Is My Marketing Company Actually Working? 5 Questions to Ask in 2026

If the invoices keep arriving and you still can't say whether the marketing company produced a single qualified inquiry, the reporting isn't built for the question you're asking. That's a measurement problem, it's fixable, and it has to be fixed before anyone can judge the work fairly.

Activity measures are worth having and they're not results. Ask for the line connecting the activity to leads and booked work, and ask it as a reporting question, then establish whether the gap comes from missing tracking, incomplete job records or a channel that can't be attributed precisely.

Put the visibility report beside your job records

Traffic and keyword positions describe visibility. Put qualified inquiries and booked jobs beside those measures so you can see the path from a search to work on the schedule. Ask the provider to identify which completed changes it is evaluating and where the source of a booking remains uncertain.

"Traffic and rankings describe visibility. Qualified inquiries and booked jobs show whether that visibility contributed to the business goal."

Use five questions to prepare the next review. We covered what to ask before signing with a marketing company. These questions apply once work and spend have begun.

Question 1: How many phone calls came from your work this month?

Ask for the call count and the method used to produce it. Google Business Profile's Calls metric counts call-button clicks. Reconcile that figure with your call log to identify actual conversations and qualified inquiries. Call tracking and customer-reported sources each have blind spots; keep the method and its uncertainty beside the number.

If nobody is counting calls yet, agree how the next review will count them. A home service business in Riverside can start a dated call log today and ask every caller how they found the company. Check the log again in thirty days, and make sure repeat customers and missed calls were counted the same way throughout.

Question 2: How many quote requests did the website generate?

Ask for a list of form submissions with duplicates and suspected spam marked. For each valid request, record the available source and what happened after the inquiry. Spam classification is imperfect, so retain uncertain entries in the review rather than presenting a falsely exact count.

Quote requests matter most for jobs people research before they call. Take a renovation company in San Jose: a request in March can turn into an estimate that is still open in May, well past the monthly report. Keep how the customer found you and every follow-up attached to that request. If ninety days go by with no requests at all, check each step (traffic, the form, the follow-up) to find where it breaks.

Question 3: Which jobs on the books came from marketing?

Trace the booked jobs from your own records. You know which jobs you booked this quarter, so pick five recent ones and trace each one backward: how did that customer find you? Some came from referrals and repeat business, which existed before the agency did. What you're looking for is whether any of them came from search, the website, or the Google profile.

Closed-job data is where the sale becomes visible. Match booked jobs with invoices, intake notes, and the dates of the provider's work. A customer may have used a search result, an ad, and a referral before calling; put “mixed” or “unknown” in the source column when the evidence doesn't isolate one channel. If the reporting never touches job source, put that gap on the next review agenda.

Question 4: What did each lead cost me?

Choose a period that matches your sales cycle. Add the provider fee to ad spend and the other campaign costs for that period, then divide by valid inquiries attributed to the work. Label shared overhead and mixed-source leads. Calculate cost per booked job once the jobs have had time to close.

A $2,000 monthly retainer producing 20 qualified leads costs $100 a lead. If it produces two, the cost is $1,000 a lead. Set that calculation beside the close rate and gross margin of the resulting jobs. A higher-priced lead that closes on a large job can be more useful than a cheap inquiry that never books; retention also matters when customers return.

Your paid invoices fill in the job side of the cost-per-lead math. A home service business in San Francisco can match each lead its agency reports to a paid invoice, subtract what it cost to do the job, and only then decide whether to spend more with that agency.

Question 5: What changes next month based on these numbers?

Ask for the next decision and the evidence behind it. The provider may recommend continuing a profitable campaign, repairing a failed step, or ending a test. Sticking with the current plan can be the right call too; ask what in the numbers supports it and when they'll look again.

A seasonal campaign needs its own review date. If you run a home service business in Fresno and your agency proposes an April push, ask which service it will promote and what booking or search records support that choice. Then agree, before it starts, which result would justify running it again.

What 90 days should look like

Set the review window from your channel, your baseline, your sales cycle and the work plan. Ninety days is a convention that suits some engagements and badly misfits others, so agree the date at the start. By that date you should have documented measurement, the completed work, the spend, what you observed, what is still uncertain, and what happens next. See how to evaluate an SEO company and the contractor marketing agency checklist.

Ask for a review pack you can actually use

Before the meeting, request the invoice and spend ledger, a dated list of completed deliverables, Search Console or ad-account access where relevant, a call/form export with duplicates marked, and a list of booked jobs the provider claims influenced. You don't need customer private details in a shared slide deck; job IDs and dates can be enough to reconcile the counts.

In the meeting, put each of the five answers in one row: number, source, definition, uncertainty, next action, owner, review date. If the agency says calls increased, ask whether that includes missed calls and repeat customers. If it says rankings increased, ask which queries led to qualified work. If a campaign is too new for closed-job evidence, agree on an interim measure and the date when booked jobs can be checked.

If the provider can't answer these five questions at the agreed review, name exactly which data is missing and agree whether it can be put right. Let the numbers and the contract decide the renewal. Xomer's interest is in a measurable owned-site and visibility program; if your current provider can show profitable booked work, that's a good reason to keep them. If you need a second read on your website and public-source reporting, bring the review pack to Xomer.

For a separately priced managed website alternative, review Xomer's managed website and AI visibility pricing, including the build scope, required monthly service, work limits and paid-build ownership. A useful existing site or provider can remain the right choice.