It’s easy to see your landscaping company is ripping you off if the grass in your backyard is a foot high.
\r\nIt’s no question your contractor is ripping you off when your kitchen remodel is three months past the completion date and you haven’t heard from him in two weeks.
\r\nBut, how can you determine your digital marketing agency is ripping you off?
\r\nBelow are five signs your digital marketing agency might as well be throwing your money away.
\r\nThe tell-tale sign an agency isn’t giving clients the attention they deserve? Identical website layouts. What your agency doesn’t want you to know is how easy it is to customize a site when they are simply reusing an existing template. I’m still shocked by how many site portfolios I find that not only are outdated (user experience is important for rankings), but also embarrassingly similar. If an agency willingly uses a portfolio like that to market their services, they simply aren’t a legitimate business.
\r\nAnalyze the web presence of their current clients. Do they have well-written web content and relevant social media posts? Can you find them easily on Google? Is their site easy to navigate and responsive? If the answer is no to any of these, that agency isn’t even delivering the basics.
\r\nRelated Article: Successful Business Leaders Tell All: Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2016
\r\nReliable and knowledgeable digital marketers approach accounts with a consultative mindset and create strategies based on short- term or long-term goals. One-size-fits-all plans that follow the same course of action for each client can result in valuable marketing dollars going toward unnecessary methods. Meanwhile, not enough was allocated for more goal-centric services that are likely to yield a higher ROI.
\r\nIf your account manager is pushing pre-priced packages and additional add-on services, they aren’t tapping into the creative nature of digital marketing. Many agencies might start with a selection of plans, as it makes services appear more tangible and ethical to those unfamiliar with the industry, but the best agencies don’t quote their services until they know their client’s needs.
\r\nThere is a common lingo among digital marketers that contains phrases and terms without relevance to almost any other industry; link juice, keyword research, UX/UI are just a few examples. Ask questions about words and methods you’d like clarification on, and a good agency will give you concrete answers. Transparency is important to the experts, but illegitimate agencies assume ignorance in their clients and provide as little detail as possible.
\r\nIt is essential that you review reports from your agency. The first red flag is data inflation, so be aware of the benchmarks and time periods used in a report’s analytics. Suppose a blog post with a hyperlink to your site gets shared over 500 times across multiple social media platforms.
\r\nBecause of this, your site gets 150 new visitors that week (in a two-day time frame), compared to your usual 15 visitors per week. If the report is only comparing that week from the previous week, the increase is 1,000 percent. Data manipulation is a prevalent strategy used to rip off digital marketing clients because many clients want to see fast, substantial progress and agencies play on that desire.
\r\nRelated Article: My Cheat Sheet: An SEO Manager's Go-To Digital Marketing Tools
\r\nMany marketing agencies that specialized in television, radio, and print over the past five to six decades treat digital marketing as an extension of traditional methods. Just as they would pitch a year-long radio advertising contract, they often turn to contracts for expensive, spammy software programs that aren’t developed in-house.
\r\nThey can cost upwards of $20,000 per year, and marketing reps receive a commission for selling in the outside product. This situation is alarmingly frequent in the online marketing industry. There isn’t one single program that covers all avenues of digital marketing, and superior agencies won’t direct their clients to dump their entire budget into one solution.
\r\nIf your marketing agency has started offering digital marketing services in recent years but hasn’t grown or changed up their staff, it’s a bad sign. This is most recognizable in small, local operations. Unless a current employee developed a passion for online marketing and has put in significant effort to learn the industry outside of their current position, they are probably not following (or are even aware of) best practices. SEO is not just a new service add-on like printing services or a YouTube paid ad campaign, it’s an entirely different school of thought.
\r\nFinally, beware the agencies with the guarantees. It has become the unfortunate norm for digital marketers to take advantage of a general lack of knowledge. The “oversell and under-deliver” tactic is so common because it can be difficult to sell digital marketing services. Industry best practices are constantly changing and the concepts are relatively new.
\r\nThis creates an intangibility with online marketing services, which can make clients feel like they are grabbing at air. Promising the first page of Google or 500,000 Twitter followers provides a sense of actual benefit, but is simply not the way to achieve real results through digital marketing. Ethical guarantees would be assuring progress on your site’s Google rank for top five keywords, and a 40 percent increase in organic social engagement. Not only are those goals attainable, they indicate white-hat SEO practices.
