As a freelance search engine optimisation specialist, I’ve consulted for over a dozen digital marketing agencies across Australia over the past eight years.
These agencies have been of various sizes. Some were industry leaders, and others were lesser-known but still prominent agencies with a full roster of clients.
I’m going to share some insider insights I’ve gained on how these agencies operate behind the scenes. These learnings will help you make an informed choice when choosing a marketing specialist for your business.
To preface this, these insights are purely from my personal experience in consulting for marketing agencies and do not necessarily reflect the business practices of ALL agencies in Australia.
With that disclaimer out of the way, here’s my list of six common agency practices that are definitely not in your business’s best interests.
#1 They’ll tell you what you want to hear to get you as a client (aka bait and switch)
The typical digital marketing agency model is centred around new client acquisition.
The reality is that marketing agencies have high churn rates, they know this, and it’s well built into their business model.
This means that their clients frequently leave within a short period of time – usually after the first few months of your campaign when they pass off your campaign to inexperienced (ie. cheaper) team members.
When they pitch to you, they’ll impress you with fancy presentations, bold projections on the results you can achieve and tell you exactly what you want to hear in order to win your business.
Within a few months of your campaign, there’s an internal shift in focus from delivering on the promised outcomes to simply maintaining your account.
This is also usually the stage when your campaign is either outsourced or handed off to junior team members. From this point on, your account manager’s sole responsibility is to keep you satisfied enough for as long as possible.
Your account manager will schedule regular check-ins with you to give off the illusion that progress is being made on your campaign.
These check-ins are usually hastily put together superficial updates along with vague assurances that your campaign is on track. They’re all about deflecting your focus away from questioning the lack of meaningful results from your marketing spend.
It truly is a case of pulling the wool over your eyes, where you’re deceived into thinking that progress is being made.
In reality, your campaign is receiving very little attention from the experienced team members who may have impressed you with the pitch, as they have already been re-assigned to focus on new clients.
It’s important to be aware of this deception as you can start to take proactive steps to ensure they’re not wasting your money.
#2 You’ll only speak with your account manager (who generally doesn’t understand your campaign)
Your account manager is usually your single point of contact and will relay information to you from the SEO specialist.
As an SEO specialist myself, I firmly believe that account managers streamline communication between the multiple specialists (developers, link-builders, designers, etc.) involved in SEO campaigns and allow the SEO specialist to focus on implementing your campaign.
There is nothing inherently wrong with the role of an account manager if the person is experienced, understands the intricacies of your campaign, and actively communicates with the specialist.
The problem is that most agencies use account managers to cut corners with the aim of maximising their own profit. Some common scenarios I’ve encountered are:
- The account manager acts as a gatekeeper and prevents any direct communication with the specialist. Unbeknownst to the client, the campaign could actually be outsourced to an overseas specialist. As the client, you should be informed of any outsourcing and have the right to communicate directly with your specialist, even if it’s once a quarter.
- The account manager downplays genuine challenges with your campaign and misrepresents the results being achieved for your campaign. Account managers are typically skilled at reassuring you that your campaign is on track, whereas if you speak with the specialist, they’re more likely to tell the actual state of your campaign.
- The account manager is inexperienced and has a very surface-level understanding of your campaign. Even if they internally communicate with the specialist, they don’t have the knowledge or expertise to grasp the actual strategy or technical implementations of your campaign. Due to their lack of understanding, their updates are very high-level, and they’re unable to communicate the actual work being done on your campaign.
- As they don’t understand your campaign, they can’t provide detailed answers to any questions you may have about your campaign, which adds a lot of extra back and forth. This can be an incredibly frustrating experience for the client, and I’ve seen this as the sole reason that a lot of clients leave their marketing agencies.
#3 They’ll impress you with vanity (and confusing) metrics to distract you from a lack of results
There are so many metrics that get thrown around when it comes to SEO campaigns.
It’s easy for your agency to mislead you about your campaign results by showing you significant improvements in metrics such as impressions, total ranking keywords and backlink quantity.
The problem is that whilst these metrics can look impressive, they have little to no impact on your bottom line. These metrics on their own simply don’t give you the full picture of how your campaign is really performing.
It’s typically easier to improve metrics like organic reach, total ranking keywords, number of backlinks, and even organic traffic.
But if you think about it, do these metrics actually help you generate more leads or sales? Do they demonstrate a positive ROI?
For example, your agency could tell you that your organic reach increased by 200%. Sounds impressive right? But where did that increase in reach come from? And did it result in an increase in traffic? Remember, reach on its own is meaningless in most SEO campaigns, as the goal is to drive qualified traffic.
Your agency typically won’t tell you which keywords and pages increased your reach because, in most industries, it’s generally easy to boost rankings for informational and low-intent keywords.
