How to assess the results of your company's digital marketing agency?

What results should you demand from your digital marketing agency?

The relevant results depend on the goal contracted. A campaign to generate quote requests should not be judged only by the visits it attracts, just as an organic visibility project cannot be judged solely by immediate sales.

There is, however, a fundamental difference between activity indicators and business indicators. Clicks, views and reach help you understand campaign behaviour; qualified contacts, proposals and sales show whether that activity is contributing to commercial goals.

It is also important to tell responsibilities apart: the agency may generate suitable contacts, but sales may be lost through failures on the sales side.

How to tell whether the investment is generating customers?

Start by defining the relevant result: a meeting, an order or a qualified proposal request.

Link campaigns to contacts and opportunities

Follow-up should identify where contacts come from and how many move on to a proposal or a purchase.

A Paid Media strategy should therefore also be assessed by the quality of the opportunities it delivers, and not just by the cost of each click.

Google Ads measures purchases, contacts and calls. A recorded conversion does not necessarily mean a sale: confirm the setup and compare it with sales records.

Calculate costs without confusing metrics

Cost per lead measures the investment per contact; acquisition cost considers the customers won. They are not equivalent metrics.

Include advertising and management costs. Cheap leads may have no commercial value.

Does the agency's report help you make decisions?

A useful report explains results, possible causes, doubts and next decisions.

The agency should tell data apart from interpretations. A drop in contacts may result from seasonality, competition, the website or the campaigns.

Four questions to ask at every meeting

• What improved or got worse? Compare equivalent periods and explain relevant variations.
• Which opportunities reached the business? Separate total contacts from contacts with commercial potential.
• What was changed and why? Relate the agency's decisions to the problems identified.
• What is the next priority? Define the next action, the owner and how its effect will be assessed.

If the company invests in content and organic search, the assessment should include visibility in relevant searches, the pages that attract visitors and the evolution of qualified demand. Google Search Console provides indicators such as impressions, clicks and search queries, but this data does not replace the analysis of sales opportunities.

When sales data is missing, the report should acknowledge the limitation and propose a fix.

When are weak results the agency's responsibility?

Not every problem is caused by the agency, but relevant obstacles should be identified and communicated.

If the agency detects leads with no reply, it should flag the failure, even if customer service is the client's responsibility.

Growth Consulting can be useful when the blockages cut across advertising, sales and operations and none of the teams has a complete view of the process.

Confirm goals, access to the data and agreed responsibilities before assigning blame.

Should you keep the agency or look for an alternative?

Assess trends, transparency and ability to correct course, rather than a single month.

Review the relationship if explanations, priorities or corrections are missing. Weak results do not mean, on their own, that changing agency will solve the problem.

Before deciding, assess campaigns, measurement and sales. Fixing concrete failures can solve part of the problem; an outside second opinion helps you decide with data, without breaking off the relationship from the start.

Frequently asked questions

Which indicators should I track to assess a digital marketing agency?

You should track the indicators linked to the goal of the service: qualified contacts, meetings, proposals, customers or sales. Clicks and visits are useful for diagnosis, but are not enough to show commercial impact.

Does an increase in traffic mean the agency is getting good results?

Not necessarily. Traffic only matters if it attracts people who fit the intended audience and contributes to the goal set. An increase in visits can coexist with fewer sales opportunities.

How to assess results when the sale happens outside the website?

You need to relate the source of contacts to their sales path, through organized records and, where feasible, integration between tools. Not every sale can be attributed precisely to a single channel.

How long should I wait before assessing the agency's performance?

It depends on the channel, the sales cycle, the volume of data and the starting point. You can assess the quality of execution and measurement early on, but conclusions about commercial results need a period compatible with the business.

Can Norde help assess the results of the current agency?

Yes. We analyse the goals, the reports, the campaigns and the sales path to identify measurement or execution failures. For many SMEs, a cross-cutting assessment and sales-oriented follow-up can pay off more than looking only at campaigns; if simple fixes are enough, we will tell you frankly.

How can Norde help your company?

Assessing an agency starts by checking which results matter to the business and whether there is data to measure them.

At Norde, we analyse acquisition, sales and operations before recommending changes, which for many SMEs means an independent assessment.

If you cannot tell what return your agency's work is delivering, talk to us: we reply within 24 hours and the conversation is without obligation. We work without lock-in contracts and everything we build stays on your side.