How to evaluate a marketing agency’s work
Before deciding whether to retain an agency, establish what it was engaged to deliver and what the client supplied. The review should connect the agreement, completed work, media spending and customer outcomes. It also needs to explain dependencies such as product availability, pricing, lead response and approvals. This guide gives an owner or marketing leader a sequence for reviewing performance and agreeing a practical correction or handover.
Reconstruct the agreed scope
Collect the contract, proposal, briefs, meeting decisions and approved changes. List each deliverable with its acceptance criteria, due date and client inputs. Separate recurring management from one-off production and media costs. Check whether the objective changed after the fee and scope were agreed. If the agency was hired to manage advertising, establish who owned the website, analytics implementation and sales follow-up. A clear scope makes the review specific: it identifies work that was delivered, work that was omitted and new work that requires a separate decision.
Check ownership and continuity
Inventory advertising accounts, analytics properties, domains, audiences, creative files and integrations. Record the business owner and the access available to the client. Use the platform’s actual permission model to identify who can administer billing, export records and remove an external manager. Review where campaign history and conversion definitions are stored. Test access with an authorised client account before a difficult handover becomes urgent. Document any third-party licences that affect the reuse of creative material or data. The client should know the steps needed to keep active campaigns running.
Inspect a sample of delivered work
Select campaigns that represent a meaningful share of spending, including a strong result and a disappointing one. Review targeting, search terms where available, exclusions, creative messages and landing pages. Reproduce the customer journey on a phone and inspect the final enquiry or order. Ask the agency to explain why the campaign was designed that way and which changes followed the evidence. A polished presentation cannot answer whether the message matched the product, the location was serviceable or the promotion was available when the visitor arrived.
Reconcile reported conversions with final outcomes
Compare reported conversions with the client’s operating records. Deduplicate repeated leads, separate existing customers and retain cancellations, refunds and invalid contacts. Match observation windows to the purchase cycle. Ask which conversions come from branded demand or audiences already close to purchase. Review total spending, including fees and production, alongside contribution or qualified opportunities. Platform attribution and a controlled incrementality test answer different measurement questions. Define the evidence required for the renewal decision, then identify whether the existing setup can provide it within the available time.
Assign causes to the people who can change them
Examine response time, stock availability, price changes, checkout errors and approval delays alongside the agency work. A campaign may attract suitable customers who receive no timely answer; another may generate cheap enquiries that never match the offer. Record both cases separately. For each finding, identify the agency action, client action and dependency. Request an explanation and supporting records before concluding that a missed target reflects poor execution. This process should result in a correction that an identified person can complete and that the client can verify.
Agree the next review or a complete handover
Set out a short improvement plan with the changes, evidence expected, cost and review date. Decide in advance what would support renewal, a narrower scope or replacement. When changing the provider, list live campaigns, budgets, billing arrangements, scheduled actions and unresolved incidents. Export the agreed history and receive the working files. Confirm that tracking and customer journeys still function after permissions change. Keep the decision record with the contract so the next agency starts with known business requirements and a usable measurement baseline.
Working files
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