Working With Us
Red flags when hiring a marketing agency.
If you see any of these, walk away.
The six biggest red flags
Each one is a deal-breaker.
- 01
Guarantees rankings in 30 days
Nobody can guarantee Google rankings. Anyone who does is selling you ads and labeling them SEO.
- 02
Long contract, no out clause
Real agencies earn their fee monthly. 12-month locks are a trap.
- 03
Vanity-metric reports
If the report leads with impressions and clicks instead of leads and money, that’s the answer.
- 04
Won’t let you own your accounts
GBP, Ads, GA4, the website. You own all of it. Agencies that hoard logins are hostages-in-waiting.
- 05
“We’ll handle reviews” — with fake ones
Anybody buying or fabricating reviews puts your GBP at risk of suspension. Run.
- 06
They serve every industry under the sun
If they do dentists, plumbers, lawyers, and SaaS, they’re good at none of them.
The quieter red flag
You can’t get the same person on the phone twice.
Big agencies funnel you to whoever’s on shift. If you don’t know your point of contact by name and they don’t pick up, that relationship is doomed.
The greenest green flag
They’ll show you a current client’s monthly report.
Names redacted. Numbers intact. Real leads, real cost per lead, real work shipped. If they can’t produce one, the report isn’t the only thing that doesn’t exist.
The takeaway
Ask for the report. Ask for the phone number. Ask who owns the accounts.
Three questions. They sort the real agencies from the rest faster than any sales call.