\r\nRelated Article: Brace Yourselves: Winter is Coming for the Digital Advertising Industry
\r\nAs of last year, Millennials, the generation that grew up online, make up the majority of the workforce, which means digital marketing is now a necessity for all companies. The industry as a whole is still in its beginning stages, and it destroys the century-old ideal of perfecting a process to boost efficiency. Digital marketers face the challenge of changing the way they do things quickly and frequently; therefore, it’s important to hire agencies that are not only hyper-aware of the landscape but also passionate about the success of their clients.
\n","docType":"article","guid":"articles_08541dafd2bba0f256ce287c55c7e2b5","lastModified":"2016-07-15T14:00:00.000Z","published":"2016-07-15T14:00:00.000Z","structuredData":null,"subtitle":null,"template":"legacy","title":"Are You Getting Ripped Off? How to Spot a Poor Digital Marketing Agency","type":"article","author":{"avatar":"https://staging.business.com/images/author/574/62c7e3087b1d814c1a0c0/100-100","bio":"After graduating from Indiana University – Bloomington, I had a three year career in corporate sales. During my time at a Fortune 100 company, I received industry-leading sales training and developed an advanced understanding of high-level business processes. Outside of my 8-5, I started a blog as a creative outlet, which ultimately sparked my interest in SEO. I began spending my free time building a knowledge base of online marketing strategies and freelance work. I reached a catalyst upon realizing I was looking forward to 5pm so that I could clock into my second job.\r\n\r\nIn addition to my professional work, I have six years of experience volunteering my time and talents in the non-profit sector. I led the only student-run pageant, Miss Indiana University, out of 34 pageants in Miss Indiana Scholarship Organization, from 2011-2013. The annual pageant was a major campus event, bringing in an audience of over 300 each year. I’m currently a local director within the Miss America Organization, as the co-founder of the non-profit Miss Spirit of Indiana Scholarship Organization. Our first pageant received accolades from multiple board members of the Miss Indiana Organization and is already setting the standard for exceptional online presence of local pageants throughout the statewide program with our site, www.missspiritofindiana.org.\r\n\r\nI’ve always had a knack for understanding consumer behavior and anticipating market trends. I specialize in writing SEO-friendly onsite content, consulting small businesses on digital marketing practices and social media management. As an efficient researcher, I’m always up-to-date on ever-changing SEO best practices and can offer services for an industry. As a freelancer, my priority is building a strong relationship with each of my clients, focusing on providing the best services for any budget.","name":"Paige Geer","image":null,"slug":null,"social":{"facebook":"","linkedin":"https://www.linkedin.com/in/paigegeer","twitter":null,"website":""},"status":"enabled","title":null,"type":"New BDC Member","user":{"imagePath":"https://staging.business.com/images/uploads/user/profile/03df481b9393a2c48e49dde34825894f82dd6.jpg","profile":{"company":"Indy Displays","jobTitle":"Digital Marketing Strategist","website":"http://www.indydisplays.com"}}},"breadcrumbs":null,"channels":{"primary":{"name":"Marketing","slug":"marketing"},"sub":{"name":"Marketing Strategy","slug":"marketing-strategy"}},"meta":{"robots":"index, follow","description":"How can business owners avoid being preyed upon by unethical digital marketing agencies? Here are five signs of a misleading agency.","title":"Spot a Poor Digital Marketing Agency - business.com"},"parsedContent":{"toc":[],"json":[{"component":"p","children":["It’s easy to see your landscaping company is ripping you off if the grass in your backyard is a foot high."]},{"component":"p","children":["It’s no question your contractor is ripping you off when your kitchen remodel is three months past the completion date and you haven’t heard from him in two weeks."]},{"component":"p","children":["But, how can you determine your digital marketing agency is ripping you off?"]},{"component":"p","children":["Below are five signs your digital marketing agency might as well be throwing your money away."]},{"component":"h3","children":[{"component":"em","children":["1. Their Portfolio Isn’t Up to Par"]}]},{"component":"p","children":["The tell-tale sign an agency isn’t giving clients the attention they deserve? Identical website layouts. What your agency doesn’t want you to know is how easy it is to customize a site when they are simply reusing an existing template. I’m still shocked by how many site portfolios I find that not only are outdated (user experience is important for rankings), but also embarrassingly similar. If an agency willingly uses a portfolio like that to market their services, they simply aren’t a legitimate business."]