Episode 782: How to Tell If Your Agency Is Performing (Not Just Reporting)

March 10, 2026

Stop guessing. Get the blueprint to scale: https://www.tiereleven.com/audit

Are your ads working, or are the dashboards just telling you what you want to hear? Too many marketers celebrate high ROAS inside Meta or Google while revenue in Shopify tells a very different story. If your agency is “reporting well” but the business isn’t growing, something is broken.

In this episode, we break down why in-app metrics are often misleading, how platforms double-count conversions, and why your CRM or store data must always be the source of truth. We also share the questions every VP of Marketing should ask their agency to force better thinking, stronger accountability, and a real growth strategy.

You’ll learn how to challenge reporting, uncover hidden attribution issues, and turn agency meetings into strategic conversations instead of dashboard reviews. If you manage paid media or manage the people managing it, this one will help you evaluate performance.

In this episode you’ll learn:

Why in-app ROAS from Meta and Google can be misleading
The conflicting reports from different platform attribution models
How view-through attribution inflates marketing performance
Why Shopify or CRM data should be your marketing source of truth
The difference between agency reporting and actual marketing performance
How retargeting campaigns can artificially inflate ROAS
The 3 critical questions VPs of Marketing should ask agencies
How to identify bottlenecks in paid media performance
Why creative testing and experimentation drive growth

Mentioned in the Episode:

Stop guessing. Get the blueprint to scale: https://www.tiereleven.com/audit
Is Your Agency Performing Or Just Reporting Well?: https://youtu.be/F6iGYu7Dv4s

Thanks so much for joining us this week. Want to subscribe to Perpetual Traffic?

Have some feedback you’d like to share? Connect with us on iTunes and leave us a review!

READ THE TRANSCRIPT:

How to Tell If Your Agency Is Performing (Not Just Reporting)

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:01:10
Ralph
your agency shouldn’t be

00:00:01:10 – 00:00:03:21
Ralph
reporting well, it should be performing well.

00:00:03:21 – 00:00:06:07
Ralph
if your agency is saying, hey, look at

00:00:06:07 – 00:00:08:06
Ralph
or the meta dashboard and see how great we’re doing,

00:00:08:06 – 00:00:09:15
Ralph
always ask the question,

00:00:09:15 – 00:00:10:07
Ralph
is it real?

00:00:10:14 – 00:00:16:16
Ralph
the three questions that every VP of marketing should ask their agency. What would they be?

00:00:16:16 – 00:00:18:00
Lauren
The first question

00:00:20:14 – 00:00:23:04
Lauren
I think, like as you’d said earlier, like sometimes

00:00:23:04 – 00:00:24:14
Lauren
people will

00:00:24:14 – 00:00:28:14
Lauren
overextend on the reporting to make it look better because like, I get little when

00:00:28:14 – 00:00:30:14
Lauren
women lie, men lie, numbers don’t lie.

00:00:30:16 – 00:00:51:19
Lauren
But the numbers sure can be manipulated because I can like like we’ll use Google Ads. You can do all conversion value versus like the actual conversion value that’s associated to it. So I think like, going back to earlier with the VP has or whoever, the director marketing and whoever’s overseeing the marketing has a level of responsibility to know enough that you can suss out

00:00:51:19 – 00:00:54:23
Lauren
if the numbers are aligned with your true North

00:00:54:23 – 00:00:57:04
Lauren
star, and having

00:00:57:04 – 00:01:09:10
Lauren
symmetry with the revenue growth for the account, because you can manipulate and say, like with attribution, if you’re using a tool like attentive that has a 28 day attribution window by default for SMS, you can say like, look,

00:01:09:10 – 00:01:24:03
Lauren
our stuff is contributing to 80% of your sales when the reality is, is the numbers are manipulated and it’s just the dashboard looks really good. And then you’re able to hide behind vanity metrics and vanity reporting.

00:01:24:03 – 00:01:48:18
Ralph
Yeah. And on that note, for attentive, for example, attentive is one component of an overall marketing strategy. Unless that’s your only component. Well those emails and that SMS is have to come from somewhere. So the precursor to that is probably opt ins is my guess. Yeah, probably. The point is this is like every single metric needs to get measured in its own individual way.

00:01:48:18 – 00:01:55:12
Ralph
But how is it contributing to the bottom line? Yes. How is it contributing to your source of truth?

00:01:55:12 – 00:02:16:10
Ralph
And for us, it’s always going back to the source of truth, whether it’s the inside of your Shopify, it’s your HubSpot, it’s your CRM, all of that. If your agency isn’t pulling data from there and they’re looking in-app, or they’re looking just solely like inside, the intent of app like that onto itself will look really good.

00:02:16:12 – 00:02:36:11
Ralph
But how is the business moving forward? Are you just recycling the same customers? Are you actually getting new ones? How are your opt ins? Maybe on your social platforms that feed the intent of the sale? All of this needs to get factored in, and your agency needs to know what those one or 2 or 3 metrics are that are really moving the needle to achieve your goal.

00:02:36:22 – 00:02:57:11
Ralph
Well, like it like we talked about before, it’s like the goal is everything. If you don’t know what that goal is and you’re not aligned with your agency on the specific goal, it could be a quarterly goal, could be a yearly goal, could be a ten year goal. If you have a long term outlook, the point is this is that all of your metrics should be in alignment with that goal.

00:02:57:11 – 00:03:02:16
Ralph
Then you sort of diagnose backwards and figure out where the holes are and where to fix those holes.

00:03:02:20 – 00:03:24:11
Lauren
Yeah, yeah. Like going backwards to know which ones to fix. And like there’s pieces to it where the agency may like again, there’s different types. So someone who’s only focused on the specific service that you ask them to do, that just might be a limitation of where they are as an agency and their skills, which I’m not saying those aren’t good options.

