Am I Expecting Too Much From The Ad Agency I Hired?

Today’s question is from a guy named John, and it was sent through one of my Facebook groups. He says:

“Hey, guys! Just after some advice. I hired a Google Ads agency for my boss’s business a month ago. Before we signed, we were asked what we wanted to achieve. Our only request was fifteen appointments per week. They told us, this was easily achievable. 

We paid $500.00 setup fee and are paying $120.00 per week ongoing in the past month that the ads are running. 

My boss has only received six appointments in total. So are we expecting too much in too short of time? Or should they have already achieved our target by now? Our ad spend budget is $1,000 per month to start. Thanks, and I look forward to your advice.”

Good question! 

Obviously you came to our Facebook group because you weren’t really sure how to deal with this. The ad agency promised something that they have not delivered on and you wanted to get some more advice. So good job coming to the group asking this question. 

It sounds like there’s really some communication issues with the ad agency.  First off, they’re telling you that the results that you want are “easily achievable”.

What I would want to know is, why do they think that?

Have they run campaigns for a business like yours? And are those the results that they got? 

So, the deal was fifteen appointments per week, that’s over sixty appointments per month, and you’ve only received six appointments in the first month. It does not take that long to get an account running smoothly, especially if the agency is saying the results you wanted were easily achievable. 

Okay, easily achievable means you should be getting those results right away. And if not, they should be in communication with you to explain what’s going on. Why are you only getting one or two appointments per week, when they said fifteen was easily achievable? So that’s really the issue here.

In the future, you’ll probably want to do some more digging, right? You’ll want to know why they believe they can get the results you’re asking for. Maybe you are expecting too much. An agency without experience in your industry should have come clean and said: “you know, we don’t really know if that’s possible”. 

A good agency, in that case, would probably offer to start the ads for free, if they really don’t know what’s achievable (unless you’re okay just paying for them to test things out with your money).

There are plenty of agencies out there–and not just startup agencies.

There are plenty of good agencies that will start running campaigns for free until they figured out the results that are to be expected. Okay, so that’s one option: is to find an agency like that. 

The better option (if you can find it) is to find an agency that actually has experience in this industry. And they’ll be able to tell you exactly what you should expect, because this is what other clients in this industry are getting, and then you can make the decision from there. 

My guess is, the agency is probably not doing a horrible job running the campaigns. This situation came to be because of the fact that fifteen appointments per week just really isn’t achievable with $1,000 per month budget. (That would be about $15 per appointment). That’s really low pretty much in any industry. 

The agency should have come clean about that and said they don’t know. Or said this probably isn’t a good expectation. 

The only consolation is that now you have a little more data. If you want to continue with Google Ads, now you know, now you have a better starting point, and hopefully, someone else can do better. 

On the other hand, maybe the cost per appointment ($15.00) you’re getting is actually fine. Maybe this amount is comparable to the amount that you are paying for appointments with other types of marketing. Are you running ads on local TV or newspapers? Are you running ads on Facebook? What is your cost per appointment for those ads? Is it $150 which is about what you’re paying right now? If so, then maybe that’s a little closer to what you should expect with Google Ads, also. 

Okay,  so there’s a lot of things to think about here. But really, I think you asked the question because you’re kind of admitting that you made a mistake in trusting this agency. So you’re taking some of the blame here, which is good. But really, I’d put most of the blame on the agency for over-promising. There’s no reason to do that. As an agency, there’s just no reason to over-promise results for a $500 setup fee and $120 per week management fee. What’s the point? 

My approach if I am not familiar with an industry that I want to go into, is I’m not charging the client anything until we are getting results. 

If you’re an agency person, I encourage you to try and approach the way I do. And even if you really want to get something upfront, you should still approach it with that mindset. 

I remember a marketer named Dean Jackson. I don’t remember exactly how he says it. But the mindset should start from a question that goes like this:

“How would you approach a client situation if you were only going to be paid based on results?” 

That’s a really good thing to ask yourself if you are only going to be paid based on results. 

In a situation like that, obviously, you are only going to enter situations where you’re confident you can get results. And then you’re going to do those things that are going to get the best results possible. 

For the last year or more, that’s how I’ve personally been charging most clients: BASED ON RESULTS. The arrangement is either: 

1. We’re getting started, and there is no fee paid upfront until we see what the results are going to be.  
2. Were getting started where it’s a complete profit-sharing agreement where there’s no money paid to my agency whatsoever until the client is profitable. And then only at that point, are they paying me a percentage of profits. 

So I found that to be a really good way to charge clients. And even if you don’t want to adopt a charging model like that, I think you should still have that mindset of:  What would you do if you were only paid based on results?

This frame of mind will keep your agency out of a hot seat like this where a client is super unhappy. At the end of the day, you just want to keep clients happy.

Side note:

If you’re not aware, I run a couple different Facebook groups. One of them is called YouTube Ads Strategy. The other is called Google Ads Strategy. Feel free to join these groups if you’re not a member yet.