},{"component":"p","children":["Analyze the web presence of their current clients. Do they have well-written web content and relevant social media posts? Can you find them easily on Google? Is their site easy to navigate and responsive? If the answer is no to any of these, that agency isn’t even delivering the basics."]},{"component":"p","children":[{"component":"em","children":["Related Article:"]}," ",{"component":"Link","props":{"href":"http://www.business.com/online-marketing/successful-business-leaders-tell-all-top-digital-marketing-trends-for-2016/"},"children":["Successful Business Leaders Tell All: Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2016"]}]},{"component":"h3","children":[{"component":"em","children":["2. They Push One-Size-Fits-All Service Plans"]}]},{"component":"p","children":["Reliable and knowledgeable digital marketers approach accounts with a consultative mindset and create strategies based on short- term or long-term goals. One-size-fits-all plans that follow the same course of action for each client can result in valuable marketing dollars going toward unnecessary methods. Meanwhile, not enough was allocated for more goal-centric services that are likely to yield a higher ROI."]},{"component":"p","children":["If your account manager is pushing pre-priced packages and additional add-on services, they aren’t tapping into the creative nature of digital marketing. Many agencies might start with a selection of plans, as it makes services appear more tangible and ethical to those unfamiliar with the industry, but the best agencies don’t quote their services until they know their client’s needs."]},{"component":"h3","children":[{"component":"em","children":["3. They Lack Transparency and Manipulate Report Analytics"]}]},{"component":"p","children":["There is a common lingo among digital marketers that contains phrases and terms without relevance to almost any other industry; link juice, keyword research, UX/UI are just a few examples. Ask questions about words and methods you’d like clarification on, and a good agency will give you concrete answers. Transparency is important to the experts, but illegitimate agencies assume ignorance in their clients and provide as little detail as possible."]},{"component":"p","children":["It is essential that you review reports from your agency. The first red flag is data inflation, so be aware of the benchmarks and time periods used in a report’s analytics. Suppose a blog post with a hyperlink to your site gets shared over 500 times across multiple social media platforms."]},{"component":"p","children":["Because of this, your site gets 150 new visitors that week (in a two-day time frame), compared to your usual 15 visitors per week. If the report is only comparing that week from the previous week, the increase is 1,000 percent. Data manipulation is a prevalent strategy used to rip off digital marketing clients because many clients want to see fast, substantial progress and agencies play on that desire."]},{"component":"p","children":[{"component":"em","children":["Related Article:"]}," ",{"component":"Link","props":{"href":"http://www.business.com/online-marketing/my-cheat-sheet-an-seo-managers-goto-digital-marketing-tools/"},"children":["My Cheat Sheet: An SEO Manager's Go-To Digital Marketing Tools"]}]},{"component":"h3","children":[{"component":"em","children":["4. A Traditional Marketing Agency Using Traditional Methods"]}]},{"component":"p","children":["Many marketing agencies that specialized in television, radio, and print over the past five to six decades treat digital marketing as an extension of traditional methods. Just as they would pitch a year-long radio advertising contract, they often turn to contracts for expensive, spammy software programs that aren’t developed in-house."]},{"component":"p","children":["They can cost upwards of $20,000 per year, and marketing reps receive a commission for selling in the outside product. This situation is alarmingly frequent in the online marketing industry. There isn’t one single program that covers all avenues of digital marketing, and superior agencies won’t direct their clients to dump their entire budget into one solution."]},{"component":"p","children":["If your marketing agency has started offering digital marketing services in recent years but hasn’t grown or changed up their staff, it’s a bad sign. This is most recognizable in small, local operations. Unless a current employee developed a passion for online marketing and has put in significant effort to learn the industry outside of their current position, they are probably not following (or are even aware of) best practices. SEO is not just a new service add-on like printing services or a YouTube paid ad campaign, it’s an entirely different school of thought."]