“How many enquiries came from each channel last month, and what did each one cost?” An agency doing real work answers within a day. If the reply is a report full of impressions, reach and engagement rate with no enquiry count anywhere in it, the work is not being measured against anything that pays you.
Most businesses that leave an agency do not leave because the work was bad. They leave because after eight months nobody could tell them whether it had worked. That is a measurement problem long before it is a marketing one, and it is fixable in one conversation.
What a report is really telling you
Both columns below describe things that appear in monthly reports across Chandigarh and the rest of India. One set describes activity. The other describes outcome.
Activity, dressed as results
- Impressions and reach. How many times something was on a screen. Not how many people acted.
- Engagement rate. Real, and moved easily by posting things your customers do not buy.
- Follower growth. Purchasable for a few hundred rupees, which is why it rises so reliably.
- “Keywords improved.” Position 84 to position 61 is an improvement and produces nothing.
- Website traffic, alone. Useful next to an enquiry count and meaningless without one.
- Posts published. A measure of their effort, not your return.
Outcome, which is what you bought
- Enquiries, by channel. The number. Split by where each came from.
- Cost per enquiry. Spend divided by enquiries. The number that decides everything.
- Enquiry to customer rate. Fifty poor leads is worse than eight good ones.
- Rankings for terms that convert. Named, and tied to what those pages produced.
- What was tested, and what it showed. Including the tests that failed.
- What happens next, and why. One paragraph. Specific to you.
None of the left-hand column is worthless. Impressions tell you whether anyone saw the work; engagement tells you whether it landed. The problem is a report built entirely from them, because that is almost always what a report looks like when the enquiry number has not moved and nobody wants to lead with it.
How long before you can judge
Judging every channel on one blanket period is how good work gets cancelled at month two and bad work survives to month twelve. They do not move at the same speed.
| Channel | First real signal | Judge it on |
|---|---|---|
| Google Ads | 2–4 weeks | Cost per enquiry, and whether it is falling month on month |
| Meta Ads | 3–6 weeks | Cost per enquiry, plus lead quality — cheap and useless is common here |
| Social media | About 3 months | Direct messages and enquiries, not followers |
| SEO | Weeks for technical, 3–6 months for ranking | Impressions in Search Console first — they rise before positions do |
| Content | 3–6 months per piece | Whether individual pages bring enquiries, one at a time |
The Search Console point is the most useful thing on this page for anyone doing SEO. Impressions climb before position does. If impressions for your main terms are rising at month three while rankings look unchanged, the work is landing and you are about to see it. That is the number to check when nothing else seems to be happening — and it is free, in an account you already own.
A five-minute audit you can do yourself
No tools, no login to anything you do not already have. Ask these five in order, and stop when one of them cannot be answered.
Ask for the enquiry number
Last month, by channel, with cost per enquiry beside it.
A good answer arrives within a day and contains numbers. A poor one arrives as a meeting invitation.Open Google Search Console yourself
You own this account, or you should. Performance → Queries. Compare the last three months to the previous three.
If you do not have access to your own Search Console, that is the finding. Ask for it today.Ask what was tested last month
A headline, an audience, a landing page, an ad. Anything.
“Nothing” means the account is on maintenance. You are paying a retainer for something that could be automated.Ask what they would stop doing
Every account has a channel or tactic underperforming. They know which.
An agency that would stop nothing is either not looking or not willing to shrink its own invoice.Ask what they own that you do not
Website code, domain, hosting, ad accounts, analytics, Business Profile.
All of it should be in your name. If the ad account is theirs, leaving means losing the campaign history — and they know that too.Ask us these too. Every one of them is answerable about our own clients, and if we ever could not answer one, that would be the finding about us. A test you would not survive yourself is not a test worth publishing.
Social media, specifically
Social media works when your customers decide there. For restaurants, salons, retail and anything visual, that is genuinely true. For most B2B and professional services, search brings better enquiries for the same money — and posting three times a week fixes nothing if the website underneath is weak.
Social is the channel most often sold on activity, because activity is visible and results are slower. A monthly report showing twelve posts and 4,000 impressions describes work that happened. It does not describe whether anyone enquired.
What to ask about a social retainer
- How many direct messages and enquiries came from social last month? Not clicks. Messages.
- Which post produced the most, and why do you think that is? A real answer names a post. A poor one names a metric.
- What are we posting that our customers actually search for? Trend content gets reach and rarely gets buyers.
- Should we be on all four platforms? Almost nobody should. An agency billing for four is unlikely to volunteer that.
We turn down social retainers fairly often, usually when a business has a hundred visitors a month and no enquiry form worth the name. Posting three times a week fixes neither. The website and search come first, and this piece explains the order in full.
Send us the answers and we will read them
Run the five questions past your current agency, then send us what came back. We will tell you honestly whether it looks like work — including when it does, and you should stay where you are.
When to leave, and when not to
Changing agency costs you two to three months while the new one learns the account. It is worth it sometimes and expensive when it is not.
Leave if
- They cannot tell you what an enquiry costs, after being asked directly and given time.
- The report has been the same shape for six months.
- Nothing has been tested since the account started.
- They have never once told you something would not work.
- You do not own your own ad accounts, analytics or domain.
Stay if
- The numbers are honest and the direction is right, even if slow.
- They have told you no at least once.
- You are three months into SEO. That is not enough time and leaving restarts the clock.
- The problem is the website, not the marketing — a new agency inherits the same ceiling.
That fourth one is worth sitting with. If the site is slow, unclear or has no working enquiry route, no agency can fix that from the outside. We have taken over accounts where the previous agency was doing perfectly good work into a website nobody could use, and the honest first invoice was for fixing the site, not for marketing.
Common questions
How do I know if my digital marketing agency is working?
Ask for one number: how many enquiries came from each channel last month, and what each one cost. An agency doing real work can answer within a day. If the reply is a report full of impressions, reach and engagement rate with no enquiry count, the work is not being measured against anything that pays you.
How long should I give a digital marketing agency before judging?
Paid ads should produce enquiries within two to four weeks. Social media takes about three months to show a pattern. SEO takes three to six months on a site without existing authority. Judge each channel on its own timeline, not on one blanket period.
What are vanity metrics in digital marketing?
Impressions, reach, followers, likes, engagement rate and page views. They describe activity rather than outcome. None of them is meaningless, but none of them is what you are buying, and a report built entirely from them is usually hiding that enquiries have not moved.
Should I fire my digital marketing agency?
Ask them the enquiry question first, and give them one honest conversation to answer it. Leave if they cannot tell you what a lead costs, if the reports never change shape, if nothing has been tested in six months, or if they have never once told you something would not work.
Is social media marketing worth it for a business in India?
It depends on whether your customers decide there. For restaurants, salons, retail and anything visual, yes. For most B2B and professional services, search brings better enquiries for the same money, and social works better as support than as the main channel.
What should a monthly marketing report contain?
Enquiries by channel, cost per enquiry, what changed since last month, what was tested and what the test showed, and what happens next. Five things. Anything longer than two pages is usually padding, and anything without an enquiry count is not a report on results.
Where to go next
If the audit points at the marketing, our digital marketing page covers how we run it and social media sits alongside. If it points at search, what SEO costs explains what a retainer should buy in hours. And if it points at the website — which it often does — start with web development.