00:03:24:11 – 00:03:41:16
Lauren
It’s just depending on where you are in revenue and where you are in market investment right now, you have to be mindful that someone who’s only focused on what they’re responsible for, which I admit, at times I was I was like, I like, I can’t be responsible for what’s held off the click, but I am going to be affected by it.

00:03:41:16 – 00:04:03:21
Lauren
So you just have to be able to like, let someone like a dashboard that, an agency is saying like, hey, look at what we’re performing. I need to have a discussion that starts from the dashboard. Like the dashboard is a springboard, not the focus of the discussion, because then I can identify like, is it increasing our customers, increasing our revenue, increasing our repurchase rate, increasing our average order value?

00:04:04:01 – 00:04:33:13
Lauren
What’s driving lifetime value? That springboard, that springboard from the dashboard vantage point allows you to have stronger conversations such as, all right, I am looking at this product and I can see that the I’ll go to e-commerce goes easy. The product display page is converting at 4.5%. I’d like to push that to 9%. So the dashboard allows us to have solution forward questions that the agency may not be responsible for.

00:04:33:13 – 00:04:37:02
Lauren
But they are. They have a responsibility to bring up the discussion.

00:04:37:02 – 00:05:04:16
Ralph
Yeah, absolutely. And I think you have to make sure that all of those metrics are accurate. If they’re reporting in app or in platform, that platform, those results, like you said before, can be manipulated even if they don’t have server side tracking, you should at least be able to have your agency go in and figure out, like, okay, last week when they report to you, this is how this is how sales were.

00:05:04:17 – 00:05:23:01
Ralph
This is how many new customers we got. This is how many repeat customers we got. Yeah. Even if they the if all you’re running is Facebook ads and your Facebook ads are a 5.8 Roas or a 3.2 Roas, but, you know, that can be very easily manipulated depending on like which I tell you, if you’re in that you’re using.

00:05:23:03 – 00:05:43:08
Lauren
You just go down a breakdown, look at the demographics and then from demographics to the audience segments, assuming that you’ve defined your audience segments. If you didn’t, why it takes 30s anyways, you do that and you can look at are these existing or engaged or new audiences just by that in and of itself will give you insight of it’s easy to to get a really high Roas and in-app Roas.

00:05:43:08 – 00:05:44:21
Lauren
If you’re going after retargeting.

00:05:45:03 – 00:05:52:17
Ralph
Oh, absolutely. And you’re Roas will be off the charts and it’ll look great. And you this will be it’s cheating. So but there’s.

00:05:52:17 – 00:06:24:06
Lauren
Times I will say one. Well I’ll let me, let me back like give myself a devil’s advocate and just like, well is it cheating if the client is not doing any other marketing initiatives to capture that same retention? Because then that’s where, like, you can see, like you had brought up Ralph, like if you’re Roas in app or even if the Roas in dashboard is showing one thing and like it looks like the numbers are growing, but your Shopify store or your bank account or not, what is happening when it’s there’s incongruence between the two.

00:06:24:06 – 00:06:53:09
Lauren
And if someone’s like, I have really strong relies on Facebook, we know that like, hold on, are you probably cheating? But the only other thing is like, well, why aren’t you also trying? Because if you’re using a tool like Wicked Reports or data or anything else to see where that last click and that contribution attribution is coming from if no one else is doing, if you’re not doing email marketing, if you’re not doing SMS marketing, then the only reason that they’re converting is from your Google, TikTok and Facebook ads for example.

00:06:53:09 – 00:06:58:20
Lauren
That’ll be my devil’s advocate. Where take the credit because they’re not doing the minimum effort required.

00:06:58:21 – 00:06:59:11
Ralph
Well, yeah.

00:06:59:11 – 00:07:03:18
Ralph
If your agency is relying on the in platform metrics, it’s a warning sign.

00:07:03:18 – 00:07:27:07
Ralph
And I think we’re going to go through this as far as like the weekly reporting and all that sort of stuff. The questions that you should ask, we’ll we’ll talk about that in a second. But just keep in mind that every ad platform, whether it’s meta, whether it’s Google, whether it’s TikTok, Pinterest, Snapchat, you name it, it uses its own attribution model to assign revenue and credit for the ads that it serves.

00:07:27:07 – 00:07:28:03
Ralph
So.

00:07:28:05 – 00:07:31:01
Lauren
And it models that data. It models that data.

00:07:31:01 – 00:07:35:13
Ralph
Models that data like that’s a key element to this whole thing. So

00:07:35:13 – 00:07:41:03
Ralph
if your agency is saying, hey, look at the Facebook dashboard or the meta dashboard and see how great we’re doing,

00:07:41:03 – 00:07:42:15
Ralph
always ask the question,

00:07:42:15 – 00:07:43:07
Ralph
is it real?

00:07:43:07 – 00:07:56:03
Ralph
How are you double checking this versus where I’m actually collecting the money? My CRM, my back end, whether it’s, you know, BigCommerce, you know, Shopify, you name it, whatever it happens to be.

00:07:56:08 – 00:08:16:02
Ralph
That’s the question to ask them, because every single platform, whenever there is a conversion that happens, that platform is going to say to themselves, well, did someone who made this purchase interact with one of our ads recently? And how can we get credit for that to make us look good? All the platforms do this. They try to do as much as they possibly can.

00:08:16:07 – 00:08:16:12
Ralph
They want.

00:08:16:15 – 00:08:16:17
Lauren
To.

00:08:16:20 – 00:08:18:13
Ralph
So look good and.

00:08:18:13 – 00:08:19:04
Lauren
So.

00:08:19:06 – 00:08:35:23
Ralph
Sell more. So it’s almost like it’s fraud in a lot of ways. And plus all that data in so many ways is models. Like you said, it’s not actual click data, your source of truth. It’s the ultimate checks and balances for your entire business because that’s where you’re collecting the money.