},{"component":"h3","children":[{"component":"em","children":["5. They Guarantee First Page Google Search Placement, Among Other Extraordinary Claims"]}]},{"component":"p","children":["Finally, beware the agencies with the guarantees. It has become the unfortunate norm for digital marketers to take advantage of a general lack of knowledge. The “oversell and under-deliver” tactic is so common because it can be difficult to sell digital marketing services. Industry best practices are constantly changing and the concepts are relatively new."]},{"component":"p","children":["This creates an intangibility with online marketing services, which can make clients feel like they are grabbing at air. Promising the first page of Google or 500,000 Twitter followers provides a sense of actual benefit, but is simply not the way to achieve real results through digital marketing. Ethical guarantees would be assuring progress on your site’s Google rank for top five keywords, and a 40 percent increase in organic social engagement. Not only are those goals attainable, they indicate white-hat SEO practices."]},{"component":"p","children":[{"component":"em","children":["Related Article:"]}," ",{"component":"Link","props":{"href":"http://www.business.com/online-marketing/winter-is-coming-for-the-digital-advertising-industry/"},"children":["Brace Yourselves: Winter is Coming for the Digital Advertising Industry"]}]},{"component":"p","children":["As of last year, Millennials, the generation that grew up online, make up the majority of the workforce, which means digital marketing is now a necessity for all companies. The industry as a whole is still in its beginning stages, and it destroys the century-old ideal of perfecting a process to boost efficiency. Digital marketers face the challenge of changing the way they do things quickly and frequently; therefore, it’s important to hire agencies that are not only hyper-aware of the landscape but also passionate about the success of their clients."]}]},"resource":null,"sponsorship":null,"thumbnail":{"path":null,"caption":"NanoStockk / Getty Images","isBlurred":true},"bestPicks":null},"related":{"relatedArticles":[{"title":"Are You Getting Ripped Off? How to Spot a Poor Digital Marketing Agency","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/are-you-getting-ripped-off-how-to-spot-a-poor-digital-marketing-agency/","slug":"are-you-getting-ripped-off-how-to-spot-a-poor-digital-marketing-agency","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/channel/marketing.jpg","dek":"How can business owners avoid being preyed upon by unethical digital marketing agencies? Here are five signs of a misleading agency.","lastModified":"2016-07-15T14:00:00Z","published":"2016-07-15T14:00:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"Brand Builders: How to Choose a Reputable Digital Agency","canonical":"https://staging.business.com/articles/how-to-choose-a-reputable-digital-agency/","slug":"how-to-choose-a-reputable-digital-agency","thumbnail":"https://staging.business.com/images/content/56e/ad9252f87b15504d45ae8/1500-0-","dek":"Not every agency is a good fit for every business. Everyone has strengths, but everyone also has limitations.","lastModified":"2016-03-18T14:00:00Z","published":"2016-03-18T14:00:00Z","sponsored":null},{"title":"Back to Basics: 9 Offline Marketing Tactics That Still Work Today's Digital World","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/9-offline-marketing-tactics-that-still-work-todays-digital-world/","slug":"9-offline-marketing-tactics-that-still-work-todays-digital-world","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/channel/marketing.jpg","dek":"The explosion of digital marketing has opened up opportunities in offline channels that can mean major returns for your business.","lastModified":"2016-07-13T18:00:00Z","published":"2016-07-13T18:00:00Z","sponsored":false},{"title":"Back to Basics: 9 Offline Marketing Tactics That Still Work Today's Digital World","canonical":"https://staging.business.com/articles/9-offline-marketing-tactics-that-still-work-todays-digital-world/","slug":"9-offline-marketing-tactics-that-still-work-todays-digital-world","thumbnail":"https://staging.business.com/images/content/578/521073187b18f15bbc70b/1500-0-","dek":"The explosion of digital marketing has opened up opportunities in offline channels that can mean major returns for your business.","lastModified":"2017-02-22T23:57:21Z","published":"2016-07-13T18:00:00Z","sponsored":null},{"title":"How to Choose the Right Digital Marketing Strategy for Your Business","canonical":"https://www.business.com/articles/how-to-choose-a-digital-marketing-strategy/","slug":"how-to-choose-a-digital-marketing-strategy","thumbnail":"https://www.business.com/images/content/5f4/534e47b4374023e8b4567/1500-0-","dek":"Looking for digital marketing tools for your small business? 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