marketing agency may not be driving results for your business,” Trevin says. “You get a bunch of numbers, but you don’t know what they mean.”
Additionally, an agency that isn’t connected to your revenue-level reporting tools can’t track bottom-line growth metrics that matter for your business. “If your agency isn’t connected to your CRM or revenue reporting tools, they may be only focused on marketing-level metrics and not connecting them to KPIs that are further down the funnel, such as qualified leads and revenue,” Trevin explains.
Your investment in an agency must:
Improve your brand awareness
Increase the number of leads that fill your sales pipeline
Grow your revenue
Look for a marketing agency focused on driving bottom-line growth for your business and growing your revenue.
WebFX Approach
Our team employs revenue marketing, a strategic approach that aligns marketing efforts with revenue growth. That said, we deem our campaigns successful only if they drive revenue for your business.
We also use our proprietary tool, MarketingCloudFX, to track and attribute sales, so we can accurately monitor your ROI. When you work with WebFX, you know you have an ally who focuses on growing your revenue and the metrics that matter for your bottom line.
How we’ve driven $10 Billion for clients in the last 5 years
Human Resources Solutions
#HowWeDidIt ⛏️
Website Redesign
Focused Keyword Conquesting in Conjunction with Redesign Project
73%
Increase in SEO Closed Won Revenue YoY
Construction & Engineering Management
#HowWeDidIt 🖱️
Major content organization
UX-focused internal linking
CTA optimizations for service pages
8M+
Revenue Generated in 9 Months
Corporate Coaching & Training
#HowWeDidIt 🖊️
Implement professional industry blog content
Refresh certification pages
Create thought leadership online guides to build up digital authority and traffic
50%
Increase in Organic Revenue YoY
Human Resources Solutions
#HowWeDidIt 💰
Enhanced URL structures for better SEO performance
Optimized page layout above the fold to increase user interaction and conversions
Developed and nurtured quality content across the site
#1
Revenue Driving Month Ever!
Trucks & Trailers
#HowWeDidIt 🎯
Test new local inventory PPC ads
Launch campaigns based on trailer manufacturers
Consistent campaign micro optimizations
Landing page optimizations
105%
Increase in PPC Revenue
Campgrounds
#HowWeDidIt 📝
SEO + content marketing
SEO backlink efforts
CRO focus for local campground pages
260%
increase in organic revenue
When should you start looking for another agency?
A common knee-jerk reaction when a marketing agency doesn’t meet your performance expectations is to terminate the partnership. However, it’s important to note that it may take time to see returns from your partnership. Here’s a list of signs that tell you it’s time to switch marketing agencies:
You know it’s time to look for another marketing firm when your agency is not responsive. When you invest in marketing services, you expect your marketing partner to:
Keep you updated about your campaigns’ performance
Assign a dedicated point of contact whom you can consult about your strategies
Answer your questions regarding your marketing activities
Explain strategies and best practices
Why communication is important
Whether you choose to be hands-off on your campaigns or not, it helps to have a communicative marketing agency so you’ll learn the following:
Industry best practices
Latest marketing trends
Nitty-gritty of your campaigns
When you understand all these better, it’s easier to explain results, strategies, and marketing investments to your management.
Another indicator that you may need to switch marketing agencies is that your current one doesn’t provide regular reports on your campaigns. Your firm must have marketing technology that accurately tracks your campaigns’ performance and attributes results to efforts.
A marketing company must also provide reports that consistently track the right metrics. If you get reports tracking different metrics each time (even when you have the same goals), bring it up with your agency.
If you still get inconsistent reports, it could be a sign that your agency lacks the technology or capability to measure results.
Why proper and regular reporting is important
Regular reports are critical to measure your ROI. They also ensure you’re moving in the right direction to reach your goals.
Performance reports that track the right metrics tell you which strategies drive leads and revenue and which need optimization.
You know it’s time to say goodbye to your current marketing agency when it doesn’t fully understand your niche and customers.
It’s ideal to get an agency that has experience in your industry. While that’s not always possible, partnering with an agency that handled campaigns for a related industry is the next best thing.
However, it’s time to end your partnership when your firm doesn’t grasp your customers’ needs. You know when the marketing agency doesn’t fully understand your industry and customers when your prospects’ interest in your brand is continuously declining, as indicated by:
Emails having a lower open rate and CTR
PPC ads having lower CTR
Landing pages’ bounce rates increasing
Website traffic decreasing
Why familiarity with your industry is important
It’s essential for your marketing agency to understand your industry and ideal customers. When your agency knows your customers well, it can understand their needs and effectively communicate with them.