00:08:36:01 – 00:08:56:02
Lauren
Sure, it’s almost like the same route where if an agency is like, yeah, I’ve got A5X rolls, you know, like, well, it’s all remarketing. And then you’re like, well, then why aren’t you doing any efforts either? Because if I don’t do this and you turn off all of my remarketing, then you will have no sales. I think in that same lens where we were like, oh, Mark Zuckerberg hates me, just wants to take all my money.

00:08:56:02 – 00:09:16:15
Lauren
I’m like, I don’t know if there are other companies out there that want you to have more success. And I’ve told you this before, I think companies like meta are looking to just be rev share companies in your business, because the more money you make, the more you spend. So it’s like a bank account rev share situation without them having to manage inventory, without them having to fulfill services.

00:09:16:17 – 00:09:37:07
Lauren
So these platforms want you to win because the more you win, the more you put back into the system. It’s like this never ending. Like you make a dollar for every 20 you give me. Great. Give me $20 million and you’ll make 20. Whatever that solution is. But to the language of fraud, it’s it’s set up where they care about your chance of winning.

00:09:37:13 – 00:10:01:16
Lauren
But I think most the time through resource capacity restrictions, people don’t pay attention in setting them up for the most success. So then is it the owners fault? The marketers fault, or metas fault that they’re taking like fraudulent Roas when you didn’t follow up with basic best practices?

00:10:01:18 – 00:10:18:22
Ralph
Yeah. I mean, like I said, I mean, every platform wants to look good and think about it this way as be very skeptical of the platform and to a certain degree, be skeptical of the agency because the agency typically wants to look good as well. They don’t want to get fired. Meta doesn’t want to get fired. Google doesn’t want to get fired.

00:10:18:23 – 00:10:37:00
Ralph
They all want you to continue to spend money with them. Yeah. And your source of truth and your the way that you really want to look at this is cut through all that stuff. And I do want to get into like, the questions that we should be asking as a VP of marketing in order to make sure that your agency is on the straight and narrow.

00:10:37:00 – 00:10:54:05
Ralph
But I will say that. So think about it this way. And I know we said this many times before in the show. I mean, if you’re running ads on Meta and Google simultaneously, the reason why this happens is because and almost every brand has this situation, both platforms are looking at the same pool of customers who purchased. Yeah.

00:10:54:06 – 00:11:17:14
Ralph
So if somebody, you know, might have seen a meta ad on a Monday, clicked on a Google Shopping ad on Thursday, purchased on a Saturday, meta claims the credit because that’s a view through conversion. They saw the ad on Monday and the person actually bought, on, you know, on Saturday, you know, maybe through an organic search.

00:11:17:14 – 00:11:29:04
Ralph
And meta wants to take credit for that as much as possible. So but Google in that case will claim the purchase and last click attribution for their click that they got on Thursday.

00:11:29:06 – 00:11:49:13
Lauren
So and will keep for 28 days any purchase if you click but to like in that like you can look like questions to ask like how much are you looking at click attribution versus view through attribution. That takes five seconds to pull out in a report inside and out. You just go into the dashboards, you do another breakdown, and then you can look at click through versus view.

00:11:49:13 – 00:12:06:09
Lauren
Like like you need to understand like those small things. So when you’re looking at those numbers understanding where is that source coming from. What lens are you looking at it. Because it’s if you have something that’s like, I’ve got five x Roas and you don’t just make a small adjustment like, oh my gosh, it’s all viewed through Roas.

00:12:06:11 – 00:12:13:08
Lauren
No one’s clicking. All you’re doing is just throwing it out there and like you saw it, I get credit. Yeah. You saw it like that.

00:12:13:08 – 00:12:32:15
Ralph
So exactly. So think my scenario you viewed the Facebook ad. This is all within seven days. Keep in mind the main the most of our clients it’s usually right to look back period is typically is seven plus days. It’s usually 30 days in most cases. Just so we can sort of claim like real attribution contribution as sort of a side note.

00:12:32:20 – 00:13:00:16
Ralph
But think about it this way. In that scenario you’ve got meta who saw the ad on Monday, clicked on the Google Shopping ad on a Thursday, and purchased through an organic search on Saturday. Your Shopify dashboard only reports one purchase, but your platforms are actually recording two, and because they both want to claim credit for the same sale and this is happening if you’re a high volume business, this is happening hundreds of times a week in app.

00:13:00:16 – 00:13:02:19
Ralph
That’s why you don’t look in app.

00:13:02:19 – 00:13:05:04
Lauren
You only you don’t only look, you.

00:13:05:04 – 00:13:23:23
Ralph
Look at half. Of course the good point. Yeah, but you don’t use the in-app metrics as your source of truth, because where you collect the money, that’s where it matters most. And that’s why in-app Roas is a false god and is something that people cannot.

00:13:24:01 – 00:13:26:06
Lauren
Demigod, let’s give a demigod because.

00:13:26:08 – 00:13:51:16
Ralph
There’s people are so injected to this, to this false metric. Now, it used to be a far more accurate way back before 80 prompts and, you know, iOS 14 updates. The point is this is that this is the situation here. It’s not a structural deficiency of the platforms. This is just how platform attribution works. Yeah. Every platform once again is incentivized to claim as much credit as they possibly can.

00:13:51:19 – 00:13:53:01
Ralph
So you keep coming back.

00:13:53:02 – 00:13:55:17
Lauren
There’s a big elephant in the room with this conversation.

00:13:56:12 – 00:13:58:16
Lauren
Is the tracking set up correctly?

00:13:58:18 – 00:14:20:15
Ralph
Oh, wow. That’s probably a good question to ask your agency is if you’re having. This was one of the things that we used to have this checklist called to minimize and maximize optimize the memo checklist. And it was if you’re all of a sudden you stopped getting conversions inside your Facebook account, because that’s all we did way back when, ten years ago.

