Is the agency delivering, or just sending graphs?

Start from the outcome you pay for

Write down what you hired them for, in a sentence a customer would recognise: more calls, more booked jobs, more sales, more quote requests. 'Brand awareness' and 'visibility' only count if you can say what would be different in the business if it worked.

Then, for the last three months, note what you paid and how many enquiries became paying work. Use your inbox, your diary or your shop admin, not the agency's slides. If those two numbers are painful to collect, that is already the finding. A useful supplier can help you count them. A vague report cannot.

Ask for access, in writing

You are not asking to take the work away. You are asking to see the accounts you pay for. Read-only access is the normal request. The list, depending on what they do for you:

• Google Analytics 4, the tool that records visits and the actions you have asked it to count, such as a form being sent or a sale.
• Google Search Console, Google's own record of the searches you appeared for, the clicks, and which pages are indexed.
• Google Ads, if they run it, including the list of searches you paid for.
• Meta Business Suite, if they run Facebook or Instagram ads.
• Google Business Profile, the Maps listing, if local customers matter.
• The website admin, and the login for the domain name, so you are not locked out of your own site.

Five questions for the next report

Read the latest email against these. If the answer is missing, reply and ask only that. One specific answer is worth more than another appendix.

1. What did you do this month, in sentences I can check? Name the pages, the campaigns or the listings. 'Ongoing optimisation' is not an answer.
2. What changed on the website or in the ads, and what did you leave alone?
3. Did enquiries go up, down or stay flat? If you only have visits, say so, and say why the enquiries are not counted.
4. What is blocked, and who is it waiting on: you, a developer, or them?
5. What will you do next month, and how will we know it worked?

A quiet month is not the same as no work

Work can be real and the phone can still be quiet. The page can be slow on a phone. The listing can have old photos. The thing being counted in the ads can be a tap, not a job. The tracking can have stopped, so the leads exist and the report cannot see them. Those are different problems, and they need different conversations.

Use when conversions are not real jobs, Analytics showing no revenue and questions for an SEO agency for the ones that match. If you want the checks aimed at a trade, a shop, or the person who has to answer for the agency, the situation pages are local trades, online shops and checking an agency.

A note you can send

Short on purpose. Send it from the person who pays the invoice.