In addition, when your marketing agency knows your industry well, it is familiar with seasonal marketing fluctuations and customer behavior. It can then adapt to these changes and change your campaigns when necessary.
Finally, a strong indicator that you should look for another agency is when it hasn’t met your performance and ROI expectations for months.
At the beginning of your partnership, your marketing firm provides a marketing forecast and promises results. While marketing forecasts are never accurate, the agency must at least deliver results close to their estimates for a few months.
For example, let’s say you hired a marketing agency to increase your number of sales qualified leads (SQLs) by 30% after six months. Suppose the firm raised your SQLs by 25%. This is acceptable.
However, if your agency delivered only a 10% increase in SQLs after six months, even without disruptive external factors such as algorithm changes or seasonal industry shifts, it’s a cause for concern.
Why performance and ROI matter
When you tap an agency to help with your marketing efforts, it’s natural to expect returns. After all, you hire a marketing firm to increase your revenue.
Your goal with your agency isn’t just to increase your social media post’s impressions or the number of search ads running. Ensure your partnership is helping you drive bottom-line growth.
What questions should I ask a new marketing agency?
When you’ve decided that it’s time to switch to a new marketing agency, have this list of questions for them to ensure you’re shortlisting firms that meet your needs:
1. How do you monitor results and performance?
Find out how an agency tracks the performance of their clients’ campaigns.
Ask about the metrics they track for different objectives and strategies. This way, you’ll find out if you’re both aligned with what success means to your business.
It’s also important to know if the agency uses marketing technology tools that can monitor campaign performance and identify bottlenecks in the customer journey. That way, they can optimize your campaigns and make informed decisions.
2. How do you communicate with your clients?
Setting expectations on how your marketing agency communicates with you is important. Find out:
How often they send reports
How their clients reach out to them for questions or clarifications
How to set meetings
When you know these details, you’re both aligned on how and how often you can reach each other. If you want to be hands-on with your campaigns, you may prefer a marketing agency that communicates with you more often and regroups with you regularly.
3. How well do you know my industry?
When you’re looking for another marketing agency, consider their experience in your industry or related niche. Each field has different needs and customers.
If they have limited experience in your niche, ask about the different industries they’ve had experience in and how they work in new fields. That way, you can gauge their flexibility and see if they can adapt to your industry.
4. Do you have testimonials?
Check out their testimonials or case studies pages to find out what their clients are saying about their experience with the marketing agency.
These pages should give you an idea of how they delivered results to their clients. It must also give you an idea of what their customers like best about the firm: Is the marketing agency responsive? Does the firm understand its clients’ target audience?
If you’re hiring an agency for website design, research their client’s websites to check out the final product.
5. When can we expect results?
When researching a new marketing agency, ask them about their timeline for your project or campaigns.
If it’s a website redesign, ask when the new site can be up and running. If you’re hiring an SEO agency, find out when you can expect organic site visit growth and increased leads from organic traffic.
Make sure the agency sets realistic timelines and results, and doesn’t lure you by overpromising quick results.
How do I end my partnership with my marketing agency?
Ending your working relationship with your marketing agency doesn’t have to be a painful breakup. Here’s how you can end things amicably and make a painless transition with a new firm:
Review your contract: Check the termination clauses in your contract to determine whether you need to stay with the agency for a fixed amount of time or can leave after giving notice within a certain period.
Inform your marketing agency about your decision: Communicate your decision about terminating your working relationship with your firm professionally. Explain why you decided to leave to help them improve their services.
Prepare for a counteroffer: Your marketing agency will likely try to win you back by pitching again. Listen to their pitch. However, ensure you make the best decision to grow your business, not out of pity or guilt.
Secure your accounts: Before the official last day of your partnership, ensure you have access to all your accounts and know how to remove your agency’s access. If the firm created accounts for you, ask them for the credentials so you can log into them yourself.
Transfer your ongoing projects: If you have ongoing campaigns, you may need to pause them as you transfer ownership to your team or your new marketing agency. If you have unfinished projects, set a deadline for a successful transfer to your in-house team or new marketing agency.
Partner with a marketing agency that has driven $10 billion in revenue for its clients
Choosing the right marketing agency to work with is a crucial decision to make. If you’re looking for a full-service digital marketing agency that can help you grow your revenue, look no further than WebFX.
Our team takes the time to learn about your business, customers, and goals so that we can deliver the results you need. We’ve driven over $10 billion in revenue for our clients in various industries. We look forward to helping you grow your bottom line, too.
Meet WebFX
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