00:14:20:17 – 00:14:56:12
Ralph
You check and make sure that your buy button is still on your landing page, because, yes, you had a client who. No. Magically, all their Bible disappeared. What? No. Yeah. And, well, like, what is going on? So. Yeah. So actually make sure that is the case that people could actually purchase on your site. Like one of the other things is something like that happens just like a quick side note is go actually purchase something from your business, go on to your phone, experience what a new shopper is actually experiencing, and then tell your agency what you saw and like.

00:14:56:14 – 00:15:08:10
Ralph
Even go to one of your ads. Find one of your ads on Instagram, click through, be like a customer, and then actually purchase because you could purchase on your own website because you’re going to make the money anyway. You can do this.

00:15:08:10 – 00:15:10:02
Lauren
I remember there’s some coupon code.

00:15:10:02 – 00:15:23:01
Ralph
That’s how I do this. Once a week, we literally have someone on our staff that checks our application page every single week to make sure our calendar is working, to make sure all the HubSpot hookups are working. Literally, they go on and act as.

00:15:23:01 – 00:15:32:22
Lauren
A way to. That’s an identical workflow because I was like once a week, I was like, if you’ve got a large skew store, like, that’s super hard. Like, I mean, one smart like you’re selling.

00:15:32:22 – 00:15:43:23
Ralph
But at least just like one, like one purchase, maybe your your most popular high volume, you know, high gross profitability or net profitability products like just do it every now.

00:15:43:23 – 00:16:02:10
Lauren
And then or like set a calendar. Like maybe it’s like once a quarter or once every six months. Go through your shopping phase. And even if you haven’t made any adjustments, if you’ve got a WordPress site, there’s so many plugins that might make it like literally the, what is it, the Small Business Expo? This is a huge organization.

00:16:02:10 – 00:16:21:08
Lauren
They do like 30 different events every single year that they aren’t making like huge changes. It’s the same website I remember going to 2 or 3 years ago. I got so mad because I was like, your stuff doesn’t work on mobile. I was like, you just sent an email and a text message to 60,000 people.

00:16:21:08 – 00:16:23:04
Ralph
Before, and it doesn’t even.

00:16:23:04 – 00:16:26:17
Lauren
Work. You can’t submit on mobile. I was.

00:16:26:19 – 00:16:27:13
Ralph
Unbelievable it.

00:16:27:17 – 00:16:28:18
Lauren
Personal business.

00:16:28:18 – 00:16:35:11
Ralph
Oh my God, it’s happens more and I’m like, I’m even uncomfortable to admit it.

00:16:35:11 – 00:16:53:07
Lauren
So those changes like you get like do things to see like are there like major changes that have gone to the website? I think it’s a good litmus test that if you’re a leader in your company, that if you’re not, if your time resources are not able to do it, every time you have a new employee that starts your business, have them go through the journey.

00:16:53:09 – 00:16:56:22
Lauren
And then have them be like that works. That didn’t work. Hey.

00:16:56:23 – 00:17:15:22
Ralph
Yeah. Give feedback I think it’s I think it’s a great start. So at the very least do that. I mean we take it to the extreme because there’s really there’s one page on our site that is vital to the growth of the business. So we test that every single week. Yes. Is that an agenda I task in the future 100%.

00:17:16:00 – 00:17:29:16
Ralph
But just so happens it’s our webmaster and takes their ten minutes to do it every single Monday. All right I’m interested in this question. So the title of today’s show is is your agency performing or is it just reporting? Well.

00:17:30:10 – 00:17:47:09
Ralph
What I would like to know from you is what are this, a couple of questions, maybe three questions that a VP of marketing should ask their agency on their either weekly or maybe monthly performance reviews. That would make the most sense, like

00:17:47:09 – 00:17:53:12
Ralph
the three questions that every VP of marketing should ask their agency. What would they be?

00:17:53:14 – 00:17:55:09
Lauren
The first question

00:17:55:09 – 00:18:15:08
Lauren
that someone says first 15 minutes of what should be asked by a leader of marketing? Well, I mean like an easy one is the performance that happened last week. Are we on par to what you expected to be sub like? Where do you feel like I want to temp check. I want to understand where you’re looking at your own numbers.

00:18:15:10 – 00:18:40:19
Lauren
Where are we. And then the follow up is like based on that answer, what is the KPI you’re most focused on or like? What is the initiative that you are looking at doing this week to drive better value? And then the third follow up would be is, based on the initiative that you’re doing, what’s the anticipated impact or outcome you’re looking to achieve by the time we have our next call?

00:18:40:20 – 00:18:45:10
Ralph
Okay. So this is on a weekly call. This is, how what’s the K plans?

00:18:45:10 – 00:18:59:19
Lauren
I mean, if it’s a VP of like how big of a company? Regardless of whatever it is, I want to know your time. Check right now. Like, I want you to look me in the face and like, okay, where are you? Stoplight. Red. Yellow green at in, like, yellow green and like yellow red, whatever those pieces are like.

00:18:59:19 – 00:19:22:11
Lauren
I want to know, how do you feel, temp wise, that the performance was based on the last period you’re reporting to me, then I want to know what are you focused on or what is your initiative right now that’s going to drive like sometimes for us, like we’ll say like, hey, what’s the KPI we’re trying to achieve? Like if you’re hook rate, your hold rate like say it’s up before the click one or if it’s a now for the click one and we’re like, hey, our conversion rate.

00:19:22:11 – 00:19:33:21
Lauren
We were trying to achieve like a 35% customer acquisition from this funnel, whatever that is. Like I want to know what is the number you’re most looking at right now that’s going to drive the biggest impact.

00:19:34:18 – 00:19:53:10
Lauren
And then what is the forecast or the anticipated impact from whatever your initiative focus is. Now take that aside because if it’s like we’re launching new campaigns and recycling all that is, I want you to look at the account as, as a large like looking overall I’m not looking at campaign basis. Right. No. Overall what’s the temp check?

