7 Marketing Red Flags: How to Decide if You’re with the Wrong Marketing Agency

If you aren’t getting enough value from your marketing dollars, it might be time to find a new agency, but sometimes that’s easier said than done.

You don’t want to play leapfrog searching for the right fit—we get it! It’s vital to identify whether you can achieve better results with your current agency or whether you need to make a change.?

How can you tell if a marketing agency is a bad match for your company?

We created this article highlighting seven marketing red flags to help identify if it’s time to move on.

1. The Agency Isn’t Willing to Learn Your Business

Great digital marketing strategically aligns your company’s strengths with your target audience’s pain points.?

Every company is unique, and it takes special care and attention to stand out from your competitors. An agency may create cookie-cutter messaging because it doesn’t take time to understand your company’s unique qualities. If so, it will reflect poorly on your results and is probably a strong sign that it’s time to move on.?

This red flag is especially pertinent for franchise, multi-location, and enterprise businesses. Your marketing team must understand your company’s critical operational differentiators to maximize each location’s online presence along with the core business.

“The agency doesn’t understand their business or take the time to understand their business. In conversation, this can be apparent through questions that are easily answered through the main pages of their website.”—Justina Amerson, Digital Marketing Director

Learn more about the positive impact the right B2B marketing agency can make.

2. Content Quality Isn’t Improving

Every digital marketing agency will research keywords that provide a competitive opportunity to gain visibility in search engine results. But keywords alone aren’t enough. One of the essential qualities of a good marketing agency is showing that they understand your voice and your industry.

Agencies should write content for your target audience to discover, read, and share with others.

“Every time we’ve moved agencies it has been for performance-related reasons. Mostly it was as simple as too much money being spent with not enough conversions to justify it. Other problems for us have been with wastage – lots of irrelevant keywords with Google Ads for instance.”?James Lazar,?Oakwoods Outlet

If your agency churns out mundane articles, you won’t stand out enough to sufficiently gain rankings that move the needle.?

3. The Agency Avoids Conflict

Our experts at Big Leap have seen it so many times. Other agencies try to hide bad metrics and avoid having tough conversations with clients. You can’t fix what you don’t acknowledge, so if you’re not getting the facts—good or bad—it’s time to move on.

Every strategy comes with challenges. A good agency will take the appropriate route (even if it’s harder) to reach your marketing goals.?

4. The Agency is Disorganized

Marketing teams “who document their strategy are 313% more likely to report success” than those who don’t.

Disorganization is usually a symptom of other marketing red flags. You want an agency to be driven, organized, and compelled to pursue your interests. Disorganization usually goes hand-in-hand with other warning signs you’re working with a bad marketing agency, like apathy or a lack of initiative.

“It is important to find a marketing agency that has the right balance of experience, expertise, and size. If an agency is serving too many customers simultaneously, they may not give the required attention to your product because they have too much on their plate.”?Krittin Kalra,?Writecream

5. They Provide Poor-Quality Reports

If your agency doesn’t provide monthly reports filled with hard data on its performance like clockwork, it’s a sign that other details might be slipping through the cracks.?

Maybe they’re not...click here to read the full (ungated) article.