I am going to say something that a lot of agencies will not say because it would hurt their sales pitch: most business owners do not understand what they are paying for when they hire a digital marketing agency. And most agencies are perfectly fine with that because confusion keeps clients dependent and dependency keeps invoices flowing. That might be an unpopular opinion, but I have been on both sides of this table, and I know what I have seen.
Digital marketing grew up fast. A lot of these business owners who were around before digital marketing was important suddenly found themselves needing something they never planned for. They went from word-of-mouth referrals and yellow page ads to needing a website, social media, SEO, paid advertising, and a dozen other services they could not define, let alone evaluate. And an entire industry grew up to serve that confusion.
The agency model, in many cases, was built to capitalize on the knowledge gap rather than close it. Promise aggressive results to close deals, then manage expectations downward when results lag. Deliver impressive-sounding reports that do not translate to business growth. Treat client relationships as transactional. Deliver the service, send the invoice, repeat. And when clients start asking tough questions, make the answers more complicated instead of more clear.
The cost is not just wasted money, although there is plenty of that. The real cost is that business owners develop the false belief that digital marketing does not work for their business. They spend thousands, see no connection between their investment and their growth, and conclude that the whole thing is a waste. Then they pull back on marketing altogether, and their competitors who did find the right partner pull ahead.
According to Ashlie Marshall, one of the biggest gaps is the client's understanding of ROI as it relates to organics. What does that look like? In the past, the communication has been, 'well, if our organics are doing their job, then your phone is ringing.' Well, that is not always the case. If our organics are doing the job, then your analytics are going to show that. But if your phone is ringing, what piece of that is our work? When agencies cannot answer that question clearly, trust erodes. And once trust is gone, so is the client.
Too many agencies tell business owners that hiring them will double their revenue. I am not going to do it for you. I am going to do it with you. No agency can guarantee specific business outcomes because there are too many variables they do not control: intake quality, sales processes, customer service, market conditions. Promising otherwise is setting up the relationship to fail from day one.
A lot of people are quick to say, I do not care about organics, I just want to put up ads. Well, your ads are not as effective if you are not working on your organics. If you do not have a strong foundation in your organics, your paid advertising is garbage. That is the truth. But a lot of people do not know that. A lot of people would argue that. But the data does not lie.
Ashlie Marshall argues that the transactional model is the root cause of client dissatisfaction in digital marketing. When an agency views a client as a monthly recurring revenue number instead of a partner with real business goals, everything suffers. The work becomes generic. The communication becomes surface-level. And when the client inevitably asks, 'What am I actually getting for this?' nobody has a good answer.
Because the transactional model is easier. It scales faster. It requires less investment per client. And for agencies chasing growth, it works in the short term. But it produces a revolving door of clients who leave feeling burned, and an industry-wide reputation that makes every legitimate agency's job harder.
The other reason it persists is that clients accept it. Business owners who hire and walk away and expect to have golden results are enabling the exact model that is failing them. If they want to utilize their agency better, then they are going to give all the information the agency asks for. But the agency has to hear what they are saying. Both sides have to show up.
The solution is not more sophisticated marketing. It is more honest partnerships. It starts with asking the right questions. What is your goal? What are you trying to accomplish by spending money here? And then I will tell you if you are spending the money in the right place because maybe you should not be spending money on social media. Maybe you should be spending money on ads that are on Google or maybe you should be investing more money in your website.
The Collaborative Growth Framework that I use at Tier Level Digital Marketing is built on a simple premise: clients who engage as collaborators achieve exponentially better results than those who simply hire and walk away. We have the data to prove it. Side by side, same services, the collaborative client wins every time.
Good looks like a business owner who understands what they are paying for and why. It looks like an agency that educates instead of obscures. It looks like honest conversations about what is working and what is not. It looks like clients growing from $5 million to $15 million in a year because both sides did their part. It looks like a client who sends your kid a birthday card because the relationship transcended the transaction.
Ashlie Marshall is building this model at Tier Level Digital Marketing because she has seen both sides. She has been the client evaluating agencies, and she has been the leader building one. The perspective from both seats is clear: the industry needs less selling and more partnership.
Red flags: the agency promises specific revenue outcomes, avoids explaining their methodology, reports on metrics you cannot connect to business results, gets defensive when you ask hard questions, or discourages you from understanding what they do.
Green flags: the agency asks more questions than they answer in the first meeting, tells you things you do not want to hear, educates you on what to measure and why, expects your active participation, and can show you documented results from collaborative client partnerships.
And here is a piece of advice I give to every business owner who is shopping around: ask the hard questions. Bring the answers back. Let us have a conversation about it. If an agency cannot survive scrutiny, they do not deserve your investment.
Digital marketing is not broken. The model most agencies use is broken. And fixing it starts with business owners demanding more from their partners and agencies stepping up to deliver genuine value instead of polished presentations. I am not going to tell you I have all the answers. But I know what works. And I know that collaboration beats transaction every single time.
Ashlie