Agencies love to promise peace of mind and brilliant results. But when clients bring goals and tasks to agencies, they sometimes end up disappointed. You’ve probably experienced it too, and when you factor in overpromising, a lack of transparency, poor communication, and reactiveness rather than proactiveness on the part of the agencies, it’s hard not to place the blame on them.
But what if I told you that getting the best results isn’t just up to the agency? Many agencies are great at what they do and give your projects their best. Still, they may face limitations based on what you do—or don’t do. It’s a two-way street: the agency plays its part, and you play yours. That’s how you get outcomes that meet—or even exceed—your expectations.
My focus in this post isn’t your agency; it’s you, the client. What role do you have to play in getting results from an agency that you’re genuinely happy with? Here are a few you should pay close attention to.
Get Clear On What "Results" Actually Mean
Every client is unique—even those in the same niche with seemingly identical goals. Two sneaker-based e-commerce brands can both want “growth,” yet define it differently. For one, growth means achieving a Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) of at least 5:1. For the other, it’s a 30% increase in first-time customer acquisitions. The first brand focuses on immediate profit, while the second prioritizes market share and long-term value, even if it means short-term losses.
Do you want your customer base to grow? Or do you want your brand to become more popular? Maybe your goal is to rank higher on search engines? Nice—but just stating that isn’t enough. You have to define what each goal truly means to you.
One way to keep your goals clear and measurable is to quantify them. Adding numbers instantly gives a goal more weight. Saying “I want readers all over the country” sounds like a wish. But “I want 500,000 weekly visitors on my blog within the next 12 months” sounds like a plan. It’s only when you clearly define and quantify your specific goals that you can communicate them effectively to your agency.
Share Context, Not Just Tasks
Ask a professional, highly skilled video editor to create “an advert video,” and they’ll do a good job. But ask for “an exciting advert video for ladies that makes them laugh and remember the brand,” and you’ll probably get something far better. What makes the difference? Context.
When working with agencies, you want to include a context in every goal you share. No matter how much an agency excels at what they do, without context, they are left guessing what you want, and they may not always guess right. Their failure to please you is not due to a lack of skill, but rather to a missing context.
Besides mentioning your goal and specific tasks, you also want to share insights into your existing audience and the market you’re competing in. The age, gender, and location of those who buy from or are interested in your products and services matter, and so do the needs of the entire market.
Information about your brand tone helps, too. If your brand is super casual and communicates with easy-to-understand language, let your agency know. You don’t want to end up with a formal, jargon-filled result that is great, but doesn’t fit.
Also, past failures and successes may feel like restricted information, but you may be surprised by how much context they provide for your agency. These experiences help them know what works for you and what doesn’t, even without you being super-specific. There are some things you can’t explain with words, but your agency will be able to pick them up when they see the efforts you classify as failures and successes.
It’s a good practice to have working guidelines and SOP that you share with your agency and update as needed—they will make communication easier for both of you. If you don’t have SOPs or guidelines, encourage your agency to ask questions to better understand your expectations.
The more your agency understands your needs in detail, the more accurate the results you get from them will be.
Build A Two-Way Communication Rhythm
Onboarding an agency, making requests, then disappearing until the deadline sounds stress-free—and who doesn’t want that?—but that’s probably why you keep being disappointed with your results. I’m not saying you should micro-manage your agency, but you shouldn’t always wait for them to reach out to you before taking action.
Give your agency some space to work, but check in weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly to track progress. During these check-ins, you can find areas where they’re deviating and correct them early. The information you share when you reach out helps them understand your goals better and prevents poor results down the line.
Chances are that your agency already has its own methods of sharing updates—every good one does. However, if their process doesn’t work for you, you can make adjustments to it or share your own communication SOPs with them. You can easily build a communication SOP with ChatGPT if you don’t have one.
Your communication SOPs for updates from your clients should include details on communication channels, expected response times, feedback format, update frequency, and a single point of contact that the agency should consider the sole source of approvals. This single point of contact is necessary, so they don’t struggle with conflicting information from different people.
One thing that can affect progress adversely is a lack of transparency on either side. It can show up as a client telling an agency their sales are dropping without mentioning that they recently changed prices. The agency spends weeks tweaking ad creatives, assuming the campaign is the problem, but the issue remains.