Another example is that they could tell you they acquired 10 backlinks last month. What they typically won’t tell you is the authority or relevance of those links to your business. In many cases, they won’t even show you which backlinks were acquired.
It’s easy to acquire low-quality backlinks from questionable sources to boost vanity metrics such as Domain Rating. Your agency could have no actual backlink strategy in place to acquire authoritative and relevant links that will actually improve your domain strength.
That’s not to say that any of the above-mentioned metrics don’t hold merit when assessing your SEO performance. My point is that marketing agencies will pick and choose the metrics they will show you, and these metrics are usually easy to inflate.
As the client, don’t be afraid to ask for more information to assess the progress of your campaign. Any marketing agency that knows how to manage successful SEO campaigns will transparently report on all metrics, good or bad.
#4 A tiny portion of your management fee goes towards the specialist
This is, without a doubt, the biggest drawback of working with most digital marketing agencies.
It’s very common in larger marketing agencies where a number of people are involved in your campaign. Your SEO campaign management fee is generally distributed across:
– An account manager (usually your only point of contact)
– An SEO specialist
– The sales team (for winning your contract)
– Senior management
– Administration (billing, scheduling etc.)
– General Overheads (office rent, software subscriptions and other operational costs)
– The agency’s profit margin (usually between 25 to 40%)
With so many different roles taking a cut of your retainer, only a small fraction is left for the SEO specialist who is really the only person directly working on your campaign.
In some cases, the remaining budget is so small that I’ve even seen the SEO specialist having to handle the content creation as well, which typically requires a specialised content writer.
The real kicker is that many marketing agencies end up outsourcing the campaign overseas because they simply cannot afford an experienced specialist in Australia.
I’ve seen first-hand how some smaller campaigns are even assigned to trainee junior team members for their ‘learning and development’. They’re basically deeming your business dollars as too low to deserve an actual specialist. But of course, you’ll never see this as it all happens behind the scenes!
Now if you’re a large business with a big marketing budget, this may not be as big of an issue for you. But if you’re a small to medium-sized business, you should be aware that your campaign will almost definitely get no attention from an experienced SEO specialist.
I would highly encourage you to consider other options, such as working with more specialised SEO agencies or freelancers, as your marketing dollars will go a lot further.
#5 They’ll gradually communicate infrequently
When you first start working with an agency, you’ll be met with enthusiasm and will receive frequent updates from the team during the onboarding phase.
Once your initial strategy is in place and the actual work begins, you’ll find that communication will gradually taper off as your campaign progresses.
It will likely get to a point where you are chasing your agency for updates. At this point, you may feel out of the loop on your campaign and will probably struggle to get any meaningful updates.
It can be a very frustrating experience not to know what work is being done on your campaign, especially if you’re dissatisfied with the results.
So, why does communication taper off as your project progresses?
It all goes back to the typical digital marketing agency model, where new client acquisition is the top priority.
The beginning of any campaign is usually the most intensive, and once your campaign is live, the agency is likely to shift its focus back to either acquiring new clients or servicing clients who are in the earlier stages of their campaign.
I liken it to a bell curve, where the amount of effort, time and communication put into your campaign increases in the initial stages of your campaign, reaches a peak and then rapidly declines.
#6 They prioritise larger accounts
Marketing agencies prioritising larger accounts wouldn’t be surprising, as this is a common practice in most businesses.
But what does this really mean for small businesses who choose to work with an agency?
For starters, when it comes to resource allocation, most agencies will put their most experienced and skilled specialists on larger accounts. This can leave the junior team members, who are obviously less experienced, to handle the smaller accounts.
A common approach I’ve seen with smaller accounts is that a more experienced team will provide the initial strategy and then delegate its execution and management to junior team members.
This often leads to poor results for smaller accounts, as marketing strategies need to be fluid and adapt to the market’s response to your campaign.
You need experience and a refined skill set to modify the initial strategy as the campaign matures.
Ultimately, the junior team rigidly adheres to the initial strategy, even if the results are poor for your business.
It’s not until you complain about the results and/or threaten to leave the agency that they will reallocate their more experienced specialists to your account to review the strategy.
So, if you’re a small business, you’re unlikely to get any personalised attention from your agency and will likely be dissatisfied with your campaign results.
Final Thoughts
There are literally hundreds of marketing agencies in Australia. When it comes to choosing an agency, it’s very important to do your research and understand how marketing agencies operate.
As we’ve learned, this industry is full of overpromises, data misrepresentation, and deceptive tactics that can do more harm than good to your SEO campaign.
Remember to take the time to vet any potential agencies by checking their reviews and past case studies and, most importantly, ask to speak to some of their clients to get a real understanding of how they operate.
I hope the insights in this guide will help you partner with an agency that will honestly deliver results and help you achieve your business goals.