00:19:53:12 – 00:20:04:07
Lauren
I want to know what is the KPI, NPI or like? What is the focus point tasks that you guys are looking at improving upon, and what’s the anticipated improvement number for that?

00:20:04:09 – 00:20:08:14
Ralph
I like it. There’s an accountability inside all of those questions.

00:20:08:14 – 00:20:10:01
Lauren
And it wasn’t that the VP role.

00:20:10:03 – 00:20:28:16
Ralph
Yeah. But I think the key is here is you don’t want rote answers. You don’t want just the fluff. You want to make them think. And I think if you can do that as a leader and you should be doing that to all of your followers, first off, get them to think for themselves as opposed to you thinking for them.

00:20:28:18 – 00:20:52:00
Ralph
The same thing applies for an agency is getting to think on their own and get them to think about what it is that’s most important to my business. What do you know about my business, and how are you actually achieving the objectives in order for me and my team and my department? And then my company to achieve the goals that we want to achieve quarterly, yearly, ten years from now, whatever it happens to be.

00:20:52:00 – 00:21:15:17
Lauren
If I were add one more, I again, like if it’s weekly, it’s hard because if it’s weekly, I can’t imagine that a VP of marketing is meeting that often. I imagine that they’ve delegated up a director, but depending on, let’s say, like you’re spending like 600 grand a week and then maybe they’re just overseeing because you’re in an initiative right now where you’re like trying to recoup and, regain momentum because it’s been a slow start to the year to really impacted you in a negative way.

00:21:15:19 – 00:21:32:04
Lauren
I think, another one that I want to know within the first 15 minutes. So if I’m thinking I’m the VP or I’m a director, I’ve got a team that’s underneath me, and you guys are just one of the vendor solutions that I’ve also brought into the mix. I want to know within 15 minutes, what’s the biggest bottleneck for you having success in my company right now?

00:21:32:04 – 00:21:50:00
Lauren
Because I want to know, is there someone on my team that’s stopping? Is there a resource? Is it tracking which I always like comes into it? Like I want to know what is the agency’s belief of what their their biggest bottleneck is, whether it’s them, us I don’t I don’t, I don’t care. I’m not like in a blaming situation.

00:21:50:00 – 00:22:08:14
Lauren
I want to know so that we can solution. Is that solution is it. Yeah that’s a word. If I’m the VP and I’m coming into a call, I want to have a graduated discussion. I don’t want you to read the numbers to me. I’ve already read the numbers before I came into the meeting. I want you to, bring to me what is a challenge you’re facing so that I can support you if.

00:22:08:14 – 00:22:14:08
Lauren
Especially if it’s something on my end. And if it’s something on your end. I want to know a date that this is going to be solved by.

00:22:14:08 – 00:22:32:13
Ralph
I like it. Let me ask you this on those questions. What would the wrong answers sound like? Like what would you what would what would be an answer or an answer that would raise some red flags, the blank stare into the zoom screen, because that’s probably the first.

00:22:32:17 – 00:22:52:08
Lauren
It’s becomes that communication thing, right? Like I’m an extrovert, I’m like a video on kind of person. Because I want to see the reaction shot and like for me, like, I need to see your hands a lot of the time because, like, I want to see you if like, you’re like, you’re watching YouTube, you can see, like, if I’m typing away, I’m a distracted discussion right now.

00:22:52:10 – 00:22:54:02
Lauren
Like, that’s I hate that.

00:22:54:04 – 00:23:00:14
Ralph
So what is it like in a way they’re looking all that way. And you know, they’re just typing less thinking. Yeah.

00:23:00:16 – 00:23:05:13
Lauren
And unless you’re like, okay, let me think. And I don’t mind you taking pause to answer.

00:23:05:13 – 00:23:09:01
Ralph
So first off is the visual reaction that yeah, I like that. Yeah.

00:23:09:01 – 00:23:22:15
Lauren
So are you paying attention. Did you like you can repeat the question back to me if you need to buy time, you can say, okay, you can say, let me think and then you can give it to me. But if I see you go like immediately typing this like someone else, solve this for me because I don’t know.

00:23:22:15 – 00:23:38:22
Lauren
Okay. Hold on, hold on, on on. Why are you on? Okay. So visual cues are red flags or candy red like, but also green flags. It can be like, okay, so what you’re looking for is what, is are the biggest bottlenecks creating.

00:23:39:01 – 00:23:42:04
Ralph
Clarifying the answer, clarifying the.

00:23:42:04 – 00:23:43:03
Lauren
Question is.

00:23:43:05 – 00:23:45:08
Ralph
Probably a good thing. That’s green.

00:23:45:08 – 00:24:01:11
Lauren
Maybe it depends like there’s different communication styles. I don’t want to say that someone has to smile for me to feel good. I just I need to see that you’re paying attention. And then I want to I want to confirm that you understand my ask. Because I want to make sure we’re having a conversation at the same level.

00:24:01:13 – 00:24:17:14
Lauren
If you’re not there caught up yet I can bring it down. But I’m going to expect you to bring me back the same elevated question. And I’m using a little bit of hierarchy because of the assumptions behind someone in that leadership position. Let’s assume that there’s no nepotism involved okay. Fair.

00:24:17:17 – 00:24:26:02
Ralph
All right. So green light, yellow light, red light there. The sort of like you’re you’re you’re hoping for.

00:24:26:04 – 00:24:26:07
Lauren
I.

00:24:26:07 – 00:24:31:09
Ralph
Feel bad for you. Could you’re hoping for a good visual reaction. But some people just aren’t. That what.

00:24:31:10 – 00:24:32:09
Lauren
I’m looking, I’m hoping starts.

00:24:32:09 – 00:24:36:00
Ralph
Stuttering, stuttering, stammering. Blank stare.

00:24:36:02 – 00:24:50:16
Lauren
That’s right. Because I get someone might be like, let’s say that you have a very intimidating, I don’t know, like I don’t fault stuttering and I don’t fault that if as long as I know you’re paying attention.

