40k spent, questions

Hello, I'm curious if anyone here can help offer me any insight into weather my marketing agency is actually doing anything worth the money I have spent in the last year.

To begin with the business has grown the revenue is up but my first year in business I didn't run any ads, the second year I hired the agency and running google ads. When I started with them I had a very basic website with no seo work or blogs or anything. So I don't believe that just because there is growth that the amount I'm being charged is a fair amount for the work being completed.

We are a some what seasonal construction industry, being one season is alot busier but there are things we do in the winter with leaks and repairs so over the winter the owner of the agency reached out and suggested we lower the monthly fee and suggested we pause the ads for the really cold months (jan/feb) and the 1k off is because they don't need to manage them. I still figured we'd see some pay off from the SEO work and still get some calls but while the ads were off I got zero calls. I had planned on taking some time off in the winter so I wasn't to worried about it but now thinking about it, it seems like I have essentially paid nearly 40grand in the last year for a website and some ad management which I don't even think we are doing manual bidding.

I just had a another call with the agency the other day and I asked about back links and citations and how we are comparing to others in my field and I've only got about 50 back links and others have hundreds if not thousands of links. He suggested that our budget is limited right now sense we still haven't raised it back up and that majority of the first year was spent building the website. He also suggested that if I had more I could budget for marketing it'd be a dis service to me for him to suggest upping the rate again and spending on seo at this point and it'd be better spent on ads right now. Which I was already feeling like firing this guy and spending the whole budget on ads and just hire and ad specialist for a fraction of the cost and double my ad budget.

Other relevant info, these guys were a referral and the friend who suggested them are very happy with them still and going on year 3 with the agency. They do however specialize in that industry, however their largest client is in the same industry as me on the other side of the country. When I hired them he showed me the accounts he's managing and the numbers for everything.

Thanks for your time.