A marketing invoice lands. It says “strategic content amplification” and “brand signal optimisation.” You have no idea what shipped, whether it worked, or whether you should pay it. You’re a plumber, not a marketer - and that gap is exactly what bad agencies hide inside.

The jargon is not accidental

Vague language protects the person sending the invoice, not the person paying it. Here is a short translation table for the words that pad most reports.

  • “Impressions” - the number of times something appeared on a screen. Not clicked, not read, not acted on. Appeared.
  • “Reach” - how many accounts it appeared in front of. Still not clicked.
  • “Engagement rate” - likes, saves, shares, as a percentage of reach. Feels meaningful. Pays zero bills.
  • “Domain authority” - a score invented by a tool company, not Google. Useful as a rough direction, useless as a headline result.
  • “Brand signal optimisation” - could mean anything. Ask them to say it in one plain sentence. If they cant, that is your answer.
  • “Strategic content amplification” - usually means they posted something and paid a small amount to boost it.

None of these are automatically bad activities. They are bad invoice lines when they appear without a number that connects them to your phone ringing.

Three questions for every invoice

You dont need a marketing qualification to hold an agency to account. You need three questions, asked the same way every month.

Question one: what actually shipped?

Not “what did you work on.” What exists now that did not exist last month? A page on your site. A set of ads. A Google Business Profile post. A fixed technical error. Something you can point at.

If the answer is a list of meetings, calls, and “ongoing strategy work,” ask them to separate the deliverables, things that shipped, from the overhead, time spent thinking about shipping. You are entitled to know the ratio.

Question two: what did it cost per enquiry?

This is the only number that connects marketing spend to your actual business. Work it out yourself, on your own numbers, every month.

Take what you paid the agency. Add any ad spend they managed. Divide by the number of genuine enquiries, calls, form fills, messages - that came in during that period. That is your cost per enquiry.

Then ask: what is a job worth to you, on average? And what percentage of enquiries turn into booked jobs? Now you have a cost per job acquired, and you can compare it to what you make on that job. If the maths works, pay the invoice. If it doesnt, ask why before you pay it.

Example structure - fill in your own numbers:

Monthly agency fee + ad spend = total spend
Total spend / enquiries this month = cost per enquiry
Cost per enquiry / your close rate = cost per job

If cost per job < average job value: the channel is working.
If cost per job > average job value: something needs to change.

You do not need software for this. A notes app works. The point is to do it monthly, not quarterly, and not to let the agency be the only one running the numbers.

Question three: what would you cut next month?

Ask your agency this directly. A good one will have an answer. They will tell you which activity is underperforming, why they are keeping it or killing it, and what they would do with that budget instead. They will not be offended by the question.

A bad one will tell you everything is working together as a holistic strategy and cutting anything would damage the whole. That is a deflection. Push through it. Every line of spend should be justifiable on its own terms or have a clear, time-limited reason for existing.

The one-line spreadsheet

Keep this. Update it on the first of every month. Three columns, nothing else.

Month | Total spend (agency + ads) | Enquiries | Jobs booked
------+----------------------------+-----------+------------
Aug   | [your number]              | [yours]   | [yours]
Sep   | [your number]              | [yours]   | [yours]

After three months you will see a trend no report can hide. Spend going up while enquiries stay flat is a problem. Enquiries going up while jobs stay flat is a different problem - your follow-up, not your marketing. The spreadsheet tells you which fight you are in.

When to fire the agency and keep the ads

Sometimes the ads are working and the agency is the overhead. Signs that this is your situation: the ads deliver consistent enquiries, the agency’s monthly work is mainly reporting on those ads, and there is no new activity that could not be replicated by logging in yourself once a week.

Google Ads and Meta Ads can be managed directly. The platforms are not simple, but they are learnable, and there are flat-fee specialists who manage campaigns without the broader retainer wrapped around them. If your cost-per-enquiry maths works and the only question is whether you need the agency layer, that is a legitimate reason to restructure the relationship rather than end it entirely.

Fire the agency when: three months of flat or falling enquiries, no clear explanation, and no concrete plan to change it. Keep the ads if they are the part that is working. Separate the two decisions.

Hold us to the same standard

Everything above applies to any agency, including us. If you work with Bad Boy Labs, we expect you to run the cost-per-enquiry sum on us every month. We would rather you fire us with a spreadsheet than keep paying us out of inertia.

If you want a second pair of eyes on a report you’ve already received - we will look at one report, tell you what the numbers actually say, and tell you honestly whether the spend makes sense. No obligation to do anything after that. Find out how we work, then decide if it’s worth a conversation.