00:24:50:18 – 00:24:51:09
Ralph
Okay.

00:24:51:11 – 00:24:54:04
Lauren
And that you’re seeking to understand the question. All right.

00:24:54:05 – 00:24:55:18
Ralph
If that’s that’s the first.

00:24:55:18 – 00:24:56:12
Lauren
Use.

00:24:56:12 – 00:25:03:16
Ralph
Verbal cue. Verbal verbal visual cue. All right. So then what would the wrong answer be for.

00:25:03:16 – 00:25:05:10
Lauren
Any immediately default blame.

00:25:05:12 – 00:25:07:15
Ralph
Oh interesting. Okay.

00:25:07:15 – 00:25:19:18
Lauren
If I’m asking you a question of how are we going to solution this or like what are your thoughts. And the first things that come out of your mouth are, well, you need to do like you, you you like whatever that blame game is.

00:25:21:03 – 00:25:22:16
Lauren
I don’t I that’s not what I’m talking about.

00:25:22:16 – 00:25:30:11
Ralph
What I want, I’m not getting I’m not getting enough creative from your team right now, so I can’t really answer that question if you’re supplying creative to your agency. For example.

00:25:30:11 – 00:25:53:10
Lauren
I would like where I think we’re capable of achieving a stronger Roas right now. I recognize that we have a creative deficiency. So I want to call out a bottleneck right now that within the scope of our agreement, we were anticipating 5 to 10 creatives a month. Right now, we’re getting to, I can offer you, like, if I were to get 5 to 10 creatives, as we were talking about, I believe that I can drive better ad for testing.

00:25:53:10 – 00:26:01:13
Lauren
By the way, Ralph, I made up every testing ad for testing. Yeah, we do advertising with the reality is, is everything is ever testing because we don’t know if it’s going to work.

00:26:01:15 – 00:26:04:12
Ralph
If you have that dotcom like actually you should probably go.

00:26:04:15 – 00:26:07:20
Lauren
Well, I’m going to do it as soon as we get off this column. It’s like this goes live good.

00:26:07:20 – 00:26:10:18
Ralph
Yeah. Well LA I know that is pretty good I like that.

00:26:10:19 – 00:26:30:05
Lauren
Thanks. Me too. So in that, like I know that in our adver testing, 90% of stuff isn’t going to work. We can’t we can’t do is we’re going to swing and a miss. But I want to know and understand what we’re trying. And I want to know and understand like a good answer is that you’ve already thought of that question and you have a plan.

00:26:30:06 – 00:26:39:01
Ralph
Thinking so, showing that the agency is actually thinking about this sort of stuff as opposed to just mailing it in, getting the paycheck.

00:26:39:03 – 00:26:56:17
Lauren
You told me there’s an excuse you’re like, oh, I don’t have enough creatives. Okay. That’s, that’s not an that’s, that’s an answer. But what’s the solution I’m asking you to bring to me? Like, if you say like, well, I don’t have enough creatives, so how are you solving it? Or tell me the impact the creatives have. So if you’re like, I don’t have enough careers.

00:26:56:17 – 00:27:16:00
Lauren
Like if I were to have an additional five creatives, if we were able to get some UGC content, or if we were able to get some more testimonials, I think that would be a really good move for us to measure. And what I’m looking for are sentiment numbers. What I’m looking for is, socialization of those ads. And so this is what I want to do.

00:27:16:01 – 00:27:37:05
Lauren
Here’s my plan for the next week. I need to make sure, like a good answer is, even if you don’t have an answer and you’re like, I don’t know, I want you to have known solutions because I’ve hired you, because you’ve already proven that you’ve been able to do this at least 2 or 3 times. So even if you don’t have a specific answer, you should have an experience solution.

00:27:38:09 – 00:27:44:14
Lauren
And I need you to draw upon that. If you cannot draw upon past experiences, then I am paying to be a guinea pig.

00:27:44:16 – 00:27:52:06
Ralph
Right? If if you feel a lack of confidence in the answer.

00:27:52:07 – 00:27:54:01
Lauren
That’s not there because it’s people like, it’s.

00:27:54:01 – 00:27:54:18
Ralph
Hard because.

00:27:55:00 – 00:27:57:16
Lauren
Bundys of the world, like, those are the serial killers. I’m like, I’m just.

00:27:57:16 – 00:28:10:20
Ralph
Saying, like any director of marketing, VP of marketing, or CEO acting as a marketing person, they might not have the expertise and the insight to be able to sort of be able to read through a lot of this stuff.

00:28:10:20 – 00:28:12:04
Lauren
Out, using your language to.

00:28:12:04 – 00:28:16:13
Ralph
Suss out. I don’t think I’ve ever said suss out before it’s Friday. I don’t know.

00:28:16:13 – 00:28:18:02
Lauren
Why I’m saying so. I don’t I was ever.

00:28:18:02 – 00:28:40:03
Ralph
So I know crazy, Because I couldn’t think of another word like we should google jet GPT that, the point is this is that if your answer isn’t satisfying to you, like, I’m trying to craft like, what you’re saying here is to sort of distill it down. Yes. Not necessarily confidence, because everyone can be confident about.

00:28:40:09 – 00:28:40:11
Lauren
The.

00:28:40:11 – 00:28:44:07
Ralph
Wrong decision. You can be confident and wrong just as much as you can be.

00:28:44:12 – 00:28:58:03
Lauren
And you could be right. Yeah, you could be. It’s too timid and it’s a wait because you’re nervous, right? Right. I live when that come out like, oh man, that I sound like a five year old.

00:28:58:05 – 00:28:59:10
Ralph
Yeah.

00:28:59:12 – 00:29:07:12
Lauren
So I don’t want to put the confidence help I know I’m because it’s like Friday at, like 7 p.m., right. Anyway.

00:29:07:14 – 00:29:09:03
Ralph
Like that.

