I’ve seen this question come up a lot here, and I get why./

After working with a couple of agencies (one not great, one actually decent), I realised the hardest part isn’t finding an agency — it’s knowing whether they’re genuinely improving your business or just… doing stuff that looks like work.

Because let’s be honest, most reports look impressive until you ask:
“Is this actually making me money?”

Here’s what I learned from going through it.

1. If you don’t set clear KPIs, you’re basically guessing

This was my biggest mistake early on.

I let the agency decide what success looked like, and surprise surprise. everything they reported sounded positive.

Now I do it very differently.

Before anything starts, I make it clear what actually matters to my business:

• sales
• revenue
• number of qualified leads

For us, leads that convert are always better than random traffic or beautiful dashboards. 

A good agency won’t promise crazy numbers, but they will give you a rough expectation based on the reliable database they have got from previous clients.

If they can’t answer that clearly, that’s already a bit of a red flag.

2. Give it a bit of time, but not unlimited time

This is where I see a lot of confusion. Not everything works on the same timeline:

• Paid ads / social (Meta, Redbook, LinkedIn, Tiktok) → you should start seeing signals pretty quickly (weeks to a couple months)
• SEO / GEO → slower, usually a few months before meaningful movement

What I do now is set a simple check window:

• after 1–3 months, are we seeing any progress toward the agreed goals?

If everything is flat and the explanation is always “it takes time”… yeah, I’d question that.

3. Monthly reports should actually mean something

I used to get reports that were full of impressions, reach, random percentages going up

But no real connection to outcomes.

Now I look for reports that tie everything back to leads, conversions. revenue impact

And more importantly:  the numbers are consistent month to month, not changing every time!!

If the metrics keep shifting, it’s very hard to tell what’s really going on

4. You should feel like you understand what’s going on

Not at a technical level, but at a business level.

You should be able to answer:

• are we heading in the right direction?
• what’s improving?
• what’s not working yet?

If everything feels unclear after a few months, that’s usually not on you.

Final thought

I don’t think most agencies are intentionally bad but a lot rely on clients not asking the right questions.

Once I started:

• setting clear KPIs
• checking progress in a realistic timeframe
• and actually asking for the reports with consistent KPIs

…it became way easier to tell who was doing real work and who wasn’t.

For context, I’ve had a better experience more recently with a Melbourne-based agency (AiMRed), especially around SEO/GEO and paid channels — but honestly, the biggest difference was just being more structured on my end.