Original post can be found here
I’ve been seeing a lot of people having troubles with their current agencies, or finding a new agency across reddit (r/PPC, r/adwords and r/digitalmarketing… to name a few subs).
I’m not going to tell you how to pick the right agency, because there are many agencies out there with different ways to work. As the owner of a tiny agency (how tiny you ask? I own myself, which is a good start I suppose), I don’t believe I’d be able to work with just any business!
However, at the very least, you should look out for the sketchy ones.
The checklist, and why it should matter to everyone
There’s no exact way of telling how bad or good an agency can be, and this checklist won’t hold every truth, but you should be able to make more sense out of the noise out there.
- Guaranteed results. It’s reassuring and comforting, but there’s no guarantee in this industry.
Why? It’s a competition. You are competing with other businesses. You can’t compete and expect to end up first every time.
That’s not how a competition works… unless you’re the President of North Korea. - Metrics don’t align with your business. You’re in for the money and they are too. You need to have someone who understands and focuses on what brings you money, not on vanity metrics such as number of clicks, impressions, “domain authority” or CTR. They can be important too, but it should be more about the investment.
- Unrealistic action plan. Things need to be done. It’s all pretty on a .ppt, and sure, everyone wants to be at the top, but if it’s not technically (or financially) feasible, it’s not going to happen.
- Amazing success story. You like knowing it worked for someone else, but in this field, everyone’s good at writing stuff up. I’m writing stuff up! You’ve seen this pattern many times — a dramatic story in three steps:
- This business had issues, absolutely no saving.
- I came up with an extraordinary solution.
- DM me and I’ll get you the same results.
If it’s too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.
- Hack your business. Beware of those self-proclaimed gurus/wizards/ninjas/magicians/hackers who can magically make your revenues go 10x overnight. Again… too good to be true.
- The secret sauce. It’s a follow-up to the previous point: those who claim to have the secret sauce don’t have it.
There is no secret sauce, so no one has it. I’m not talking about legitimate courses, but no one can sell you the secret of Google Ads/Facebook Ads/SEO/Bing Ads/TikTok Ads/Amazon Ads because there’s no secret. If any of us knew about the secrets, I don’t see why we’re not making billions ourselves by hacking the system instead of selling said secrets behind $1500 YouTube videos or $799 PDF courses. - Reputation/fame-based business. It’s the classic bait-and-switch: they sell you something based on plenty of good reviews. Now they pulled you in, they get some inexperienced staff to work on your account. If things go wrong, it’s not their fault: they have hundreds of satisfied clients, so you must be the problem here.
- Cheaping out. That’s a tricky one because it goes both ways expensive doesn’t mean good (see point #7) and the price definitely includes brand and fame, but going for the cheapest should also set your expectations. You don’t want to entrust your thousands of $/€ of ad spend to someone who doesn’t get the weight of the responsibility it involves. If you lose 50000€ on bad management? Big deal, they’re paid €100 to do the job, and someone else will hire them.
- Aggressive sales tactics. If you feel uncomfortable with their approach, it’s a good sign you’re not going to like the way they work. Don’t be swayed or feel pressured to accept a pushy agency.
- Thinking short-term. It’s an expensive service, and ads take a good chunk of a budget, so it’s always tempting to hire cheap or get rid of an agency when things are going well. Why? Would you be happy if people felt the same way about your business? Think longer term instead: find someone you will be comfortable working with the next 5 years at least. As business owners, we should all be thinking on the long term: it’s about trust.
I’m sure I haven’t covered it all, but if you feel there’s a big red flag I’ve missed, share the love and share the knowledge: let others know.
It might sound very odd, but I believe that everyone of us has a duty to uphold the standards of good services. We’re plagued by scams and it’s reaching you too, whether you’re a client or a provider.
Now, why did I spend an hour writing all of this down?
It’s obviously out of pure spite for the scammers so that they don’t get any business.
Please. It’s not just an hour here: I spend a lot of time wasting everyone else’s time on reddit.
I’m basically following this piece of advice from someone else, and it’s just a virtuous cycle to keep this going.
I’ve had a few cases in the past few years where I’m asked for advice because I share the knowledge: it’s never wasted, because out of these few contacts, I got to onboard clients too! It didn’t work out all the time, but I made meaningful connections every time.
Over a decade ago, someone told a story about “today you, tomorrow me” on reddit, and I like to think it applies to everything in life (including business).
Never work for free, but never turn down an opportunity to help if you feel like it’s reasonable to do so. It’s never about short-term. Trust goes a long way.