00:29:09:05 – 00:29:29:23
Lauren
The it’s like confidence will go a long way. So one of my favorite things like I do hobby every quarter, I did improv and I did standup. I think everyone that is client facing should take at least one improv or standup class. I think you need to have a confidence in your camera presence or confidence in your relationships.

00:29:29:23 – 00:29:43:07
Lauren
Like that goes a long way, but I don’t want to preclude that. Someone that is more introverted is not capable. I need you to answer that showcases your experience, your capability and comprehension.

00:29:43:07 – 00:29:55:05
Ralph
Well said. All right. Well, I don’t have it. I’m just going to do two questions. So this is on the monthly review. Probably not. These questions aren’t really for your weekly review.

00:29:55:05 – 00:29:59:16
Lauren
Yeah I’m like ha. You’re like weekly. I’m like, oh yeah. Why are we managing to the day by day?

00:29:59:16 – 00:30:07:21
Ralph
This might be. Yeah, a little bit shorter term. It depends on what you’re spent. Like if you’re spending $1 million a week you should.

00:30:07:21 – 00:30:08:23
Lauren
Probably it’s all relative.

00:30:08:23 – 00:30:11:22
Ralph
Yes, it’s all relative. So keep that in mind.

00:30:11:22 – 00:30:19:10
Lauren
And what you could be spending $1 million a week on one initiative, but you have a $60 million a month marketing budget. That’s I don’t care enough about the million dollar.

00:30:19:10 – 00:30:38:10
Ralph
Absolutely. So it’s like take it within context here. So this could be for your monthly check in. Maybe your quarterly business review like these might be good questions for this a little bit less so on the day to day of the week, week in and week out. And when we typically meet with clients like once a week or when we once every other week, it depends.

00:30:38:12 – 00:31:02:23
Ralph
So these are the types of questions that I would love to hear because we hire agencies as an agency. So this is very relevant. These are the types of questions that I’ll be asking our agencies, because I hadn’t really thought about this specific sort of way of approaching it, but this is what I would ask. So if it’s a monthly thing, what did we learn last month?

00:31:03:01 – 00:31:03:16
Lauren
Okay.

00:31:03:18 – 00:31:35:10
Ralph
And that changed how we’re running things this month. So let’s talk about like where we were last month. How did that affect how we’re running things this month. So that shows the growth. It shows the thinking. It shows everyone’s sort of working together to achieve the objective. And the caveat to that is maybe this is my second question is how does that how does that change get us closer to the goal, whatever that goal is?

00:31:35:10 – 00:31:54:19
Ralph
And I think that’s an important follow up to that question, because that reinforces that your agency actually has your goal as a business in mind. And like I said before, I think personally that’s my most important thing. All the KPIs, the incorrect numbers, you know, the number is the LTV numbers, all the other sort of stuff that you’re doing.

00:31:54:19 – 00:32:17:14
Ralph
Those are steps along the way to achieve the goal. And like I said, your goal might differ like it might be a monthly goal, might be a quarterly goal. It might be an annual goal. But you should have alignment with your agency or your internal team on that goal. And tell me what you did last month and how we change things, and how are things running this month as opposed to last month.

00:32:17:14 – 00:32:30:20
Ralph
And what did we learn? So a little bit of like, you know, how are we doing last month? How are we doing this month? What are your thoughts? Gets people to sort of think far more and keep the objective or the goal of the business in mind?

00:32:30:20 – 00:32:48:10
Lauren
I think what I like about the piece of what did you learn as you’re giving grace? Because, again, 90% of the stuff that we try is often not going to work. Right. And I, I, I as much as I want an agency to hit a home run every single time and like the people that we’re working with, we have to be mindful that if we are going to miss a high some of the shots we don’t take.

00:32:48:12 – 00:33:05:00
Lauren
Yep. And if we’re not making an effort and trying, then we’re just accepting defeat. I like that, like, what did we learn? What are we trying? I mean, there’s a runway, right? There’s only so long that you can keep trying and nothing is working. Then maybe that requires going back to the drawing board, and that evaluates the relationship that you’re currently in.

00:33:05:02 – 00:33:06:03
Ralph
Yep.

00:33:06:05 – 00:33:16:08
Lauren
So I like that postmortem to if you’re like, hey, I’m asking my agency’s this. And if the answers aren’t like, I want to do this, I want to you have to remember that it’s a marathon.

00:33:16:21 – 00:33:33:00
Lauren
That’s and the incrementality is progression over perfection. And as much as we want perfection like that that will cause a burnout. And with that in mind of you have to know your numbers to know how long you can keep doing it so that you can be like, okay, the numbers aren’t there. How are we working to get this back?

00:33:33:00 – 00:33:48:20
Lauren
How long do you think it’s going to take? So I go back to that, adding in. Then with the initiative of what you learned and what you’re carrying over to it. I’m going to add the third question to you, Ralph, is what is the forecasted for the anticipated impact from that initiative going to be based on the numbers that you’ve seen?

00:33:48:22 – 00:34:07:15
Ralph
It’s good. All of this and I’ve got one more question that I do want to drop in here. I think the theme here is you are not doing the job of the marketing agency or the agency or the internal team. You’re getting them to do their job by asking them questions and getting them to think okay on their own.

00:34:07:15 – 00:34:28:15
Ralph
And I think all of these questions allow for that. And if you can do that as a leader, whether it’s you’re the director of marketing or you’re the CEO, you are leading your agency. You are not necessarily doing their work. Their job is to do their job. Your job is to do CEO stuff, VP of marketing stuff, director of marketing stuff.

00:34:28:15 – 00:34:59:21
Ralph
Allow the agency to do their job, and the only way you get them to do their job is to actually get them to think and solve problems on their own. And your job is to prompt them to help solve those problems on their own with your guidance and leadership. And it’s not to do their job for them. Case in point, I had a client that, you know, I got on a call and he was asking one of our media buyers, like really high level growth strategist, like why he wasn’t doing a certain thing inside Meta Andromeda campaign.

