10 Signs Your Digital Marketing Agency Is Not Doing A Good Job
Posted on
- 12 December 2025
Business improvement in online marketing is becoming more and more dependent on strong online marketing strategies for both service based and ecommerce companies. Most business owners engage in working with a digital marketing company to boost their digital presence, raise awareness and sales through the reach of their online presence. However, not all agencies follow through on their commitment. From our own experience in over 15 years of digital marketing, we have found out at roughly 90% of all customers we engage with, have had at best, very average and basic digital marketing implemented on their website from working with even some of Australia’s biggest agencies. It is quite upsetting to say the least.
If you doubt your digital marketing agency’s performance, here are ten signs you need to look for.
1. Lack of Clear Communication From Your Digital Marketing Company
Great communication is vital to a good partnership. A red flag is when your agency doesn’t communicate regularly, or doesn’t respond to your queries. A good digital marketing company should let you know about the campaign progress, where you stand and what the plans are for the next month. Regular conversation or email makes sure that everyone is on the same page and is ready to make corrections at the earliest. This also avoids confusion.
Another thing to note, if you are not getting reports monthly, that is a big red flag!
2. No Defined Strategy
A proper digital marketing company will identify your business requirements and take a customised approach. If your agency is providing the standard cookie-cutter strategies without understanding your business goals, they might not understand what’s effective for your market. You need to tailor an approach to everything from both services based and ecommerce SEO marketing to Google Ads management, to maximise your marketing spends.
If you are speaking with a digital marketing agency who offers packages (example: gold, sivler, bronze – or something alike) stop wasting your time and speak to a agency that will take the time to understand your need and business goals, then customise a bespoke strategy for your business, and your business only.
3. Poor SEO Performance
When we mentioned earlier that about 90% of customers we speak with are struggling with their current marketing agencies, this is one of the main reasons. A good SEO company should be offering clear reports on keyword performance, website visits and conversions at the least. If you’re not seeing any improvements in your SEO rankings and traffic after about 3 – 4 months, it could be a sign of working with a crappy company. When it comes to local SEO services traffic may be a bit slower but your rankings should improve sooner. or just plain bad local SEO or a futile approach.
It is also important to note that you should SEO companies that also rely too much on AI. If the company is simply relying on AI to tell them how to do the work, then you might as well do it yourself. How are you to know they are doing this? You either won’t get any results, or you may see a small boost then nothing else after that. You can also speak to us and we will be able to take a look and see
4. High Staff Turnover
Frequent turnover in staff running your account can throw everything out of balance as well as impact strategy. If you are constantly speaking to a new account manager about your campaigns, then that agency is wasting time instead of focusing on working on that strategy to get you results. Even if the main fundamentals are the same. everyone still their own way of doing online marketing, and with too many people sticking their hands into your campaign you will not be working on that strategy long enough to see proper results. Even if their methods are correct, changing things up does take time and results don’t happen immediately when changing up marketing strategies.
5. No Consistent or Low Quality Content
They say content king when it comes to digital marketing. Content can come in forms of text based content, images, call to actions, videos, banners, and pretty much everything that is brand related to what you see when you are on a website. The content makes up the brand, tells the audience what you are about, works as a call to action and tells Google what you are focusing on.
Poor images, call to actions, bad copy writing can break your marketing strategy for both users and even search engines.
However, lets focus on text based content for now. This is where digital marketing companies always try to take short cuts or cut costs. Before, we used to see agencies off shoring content to non English speaking countries which caused all sorts of issues. The content read funny, did not make much sense, and even if it did there would be other issues when it came to the tone of voice. Now, these cowboy style agencies which is most of them, use chats bots such as ChatGPT to create content for their customers. AI content can effect your websites SEO rankings. Even though Google says it is not against AI generated content, but if all your agency is doing is simply copying and pasting AI generated content onto your website, then why should Google rank you? We are yet to see one website with mostly AI generated content rank high in the search results, unless they are in an industry that is not competitive at all. An important thing we do know, is that AI is making SEO essential.
Also remember, some agencies are also creating content just for the sake of creating content. If you have content on your website that has already been discussed on a thousand other websites, with no unique value or improvement, then don’t expect it to have any value for your website.
6. Disregarding Data and Analytics
7. Unrealistic Promises
Beware of agencies that promise instant results or promise rankings on the first page of Google, within a few weeks. These kinds of claims tend to be unrealistic and opaque. A well-established and trusted agency realises that digital marketing takes time, and ongoing practice to produce positive outcomes.
If you ever hear agencies also promising they will work for free if they cannot get results then do not even bother to engage when them. Work for free SEO agencies or any type of marketing that promises they will work for free of with your money back if you are not happy are a scam.
All digital marketing takes time, whether it is organic or paid digital marketing such as Google Ads or social media marketing, it will take time. You need to gather enough data and then make decisions.
