7 signs your marketing agency isn't working

The clearest sign your marketing agency isn't working is that the reports keep getting longer while pipeline stays flat. Other signs: they report activity instead of outcomes, nobody can say what they're testing next, you spend your week managing them, you can't log in to your own ad accounts, every fix is more of what they sell, and bad news shows up late or never.

The 42-page report

Here's the scene. It's the first Tuesday of the month and the agency report lands in your inbox. It's 42 pages. Impressions, reach, a word cloud, a "Key Wins" slide featuring a post with 31 likes, a heat map nobody asked for. You scroll to the end looking for one sentence that says whether more people asked for a demo this month. It isn't there.

(The 42-page report is a composite, not a real client. I've seen enough of them to draw one from memory, and I'd rather not hold up anyone's actual deck as the bad example.)

I fish Lake Shasta, so my brain goes straight to the water. Picture hiring a fishing guide for the day. At the end he hands you a beautiful logbook: water temperature by the hour, every depth he marked on the sonar, all 212 casts, each lure color. The cooler is empty.

A good guide does the opposite. He tells you in two sentences where the fish were, why he thinks they were there, and what he'd try tomorrow. That's the standard I'd hold any agency to, and the lens for every sign below.

If you're still deciding what kind of help you need in the first place (an agency, a fractional CMO or a hire), start with fractional CMO vs. agency vs. in-house.

The seven signs, at a glance

One sign on its own is a conversation. Three or more is a pattern.

1. The report grows and the pipeline doesn't

This is the lead sign because it hides all the others. A long report feels like effort, and effort feels like progress. Often the volume is standing in for a point of view. When an agency doesn't know what moved, it shows you everything and hopes you'll find something you like (the logbook instead of the fish).

The fix is a format, not a font size. Ask for three answers at the top of every report: what moved, why we think it moved, and what we're doing next. If they can't fill those three lines, 40 more pages won't help. (The longer version is in the agency report nobody reads.)

2. They report activity instead of outcomes

"We published 16 posts, launched 4 campaigns and sent 3 emails." That's a count of casts.

Outcomes are things the business can feel: qualified leads, demo requests, booked calls, pipeline, revenue, cost per customer. The best agencies tie every activity back to one of those, even when the link is a hypothesis. "We sent three nurture emails to move trial users to a demo. Two people booked from email two. Email three didn't land, so we're rewriting it." That's a guide who checked the cooler.

3. Nobody can tell you the next bet

Marketing that works is a series of bets. You try something, you see what happens, you adjust. An agency that's working always has a next bet, and it can tell you what result would make them drop it.

If the plan in month six looks exactly like month one, nobody's learning anything. Same lure, same spot, same depth, every trip. Patience is waiting on a bet you chose on purpose. Repeating last month because it's on the retainer is something else.

4. You're the one managing them

You hired an agency to take work off your plate. If you're now writing the briefs, chasing deadlines, catching typos in ad copy and reminding them what your product does, you've hired a second job.

The best review we've ever gotten is one sentence, from Kevin Wendland, President of Adora POS: "I don't manage Cultre. That's the whole review." I'm not quoting it to brag (okay, a little). I'm quoting it because it's the right test for any agency, ours included. Ask yourself what they decided this month without you. If the honest answer is nothing, they're order-takers, and order-takers need a manager.

5. You can't see your own data

Your Google Ads account, your Meta ad account, your analytics, your CRM: you should be able to log in to all of them as an admin, today, without asking permission.

Google is plain about this in its advertiser guide to working with third parties: at a minimum you have "the right to know the number of clicks, impressions, and the total cost" of your ads, and it lists not sharing cost and performance as a warning sign. If your numbers only reach you as screenshots inside a deck, or the ad account lives under the agency's name, fix that first. If you ever part ways, you want to leave with the boat, not just the logbook.

6. Every problem gets solved with more of what they sell

Leads are down? More ad budget. Traffic is flat? More blog posts. Conversion is low? A new website, conveniently the thing they build.

Sometimes more is right. But a good agency will also tell you when the problem lives outside their lane: the demo form is too long, sales takes two days to call back, the pricing page scares people off. Ask the question in the table: "What would you do if we couldn't spend another dollar?" You'll learn a lot about whether they're diagnosing or selling.

7. Bad news shows up late, or never

Every channel has bad months. The agencies worth keeping tell you first. They email midweek: "this campaign isn't working, here's why, and here's what we're pausing." The ones to worry about let you find it, then explain it next month with a slide about seasonality.

A guide who says "the fish moved deep this morning, I was wrong about the shallows" is a guide you can trust next week. The one who goes quiet when the bite stops is protecting his tip, not your trip.

Is it the agency, or is it you?

Most "signs your agency is failing" lists are written by other agencies, so they skip this part. Before you fire anyone, check whether the leak is downstream of them.

Run this quick upstream or downstream check:

• Leads arrive but don't close. Look at speed-to-lead and sales follow-up before blaming the marketing. A hooked fish that gets lost at the boat isn't the lure's fault.
• They asked for things you never delivered. Customer interviews, product access, approvals, a decision on pricing. If they've been waiting on you for six weeks, some of the flat chart is yours.
• The goal changed three times this quarter. Nobody hits a target that moves every month.
• The budget can't buy enough data to learn. If the spend is too small to tell a good ad from a bad one, nobody can show you results yet. Ask them to say so plainly.

If two or more of those are true, the honest move is to fix your side first and give the agency a fair window.

What to do before you switch agencies

Firing an agency is expensive: you lose context and months, and the next team starts from the shore. So run a reset first. I call it the cooler check, and it takes about 30 days:

1. Name one outcome. Pick the single number the business cares about most (demo requests, booked calls, qualified pipeline) and agree on how it's counted.
2. Ask for the three-line report. What moved, why, what's next, at the top of every update. Everything else is an appendix.
3. Get admin access to everything. Ad accounts, analytics, CRM, the website. Today, not at renewal.
4. Ask for their next two bets in writing. What they'll test, what result would make them stop, and when you'll know.
5. Review at 30 days. Did the three lines get sharper? Did a bet get made and read? Did they bring you a problem before you found it?

If the answers improve, you may have had a communication problem, not a performance problem. If they don't, you've got your answer, plus clean access and a clear brief to hand the next team. Before you hire them, these are the questions to ask a marketing agency so you don't end up with a thicker logbook from someone new.

When it's time to walk away

Leave when the cooler check fails, when you can't get admin access to your own accounts, or when they get defensive instead of curious about the three-line report.

And if you want a second set of eyes before you decide, I'm happy to look at your last couple of agency reports and tell you honestly what I see, even if the answer is "keep them." Book 30 minutes with me.

Here's to short reports, full coolers and guides who tell you where the fish went. 🍻