The starting point
Compare the promise with the work and the result.
Repeated missed commitments, unexplained results and unresolved errors deserve action. One weak month or a failed experiment needs investigation before it becomes a verdict on the agency.
Check what was agreed, what was delivered, which outcomes can be verified and what prevented progress. Then decide whether to keep, correct, renegotiate, replace or pause the work. A report should help you make that decision.
01 · Bring the records
Open the evidence before the meeting
Start with the signed scope, budget and agreed outcome. Separate a delivery commitment, such as a tested landing page, from a performance target affected by demand, budget and sales follow-up.
- Scope and approvals. Planned work, completed work, approval dates, exclusions and unresolved requests.
- Account records. Spend, campaign changes, landing pages and conversion definitions for the same dates.
- Business outcomes. Unique inquiries, qualification reasons, bookings or orders, cancellations and open opportunities.
- Operating context. Capacity, stock, pricing, response times, seasonality and changes in the market.
- Access and continuity. Who administers each account, where exports live and what the agreement says about handoff.
Ask for a work log alongside the platform history. Google Ads change history shows account changes from the past two years, but a change count does not tell you whether the judgment was good. Work such as research or a creative brief may live elsewhere.
02 · Identify the cause
Separate four possible sources of the problem
Agency work
Agreed work was missed, an error was repeated, or lead-quality feedback never changed the campaign. Ask for the specific decision, supporting record and corrective action.
Business conditions
Calls go unanswered, quotes wait for approval, inventory is unavailable or the offer has changed. Identify who can fix the constraint and what the agency should have flagged.
Measurement
A click is counted as an inquiry, duplicate submissions inflate totals, or records use different definitions. Establish what each number counts before comparing performance.
Market changes
Demand, competition or buying behavior has shifted. Ask what evidence supports that explanation and what adjustment follows. “The market is difficult” is not a completed analysis.
More than one cause can apply. Agree who owns the next action; a category such as “measurement” cannot take responsibility for fixing a tag.
For paid search, continue with the Google Ads agency checks. For unclear AI work, compare AI visibility and SEO service scope.
03 · A completed review
Forty reported leads. Nine bookings. What actually happened?
Illustrative example, not a client result. On October 5, a fictional service business reviews inquiries received from September 1 to 30, 2026. Its planning target was 30 qualified inquiries, not a guaranteed result. The agency managed ads and the landing page; the business handled qualification and sales.
| Record | Count or cost | What it establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Advertising spend | $6,000 | Media cost for this period |
| Agency fee | $1,500 | Included with media in the calculations below |
| Reported form events | 40 | Submission events before deduplication |
| Unique inquiries | 36 | Four repeat submissions removed in the example review |
| Qualified inquiries | 24 | Match the agreed service, location and purchase criteria; linked to paid search in this example |
| Outside the service area | 8 | Confirmed poor fit; inspect how they reached the form |
| Not yet reviewed | 4 | Qualification still unknown |
| Bookings from the qualified group | 9 | Fifteen qualified opportunities are still open |
The 36 unique inquiries reconcile as 24 qualified + 8 outside the area + 4 unreviewed. The 24 qualified inquiries reconcile as 9 booked + 15 open. An open opportunity is not automatically a lost sale.
These costs exclude sales labor and any other supplier or production costs. The 24 qualified inquiries are linked to paid search in this fictional record. These ratios are not profit or ROI. Later bookings and cancellations can change the booking figure. Use the same inquiry group and sufficient follow-up time when comparing periods.
What the review found
The example work log shows that the agency missed an agreed landing-page test and had not investigated the eight out-of-area inquiries. The sales team confirms that five qualified inquiries have not had a first response. A form test also reproduces the duplicate event.
That is a combination of agency delivery, business follow-up and measurement problems. The records do not establish how much each problem caused the booking shortfall, or whether every out-of-area inquiry came from paid traffic.
Agency lead
By October 8, complete the missed test, trace the poor-fit inquiries to their sources and propose any targeting change. Show the change log and the test result.
Business sales lead
By October 6, contact the five untouched inquiries and finish the four qualification reviews. Continue recording outcomes for open opportunities.
Tracking owner
By October 7, fix the duplicate event and test one successful submission, a retry and a rejected submission. Record what each test counts.
Decision: correct, then recheck. In this example, the next review is October 26, chosen for this business’s follow-up cycle. Your dates should fit your own work and sales cycle. Reassess the missed commitments and the same inquiry group. Repeated failure to deliver or disclose the work may justify replacement; this one example does not prove that replacement improves sales.
Download this completed example · CSV04 · Run the review
Leave with actions someone can complete
Agree what the numbers mean
Match the dates, inquiry group, channel, costs and outcome definitions. Mark missing evidence. A reported conversion may be an inquiry, a qualified lead or a different action; Google distinguishes qualified and converted leads.
Give the agency the concern and the records
Explain the missed expectation and ask for its account of what happened. Let it correct an error in your reading before deciding what action is needed.
Name the change, owner and due date
Replace “improve lead quality” with a specific task, such as checking the source of poor-fit inquiries and documenting the approved targeting change.
Define how the fix will be checked
A tested form can be verified at release. Changes to lead quality need enough comparable inquiries and sales follow-up. Choose the review window for the work, rather than imposing a universal number of days.
Record the decision and its conditions
Write what continues, what changes and what would trigger another decision. Share the record with the people responsible for delivery.
Google documents differences between Analytics and Ads conversion reporting. Check definitions, counting, attribution and timing before treating a mismatch as evidence of dishonesty.
05 · Decide
Keep, correct, renegotiate, replace or pause
- Keep
- The work matches the agreed scope, the records support the explanation, and the next plan fits the business.
- Correct
- A specific problem can be repaired. Agree what changes, who owns it, when it is due and how it will be checked.
- Renegotiate
- The business need or original assumptions changed. Update scope, reporting, responsibilities, budget or commitment before renewal.
- Replace
- Material agreed work, access or disclosure remains missing after a direct request and a reasonable chance to correct it. Plan continuity before changing access.
- Pause
- The business cannot handle the demand or the destination is broken. Assess whether to pause the affected activity while the constraint is fixed.
If replacement is the decision, use the agency handoff guide. If the job changed, review scope and reporting questions before renegotiating.
Take the review worksheet to the meeting
Record the agreed job, evidence, unresolved questions, next action, owner and dates. Leave an unknown marked unknown. The worksheet supports a discussion; it does not calculate a pass/fail agency score.
Download the blank worksheet · CSVOpens in Excel, Google Sheets or Numbers. No email required. Keep passwords and identifiable customer records out of it; reference private evidence in your own workspace.
Check access and handoff before you need them
Confirm that a responsible person in your business can administer the relevant accounts. Give a reviewer the access needed for the task. For example, Google Ads read-only access permits viewing campaigns and reports without campaign editing.
Check the agreement for source files, data exports, licenses, agency-owned tools and transition work. Do not assume that every creative file or third-party license transfers automatically. Record the actual rights and dependencies before removing access.
Turn the review into better marketing work
Stan Consulting provides marketing strategy, paid advertising, websites, ecommerce, SEO and AI visibility, and lead follow-up. Describe the work that needs to change. We agree scope, price and timing before a project begins.
Comparing a new supplier? Use the Shopify agency questions for store work, or compare a retainer with a defined project.
Sources and method
The review method and fictional worked example are Stan Consulting educational material. Platform details were checked against the following Google documentation on October 17, 2026.