Industries
SEO, PPC, creative and PR agencies.
How to choose · Marketing agencies
Judge an SEO agency on its diagnosis of your site, the transparency of its methods, how it ties work to business outcomes rather than rankings alone, and who owns the assets it creates. Be sceptical of guaranteed positions and secret techniques. A sound proposal starts with an audit of your situation and explains what will be changed, by whom and how progress is measured.
Comparison · Marketing agencies
Retainers buy ongoing capacity and continuity, projects buy a defined output, and in-house hires buy permanent knowledge and control. Choose according to the continuity of the work, how clearly you can define deliverables, how much management time you can spare, and whether the skills needed are rare or routine. Many organisations mix: a core in-house team with agency specialists.
Requirements · Marketing agencies
Require clear deliverables, ownership of accounts and creative assets, transparency on media spend and agency margins, compliance with advertising and data protection rules, defined reporting with raw data access, approval workflows and a workable exit. Agencies act in your name, so you carry legal responsibility for much of what they publish.
Problems & fixes · Marketing agencies
Typical warning signs include vague reporting, results measured by activity rather than outcomes, no access to accounts, personnel churn, pressure to extend commitments, and guarantees that no one can honour. First separate agency failure from poor brief, weak offer or slow approvals on your side. Then request an evidence-based review, agree a time-limited improvement plan and prepare an exit in parallel.