This post is the fourth and final installment in my series about marketing agencies. We started with deciding whether you need an agency, moved through selecting the right one, and covered maximizing your investment. But let’s face it: sometimes, things just don’t work out—or your business simply outgrows your agency.
Here’s how you can confidently recognize when it’s time to part ways and start fresh.
1. Performance Isn’t Improving (and You Own the Data to Prove It)
Performance issues usually show up clearly through metrics like lead volume, lead quality, and cost per lead. If you’re consistently seeing:
- Low or declining lead volume despite ongoing investments
- High lead acquisition costs that never improve
- Missed deadlines, especially repeated ones impacting your business
…it’s time to seriously reconsider the relationship.
Because you own your data (remember how important this is?), you’ll often spot these performance problems before your agency acknowledges them. Your analytics dashboards, ad accounts, and P&L are your best friends here—trust your numbers.
2. Quality of Work Is Consistently Below Your Standards
Quality is non-negotiable. Some common quality issues that signal deeper problems include:
- Inconsistent brand messaging or visuals across different platforms (website, social, ads)
- Generic, cookie-cutter content that doesn’t resonate with your audience
- Poor website performance, especially failing Google PageSpeed Insights or mobile responsiveness tests
- Lack of progress in local search visibility despite ongoing SEO investments
How can you measure this? Regularly reviewing site analytics, Google Search Console, Google PageSpeed Insights, and competitor benchmarks can give you concrete insights into your agency’s actual performance.
👉 Tip: Tools like SEMrush can help you benchmark your performance to your competitors.
3. Key Employees Keep Leaving (Especially Your Main Contact)
High turnover at your agency—especially involving your primary account manager—is often an early indicator of deeper problems. Be particularly alert if:
- Your main contact expresses frustration or openly hints at internal challenges
- New staff seem unfamiliar with your account or consistently need retraining on your business objectives
Repeated turnover generally points to poor leadership, and it won’t be long before that impacts your business directly.
4. Excuses, Misleading Claims, and a General Lack of Accountability
We’ve all heard the classic agency lines designed to buy more time or mask underperformance:
- “Google needs 90 days to optimize your ads.” (No, it doesn’t.)
- “WordPress websites typically take six months to build.” (Not true.)
- “Website content doesn’t need monthly optimization.” (Absolutely incorrect.)
These statements are big red flags. An agency worth its fee will give you honest, transparent explanations—not excuses.
5. You’ve Outgrown Your Agency (and That’s Actually a Good Thing)
Sometimes, there’s nothing inherently wrong with your agency; you’ve simply outgrown the relationship. For instance:
- Your internal team has expanded, allowing you to bring previously outsourced services in-house.
- A major project has wrapped up successfully, and ongoing agency support is unnecessary.
- Your business objectives or strategy has shifted significantly, and your current agency isn’t specialized in those new areas.
Recognizing that you’ve evolved beyond your agency is a positive sign of growth.
Other Common Indicators It’s Time to Move On:
- Communication consistently feels strained or defensive.
- Your ideas and feedback seem unwelcome or are ignored.
- Your gut tells you something isn’t right—and the data backs you up.
A Quick Note on Keeping Switching Costs Low
Firing your agency doesn’t have to be painful—or expensive. Here are a few simple ways to keep the transition smooth and cost-effective:
- Own your logins and data. This includes Google Analytics, ad accounts, CMS, and social platforms. If you don’t have access, request it now – gain ownership of them!
- Request a full handoff. Ask your outgoing agency for any files, passwords, campaign data, and brand assets they have.
- Document what’s been done. Keep a short summary of recent campaigns, budgets, and project statuses to bring a new partner up to speed quickly.
- Overlap the transition. If possible, bring in your new partner before terminating the old one to ensure a seamless handoff.
Keeping your assets centralized and accessible helps you stay in control—no matter who’s managing your marketing.
Final Thoughts
Navigating agency relationships can feel like a full-time job—especially when things start to go sideways. I’ve seen it time and again: the owner is already juggling operations, staffing, patient care, or fulfillment, and suddenly, they’re having to play referee between what was promised and what’s actually getting done.
That’s where a fractional CMO can really help. You don’t need to manage campaign reports, vendor meetings, or performance analysis yourself. I help small businesses and doctor-owned practices bridge that gap—translating business goals into marketing plans, and marketing plans into results. If it’s time to reassess your agency or bring on new support, you don’t have to go it alone.
Thanks for hanging in with me on our first series of blog posts. If you enjoyed them, please consider joining our newsletter list (below), or drop me a line.