How to brief a digital marketing agency and get genuine results

The most common complaint about digital marketing agencies is that they produce reports showing impressive-looking numbers while the client's business does not actually grow. This is almost always a brief problem, not an agency problem. If you do not define success clearly before work begins, both sides will default to vanity metrics.

Start with the commercial outcome, not the channel

Do not say: 'we want more social media followers.' Say: 'we want 15 qualified enquiries per month from businesses in Suffolk with more than 10 employees, and we are currently getting three.' The channel is the agency's job to figure out. The commercial outcome is yours to specify. If you cannot state what a good result looks like in business terms, you cannot evaluate whether the agency is delivering.

The brief: what it should contain

• Your primary business goal for the next 12 months (revenue target, new clients, specific market segment)
• What you sell, who buys it, and why they choose you over competitors
• What you have tried before and what happened (include failed campaigns, not just successes)
• Your monthly budget, broken down between management fees and media spend
• The one or two metrics that, if they move, you would consider the engagement a success
• Access to your existing analytics data (Google Analytics, Search Console, CRM data)

How to evaluate agency proposals

A good agency will come back with a proposal that references your specific situation, not a menu of services with prices attached. Red flag: a proposal that lists 'social media management, email marketing, PPC, and content creation' without explaining why those channels for your business. Every channel recommendation should have a rationale tied back to where your customers actually are.

The questions that separate good agencies from bad ones

1. 1What does a typical month of reporting look like, and can you show me a real example from an existing client?
2. 2Which of your case studies is most comparable to our business, and what were the actual revenue outcomes?
3. 3What will you need from us each month to do this well (content, approvals, access)?
4. 4How do you measure incrementality: how do you know your activity caused the result, not something else?
5. 5What would make you recommend we stop an activity that is not working, and how quickly would you call that?

Budget: a realistic guide

For a small business in East Anglia, a meaningful digital marketing engagement starts at £1,500-2,500 per month in management fees, plus any media spend on top. Below that, you are typically getting a junior team member with limited strategic oversight. A budget of £3,000-5,000 per month (fees plus spend) gives you access to senior resource and enough media spend to generate meaningful data quickly.

Getting out if it is not working

Most agency contracts have a 30-90 day notice period. If you are three months in and the agreed KPIs are not moving, raise it formally in writing and give a specific timeline for improvement. Good agencies welcome this. If the response is to produce more reports, not a revised strategy, you have your answer.