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Is your marketing agency actually doing a good job?

Twelve honest questions, most of which your agency would rather you never ask. Answer them and get a straight score, a grade, and the specific red flags in under three minutes. No signup, no email.

Question 1 of 12

How the score works

A paid ads agency has one real job: bring in customers for less than those customers are worth, and prove it. Everything else on a monthly report is decoration. This scorecard checks the twelve things that actually separate an agency doing that job from one that is just keeping you comfortable, grouped into four areas:

  • Ownership and access. Do you own your ad account, pixel, and audiences? This is weighted heaviest. If the answer is no, it caps your score no matter what else is true, because losing your data the day you leave overrides every other strength.
  • Reporting and metrics. Do they lead with customers, revenue, and cost per customer, or with impressions and reach? Can they state your cost to acquire a customer on the spot?
  • Honesty and communication. Do they bring you bad news early, push back on you, and tell you what failed, or is every update quietly positive?
  • Results and testing. Is the account improving and being tested, or running on autopilot with the same setup for months?

What your score means

Above 80 and the fundamentals are there. Between 50 and 79 you have real gaps worth a second opinion before you renew. Below 50 and the honest read is that you do not have a marketing problem, you have an agency problem, and no amount of budget fixes that. The scorecard is deliberately blunt because the whole point is to tell you what a polished monthly report is designed to hide.

FAQ

How does the agency scorecard work?
You answer twelve quick questions about how your agency runs your ads: who owns the ad account, what the reports lead with, whether they know your cost per customer, how honest they are, and how much they test. Each answer is scored, a couple of answers can cap the total, and you get a score out of 100, a letter grade, and the specific red flags you triggered.
What is a good score?
Above 80 means the fundamentals are there and your agency is probably earning its fee. Between 50 and 79 means mixed signals worth a second opinion. Below 50 usually means the problem is the agency itself, not your market or your budget.
Why does not having access to my own ad account cap my score?
Because it is the one issue that overrides everything else. If the agency runs your ads inside their own account and will not make you an admin of yours, you do not own your pixel history, your audiences, or your data. The day you leave, you leave with nothing. No amount of good reporting makes up for that, so it caps the score no matter how well everything else scores.
Is this a sales tool?
The scorecard is free and gives you a real answer whether or not you ever talk to me. If it flags problems and you want an independent expert to look at your actual account and tracking, that is what a teardown call is for. But the score stands on its own.