Or the agency keeps claiming the campaign is performing well, while withholding details about high ad costs and low conversions. The clients assume things are fine until weeks later, when the results fall short. So encourage transparency from your agency, and lead by example—be transparent yourself.
Finally, don’t stay silent when results make you unhappy. Always speak up. Tell the agency how they disappointed you and the kind of results you expected. If you don’t speak up, they may assume things are fine, and you’ll keep getting poor results.
Give Actionable Feedback (Not Just Opinions)
While some feedback contains actionable statements, others are just opinions that lead to further confusion. Say, your agency provides an ad copy for your review, and your feedback is “I don’t like this” or “Make it better.” Both of these statements are confusing, as they neither specify what you don’t like about the ad copy nor what your agency should change.
Effective feedback is specific. It doesn’t attack the work, but guides the agency toward better results. It identifies the flaws and offers direction for improvement. Maybe the ad copy was written in British English instead of American English, or perhaps it sounds too formal for your brand’s voice—those are useful details worth mentioning.
Compare the feedback above with something like this: “Let’s make the tone friendlier and highlight the free trial instead.” This is actionable. The agency knows what to do and won’t waste time guessing how to please you, only to still end up missing the mark. So, as much as possible, keep feedback specific.
Respect The Process You Paid For
Agencies already have their way of doing things. It’s possible you chose your agency because you heard great things about them. So when you share your goals with them and give them enough context, trust their judgment on the best way to go about it.
Some clients try to constantly bypass the process. They may tell their web development agency to just push a website live before quality assessment testing is complete because they’re in a hurry, or message a designer directly to change the layout instead of going through the project manager. Yes, you’re the one paying—but this frequent disrespect of the process only leads to chaos.
Request to see the workflow the agency will adopt for your work, and make suggestions to it. But once you approve it, you should let the agency take it up from there and wait for outcomes before judging. You may have a different method for the same task, but that doesn’t mean the agency can’t achieve good or even better results with its own methods.
Measure Progress
Agencies often need time to fully understand your project, and they will probably make mistakes when they start. Results will improve as these mistakes are corrected.
Let’s say you hire an agency to manage your blog and share your tone with them. While they’ll do their best to follow your tone, they may still do something that doesn’t work for your blog. It can be a headline that feels off-brand or a topic that misses your audience’s interest. Or maybe even a sensitive word—I once worked with a client who said I couldn’t write the name of a current US president on their blog.
That’s why you can’t expect instant results. You have to be patient for a few weeks—30 to 60 days is a sensible waiting period for a moderate-level project, if you ask me, and complex ones may demand even more time. Dedicate this period to reviewing their early work and see it as an investment you’re making to reap better, more pleasant results in the future.
Throughout the project period, make it a habit to regularly review key performance indicators, including outputs, quality scores, communication, and reporting. Regular agency performance reviews help you know if you’re actually making any progress and predict the possibility of reaching your goals.
As you track KPIs, you’ll likely see improvements in some areas and gaps in others. When you do, don’t just keep it to yourself. Instead, inform your agency so they can adjust their strategies and efforts to achieve better results. If you have suggestions, provide them. Agencies that care for your goals are happy to hear your suggestions.
Make Timely Payments
Remember that their resources—whether contracted or full-time—are the ones doing the work. They need timely payments to stay motivated and prioritize your projects. Every delay in your payments disrupts your agency’s cash flow and directly affects its performance. You can’t expect smooth operations when the people doing the work aren’t being paid.
If you ever anticipate a delay, be upfront about it. Inform the agency early, explain the reason, and share a realistic payment timeline instead of staying silent and letting assumptions build. Most agencies appreciate honesty and can offer flexible arrangements or revised payment schedules if they know ahead of time.
You can ensure timely payments by budgeting for agency payments well in advance. Instead of scrambling to fit them into your next month’s budget, plan their payments for as far ahead as your finances permit. Here’s a simple payment rule to follow when working with agencies: If they’re consistently doing their part, there’s no reason to delay their payment.
Conclusion
The few pointers above will not only make your agency serve you better but will also improve your client-agency relationship. If you do all these and still get poor results, it’s probably an agency problem, and you may want to start looking for a new one. With clear, proactive communication, timely payments, and respect for the agency process, any good agency should be able to deliver strong, consistent performance.