8. Infrequent or No Reporting
Transparency in any business relationship is essential, especially in a digital marketing situation. If your provider makes too few reports or doesn’t explain their methods or results, the agency most likely proving you poor results. Frequent KPIs such as website visits, conversions and campaign ROI can be covered by a performance report.
You should be getting reports monthly as mentioned before. If not, then we all know it’s because the agency know they are under performing and do not want you to know.
9. High Client Churn Rates
Any digital marketing agency that has a high rate of client turnover might indicate underachievement. If other businesses have been frequent movers away from the agency, it begs the question whether their performance was poor or not. It usually makes sense for business owners not to stay with an agency that has a bad reputation and to seek alternatives. One way to know this if the customer has a decent amount of case studies. As digital marketing takes a while to get good results, agencies with case studies would have most likely been working with those business for a while – long enough to get enough data to showcase their great digital marketing results on a case study.
10. Lack of Adaptability
Digital marketing trends are always changing agencies need to be ahead of the curve, or else they will be left behind and that means your business will also be left behind its competitors.
A responsive agency will consider doing things actively and adjusting to current trends of the industry as a whole. Sometimes, they should already be implementing strategies ahead of potential changes.
For example, with the rise in AEO AI Optimisation what is your current marketing agency doing to get ahead of the game? What are they doing to get your business found in AI search and what will the future of SEO look like or digital marketing in general? For all we know, this could just be a bubble that may best soon, but is it worth the risk to ignore? Definitely not! Behind ahead of trends is a great sign your marketing company is adaptive and your business will be at the forefront if anything changes in the industry.
You Should Want To Boast That You Work With The Best Digital Marketing Agency
The choice of digital marketing agency would most likely lead to success for your business. Whether or not any of these signs reflect your background, it seems worth considering and perhaps you may better of working with another agency – and that being Digital Debut, of course!
FAQs: How to Know Your Digital Marketing Is Working or Not
How do I know if my digital marketing agency is doing their job properly?
Your marketing partners need to keep in contact regularly, quickly respond to questions and provide clear monthly reports. But when you hear from them barely at all or simply when you’re not able to see the rankings, traffic numbers or positive movements it is a sign that your agency is not closely running an active campaign successfully.
How does a real marketing strategy differ from a cookie cutter plan?
The strategy is crafted by your objectives, your industry, your competitors and your markets. If an agency extends generic “package deals” it shows that they don’t really know about your business, your audience or your revenue goals which wont result in a great performance.
How to tell if my SEO is bad?
Rankings, traffic or enquiries haven’t improved in months. Many agencies either take a surface level approach or are heavily reliant on AI-generated content, which rarely succeeds. Poor SEO signals, bad content quality and no plan will eventually slow your growth or even send you backwards.
Does high turnover of staff have an impact on campaign efficacy?
Yes. Being regularly confronted with new account managers disrupts the whole strategy. Every time a new one takes charge, progress halts, you waste time and decisions get hitched. Stable teams reap much better long term results.
What makes content quality so important in digital marketing success?
Content defines your brand, your experience at the front end, and how search engines find your sites. Poor visuals, poor copy and generic AI-generated text undermine credibility and ranks. If you want the growth to be sustained, you must make it unique, relevant and well written.
Should a marketing agency have a heavy reliance on AI for writing their content?
AI will support research, but if your site is a copycat factory of AI text copied and pasted into your website, then SEO will suffer the most. Search engines will judge depth, originality and user value.
Why is analytics and reporting crucial?
Analytics reveal what works and what doesn’t. If your agency isn’t analysing data or issuing reports, they’re not tracking performance. Without understanding, campaigns won’t get better, budgets will go south and problems will go undetected.
Are the promises of “instant results” or guaranteed Google rankings a scam?
Yes. The industry has no way to promise fast rankings, “page one in weeks” or “free work until results.” Those statements indicate shortcuts, dangerous tactics and false promises. Sustainable marketing takes time, data and refinement of a consistent strategy that needs to evolve depending on market trends.
Why monthly reporting is non-negotiable?
Reports tell you where your money went, where you did better and what needs fixing. Agencies that refuse to report frequently do so because they do not want clients to interpret their misperformance to be poor.
What does it mean when an agency is losing clients often?
When an agency regularly loses clients, it’s often because the agency isn’t performing well. Good agencies maintain long-term relationships, establish a solid set of cases over a period that reflect real success through success stories that have been tested and implemented.
Why is it important for marketers to be adaptable in digital marketing.
Digital marketing is the one to many times evolving landscape. SEO, AI, AEO, paid search, algorithms, ad placements and more are constantly evolving. Agencies that do not quickly adapt will fall behind, and your business will also. A strong agency will try new things and stay on top of the industry changes.
