How do I know if my marketing agency is actually working?
A marketing agency is working if you can name customers, or at least serious sales conversations, that exist because of what it did. Traffic, impressions, rankings and followers measure activity. They only matter when enquiries from the right buyers move with them. If several months in nobody can trace one qualified conversation to the work, the reports describe effort, not results.
How you ended up with reports instead.
They counted what was easy to count
Traffic and impressions export themselves from a dashboard. Customers have to be traced through your sales records, which takes work and access nobody arranged.
The contract paid for activity
It probably promised four articles, some posts and a monthly call, and they delivered all of it. Meetings and customers were never in the document, so nobody was in breach when none turned up.
The senior people left after the pitch
The partner who impressed you handed the account to someone two years into their career. That person could run the schedule, but was never going to tell you the plan was wrong.
What it is costing you.
Multiply the monthly fee by the months you stayed. For example, £3,000 a month for eighteen months is £54,000. Divide that by the customers you can trace to the work. If the count is zero the division fails, which is rather the point. Then add the part no invoice shows: eighteen months in which something else could have been tried.
Check it yourself in ten minutes.
Find the contract and the last report they sent.
- 1
Circle every figure in the report that is an enquiry, a meeting or a customer. Count the circles.
- 2
Name three enquiries from the last quarter of the engagement and where each came from.
- 3
Re-read the contract and note the units it promised: articles, posts, hours or meetings.
- 4
Check whether the agency ever asked to see your lost deals or speak to sales.
What we would do in the first 90 days.
We agree what counts before any work starts, in writing, so the report cannot drift into decoration later.
- Week 1
Growth Review with a founder. We check your site, two competitors, and what Google and ChatGPT say about all three, then send three fixes in writing. We also agree what a qualified meeting is: held, with someone who owns or materially influences the decision, at a firm matching agreed criteria, who knowingly agreed to talk about your offer.
- Weeks 2 to 4
Website, reputation and outreach work starts from one plan, with outreach in warm-up for month one.
- Days 30 to 90
One page arrives on the first Monday of each month: meetings held, pipeline accepted by sales, buyer questions where an AI assistant names you. On outreach you pay per meeting held. No meeting, no meeting fee.
The Growth Team programme covers all three services from £2,500 a month (most clients pay £5,000 to £8,000), all prices exclude VAT, and you can stop after any step.
How Growth Team programme works ↗The short answers.
Only with a test attached. Ask them to agree one customer-side number, such as qualified enquiries, and a date to review it. A good agency will welcome that. If the reply is a longer report, you have your answer without spending the quarter.
We do not promise outcomes, and you should be wary of anyone who does. You can stop after any step. On outreach, if fewer than six qualified meetings are held in months two and three combined, month four's management fee is waived. The list and conversations are yours to keep.
Short enough to read standing up. It should lead with things a finance director would recognise: conversations held, pipeline your sales side accepted, customers won. If a report needs a call to interpret it, it was written to be admired.
Founders who said this also said these.
I can't tell what marketing made us.
In B2B, with long sales cycles and several people in each purchase, precise attribution is not available and chasing it wastes money. A simpler discipline works. Record the source of every first conversation, ask each new buyer how they found you, and review the answers monthly against spend. That shows which activity starts conversations and which starts none.
Growth Team programmeWe book meetings with people who can't say yes.
Meetings land with the wrong people when whoever books them is measured on meetings booked, not on who turns up. Junior staff accept calls more readily than owners, so any volume target drifts towards them. Fix the definition first: a meeting counts only if the person owns or materially influences the decision, works at a firm that fits, and knows what the call is about.
Pipeline That Fills
Bring this one to the call.
Thirty minutes with a founder. We look at your site, two competitors and what Google and ChatGPT say about all three beforehand. You leave with three fixes in writing.