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Strategy
Signs your digital marketing agency isn't working (and what to do)
Activity is not the same as results. The signals worth paying attention to, a quick way to check the work yourself, and what to rule out before you assume it is the agency’s fault.
Ivaylo Aleksandrov · Founder, IV Digital ·
The short answer
The clearest signals are reporting that shows activity but not results, nobody who can explain the current strategy in plain terms, flat or declining performance with no change of approach, tracking you cannot trust, and a relationship where you have to chase for updates instead of receiving them. Before switching, rule out the causes that sit on your side — an unrealistic scope, slow lead follow-up, or a website that does not convert — because a new agency will not fix those either.
A quick self-check
Answer these honestly. Three or more “no” answers is worth a serious conversation.
- Do you know what the agency changed last month, and why?
- Do the reports show revenue, leads or qualified traffic — not just impressions and clicks?
- Do the leads or sales in your own records roughly match what the agency reports?
- Do you have admin access to your ad accounts, analytics and Search Console?
- Has the approach changed at least once in response to results?
- Can the person managing your account explain the plan in two minutes, without jargon?
- Has that person stayed the same for the last six months?
- Do you know what the retainer includes, and what would cost extra?
Reports that show effort, not outcomes
Posts published, ads launched, hours logged — all real work, but none of it tells you whether the business is better off. A useful monthly report fits on one page and answers four questions: what happened to the business numbers (revenue, leads, cost per lead or sale), what happened in each channel, what the agency changed and why, and what it plans to do next. If the report is thirty pages of charts and none of them answers those four, it is designed to look busy.
No one can explain the strategy simply
If a monthly call cannot produce a plain-language answer to “what are we doing this month, and why”, the account is probably running on autopilot rather than on a plan that responds to what is happening.
Flat or declining results with no adjustment
Marketing that works gets refined based on data: new ad creative when performance fades, irrelevant searches excluded, landing pages tested, budget moved toward what converts. The same tactics running unchanged for six months, whatever the numbers do, means nobody is looking closely.
You cannot trust the numbers
Tracking problems are one of the most common, and least discussed, reasons an account looks better on paper than in the bank. Watch for:
- “Conversions” that include page views, button clicks or time on site, rather than real inquiries or purchases;
- the same lead counted twice, for example once as a form submission and again as a thank-you page view;
- reported leads or sales that are far higher than what your team actually receives;
- every ad platform claiming credit for the same sale.
Ask the agency to show you exactly which actions count as conversions in each account. It is a five-minute question with a revealing answer.
You do not own your own accounts
Your Google Ads, Meta Business, analytics, Search Console, domain and website should be owned by your business, with the agency added as a user. If the agency created them under its own login and will not transfer ownership, you are dependent on it in a way that has nothing to do with the quality of its work, and leaving becomes far more expensive.
You have to chase for basic updates
A functioning agency relationship does not require you to keep asking what is happening. If a straight answer takes real effort, that friction tells you something about how the account is being run.
High turnover on your account
If the person managing your account changes every few months, knowledge about your business keeps resetting. It is a common and rarely mentioned reason performance quietly declines without any single obvious cause.
Everything is billed as an extra
When every request beyond the bare minimum comes with a new invoice, and nobody was clear upfront about what the retainer covers, trust erodes over time — whether or not the work itself is good.
Channel-specific warning signs
Google Ads: the search terms report is full of irrelevant queries, broad match keywords run without negative keywords, paid clicks go to the homepage instead of a matched landing page, or conversion tracking was never verified. Our landing page checklist for Google Ads covers the landing page side.
Meta Ads: the same handful of ads running for months, the same people seeing them again and again, and no structured creative testing. Creative is now the main lever on Meta; see our guide to ad creative that converts.
SEO: monthly reports of rankings but no record of changes made to the site, no technical fixes, or links from sites you would be embarrassed to be associated with.
Before you assume it is the agency’s fault
Some problems look like agency failures but start elsewhere. Rule these out first:
- Scope and budget: was the budget realistic for the goal? A small ad budget spread across three platforms rarely produces clear results on any of them.
- Lead handling: how fast does your team respond to new inquiries? Leads contacted days later convert far worse, and no campaign can fix that.
- The website: slow pages, unclear offers or a clumsy form waste good traffic. If ads bring visitors who do not convert, the page may be the problem.
- Changes the agency did not know about: new prices, stock problems, a new competitor, a sales team change.
- Seasonality: compare with the same period last year, not just last month.
A 30-minute check you can do yourself
- Log in to the ad accounts and look at the last 30 days of search terms or ad placements. Would you pay for those clicks?
- Open the conversion settings and list what is counted as a conversion.
- Compare the leads or sales the agency reported with what your team actually received.
- Check Google Search Console: are clicks from searches that do not include your brand name growing, flat or falling?
- Read the last three reports and write down what the agency changed. If you cannot find anything, that is the answer.
How to have the conversation before you leave
A direct, specific conversation — “this is what I am seeing, this is what I expected, what is the plan?” — usually shows whether the problem is fixable. If it is, agree a 60 to 90 day plan with measurable targets and a review date. Skipping straight to termination without this conversation can mean repeating the same problem with the next agency.
If you decide to leave
Plan the handover before giving notice:
- confirm you have admin or owner access to every account: ads, analytics, Search Console, tag manager, social pages, website, domain and hosting;
- export reports, audience lists and creative files you have paid for;
- check the notice period and what happens to running campaigns;
- brief the new agency or in-house person before the old one stops, so nothing is paused by accident.
When you start looking for a replacement, our guides on choosing an ecommerce marketing agency and choosing a web design agency list the questions worth asking.
Frequently asked questions
How long should I wait before deciding an agency is not working?
What should I do before firing my marketing agency?
Who should own my Google Ads and analytics accounts?
Is it normal for an agency to change who manages my account?
What questions should I ask in a marketing performance review?
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