So, you’ve teamed up with a digital marketing agency. The honeymoon phase is over, and now things are just cruising along. We all know digital marketing, whether paid ads or organic SEO, takes time to show results. Patience is key, but that doesn’t mean you should be left in the dark. It’s crucial to make sure your agency is on the right track, even if you have yet to see the payoff. An informed client is a happy client, so here are seven questions to ask at your next meeting:
“Are you tracking conversions?”
What good are visitors and search engine rankings if none become paying customers? Your marketing agency should track not only increased traffic to your site but also your online sales! Whether it’s SEO, Google Ads, or social media advertising, every platform has options to easily track how successful your campaign is going. Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4 have various options to track all sorts of events and actions on your website. Working closely with your marketing agency for proper conversion tracking is a must.
“Do you know my average profit margin for each service/product I sell?”
Any proper marketing campaign has to be based on generating a positive return on investment (ROI). If your marketing agency doesn’t know how much you make for every product/service you sell, how could they calculate your ROI? Too often, search marketing agencies focus entirely on visits and rankings and neglect how much money you’re making for every marketing dollar.
Now, to be fair, these numbers realistically come from you. You should be prepared to share these figures with any marketing professional you work with to ensure they’re not working in the dark. If they haven’t asked, bring it up and see what they can do to incorporate it into your conversion tracking and reporting.
“Are there realistic goals and ROI expectations based on my analytics and marketing objectives?”
More often than not, small business owners are sold on the grand returns that can come from digital marketing. Sales departments thrive on selling clients on strong ROI within unrealistic time frames, all to get a contract signed. Does your marketing agency review your progress routinely, consider your cost-per-acquisition and update you on realistic timeframes to see more success? Marketing online can take much longer than anticipated to generate results, and your marketing agency must keep you aware so that you’re not caught with unexpected delays in your company’s growth.
“Do you know what my competitors are doing better than I am?”
If you’re only focusing on what you and your website are doing, you’re missing out on a goldmine of info and opportunities from your competitors. Want to boost your marketing game? Start by understanding what your rivals are doing, both good and bad. Competitor analysis is key to making the most of your marketing budget, hitting the right notes with your audience, and standing out as a market leader.
“For SEO, do you do ‘Link Building,’ and if so, what’s your process?”
In SEO, link building is the process of getting other websites to link back (or ‘mention’ within content’) to your website. Historically, the more links your website has, the better chance you’ll rank higher in Google for your target keywords. Link building comes in many forms, from ugly spam and outsourced work to high-quality content-driven articles on well-known, high-authority websites. If your agency is doing link building for your SEO (which they should be), where are they posting your website link? Do they have a monthly list of places they’re posting to, and do they share it with you?
“Do you provide a monthly recap of items you’ve worked on for my campaign?”
SEO and digital marketing can often be confusing and obscure processes. It’s vital that your monthly reports contain information on what is routinely being done for your campaign. Monthly printouts or exports of general analytics and rankings are not enough to give you a good idea of what’s being done. Ask your agency, ‘What do you do for me each month?’ and see if they can provide more information on each monthly report.
“Do you keep up and change your process based on latest trends and best practices?”
Search marketing evolves as fast as tech does. What worked last year might be outdated now. Since SEO and paid search can be a bit of a mystery to many businesses, it’s easy for digital marketing agencies to get lazy and stick to simple, old-school methods. The risk? Your campaign might flop, or worse, Google could flag you for breaking their rules. So, ask your agency: how do they stay on top of the latest trends, and how often do they refresh their strategies?
How this helps
Well, there you have it. We’re not saying to accuse your digital marketing agency of not doing any of the things above. There’s tons of agencies and SEM contractors out there that do a great job for their clients. However, there’s also a lot of shifty companies out there that love to cut corners and focus only on their sales. We hope these questions can help bring a bit of clarity to your business relationship, and improve your campaign.
A little about Motoza
For the past 14 years, Motoza has boasted an industry-leading retention rate. Most of our clients stick with us for over 3 years, while many agencies struggle to keep clients for just a few months. We think that’s pretty impressive. If you ever want us to take a look at your marketing campaigns, just give us a shout. We’re here to help!