00:34:59:22 – 00:35:18:13
Ralph
Basically a creative diversification campaign. Why are we keeping those ads on when all these other ads should be getting more ad spend? Why wasn’t that getting spent? I’m like, you know, that’s actually not your job. I don’t think you should be asking that question. I said it nicely, but the point is, it’s like, why is he asking those questions?

00:35:18:13 – 00:35:39:16
Ralph
He should be asking, how are we getting closer to my end goal? How are we getting closer to my quarterly goal? Whatever it is, thinking higher level and asking questions of the agency as opposed to trying to do their job for them. So the last thing I’ll say here before we close is I like this. This is my favorite question, because this is how I always want to think.

00:35:39:20 – 00:35:46:10
Ralph
And other businesses are you’re a business owner, and if you are hiring an agency to run your Mongoose Media marketing.

00:35:46:12 – 00:35:47:01
Lauren
Okay, you would.

00:35:47:01 – 00:35:48:20
Ralph
Probably love this question.

00:35:48:20 – 00:35:52:15
Lauren
And okay, here’s your reaction time. Listening. I have no idea what you’re gonna ask.

00:35:52:15 – 00:36:00:08
Ralph
If you are spending your own money in this account, what would you do differently than what we’re doing right now?

00:36:00:10 – 00:36:26:04
Lauren
Oh, fair. I mean, I do love that question. And I there is someone like someone that we work with the other day. Let us do it because the owner kept dictating where the money would be spending. And it took from like end of September. I said, this isn’t working. I don’t see itself liquidating. But the owner had seen something on TikTok which told them why this matters.

00:36:26:04 – 00:36:46:07
Lauren
And I was like, I don’t find this to be a viable solution. And so we had to keep vault like it’s at one point you just had to follow how they want to spend the money. And then like a few weeks ago, it was like, well, what would you spend? I was like, great. I shut down the campaigns and the assets that we didn’t want to do, and we nearly doubled our efficiency.

00:36:46:09 – 00:36:47:05
Ralph
Yeah.

00:36:47:07 – 00:36:58:13
Lauren
In a matter of weeks. So like, yeah, if this were your money. But so I like that only because personally this like came up. But the other thing I have a challenge with that one is though it’s never going to be their money.

00:36:58:13 – 00:37:04:15
Ralph
It isn’t. But hypothetically, I would love to think that they think about it as if it were their own money.

00:37:04:17 – 00:37:07:03
Lauren
It’s like, you’ll get something.

00:37:07:03 – 00:37:34:18
Ralph
It’s it’s a bit of a slippery slope there to a certain degree. But, you know, I know that my fiduciary responsibility as an agency owner is to oversee and be a caretaker of my client’s money that we’re spending in their business. Yeah. And as a result of that, I’m also an owner of a business. So I feel a deep conviction to that are the rank and file, you know, growth strategist.

00:37:34:20 – 00:37:40:13
Ralph
Yeah. So media buyer are they going to feel it the same way. But at least you’re going to get them to think in my whole.

00:37:40:13 – 00:37:41:03
Lauren
Okay goal.

00:37:41:07 – 00:38:07:01
Ralph
This exercise is to get people to think a little bit deeper than just here’s your report, here’s the stuff that’s going on. You know, a wrong answer for this one would be something like, you know, hey, that’s a great question. I think we, you know, we feel really aligned with the current strategy. Well, I can’t really we test it out more creative formats, maybe do a little bit more on the creative that rectification we’re heading in the right way.

00:38:07:02 – 00:38:17:22
Ralph
Like that would be your blog answer if you get stunned silence, go, you know, deer in the headlights, like you said before.

00:38:18:00 – 00:38:21:13
Lauren
It might be like, oh, that’s a good question. I haven’t thought about that. Can I go back to you?

00:38:21:19 – 00:38:38:14
Ralph
Yeah, I think that’s actually a good answer, is I would rather hear that than what I just said, because that if somebody gave me that answer, I’d be like, oh my God, I think I need to look for another partner here because I’m scared.

00:38:38:14 – 00:38:40:18
Lauren
Yeah, there’s like air flight mode.

00:38:40:20 – 00:39:01:20
Ralph
Because they are not they are not exerting that sort of fiduciary responsibility. And that basically means like, you know, they’re responsible for your own money, like they are spending your money every single day. So are your companies money or your department’s money. The point is this is that with all these questions here, you got to hold your agency accountable, but also be collaborative with them and not get them to think.

00:39:01:20 – 00:39:03:01
Ralph
Get them to think.

00:39:03:01 – 00:39:22:23
Lauren
You want to empower them to think, and you want to empower them to be their best selves, just like you are with your employees. As I, the goal is not to sabotage or to, put the relationship. Whether it’s an employee, an agency vendor, it doesn’t matter into a place where they are afraid to do their best for you.

00:39:22:23 – 00:39:43:10
Lauren
I think what’s really important is that you can hold them accountable. You can push them to bring more solutions at table, get them to think outside the box. Like, I love that you’re saying if it was your money, other ones that could be like, if I gave you $1 million tomorrow, how would you spend it without collapsing our cost per lead and then conversely, if I cut your budget in half, what would you do without it collapsing and performance.

00:39:43:10 – 00:39:44:13
Ralph
Interesting.

00:39:44:15 – 00:39:46:20
Lauren
Yeah, but I live in extremes, so it’s true.

00:39:46:20 – 00:40:11:12
Ralph
I like. I like it though. I mean, we’re going to like, either end of the spectrum here to a certain degree. But, I think the the point is, is like a relationship with an artist. He has to be collaborative. And when you are looking at your dashboard and you don’t see the numbers that are really moving the needle for you in your business, that’s when everything that we’ve talked about here comes into play.

00:40:11:12 – 00:40:12:08
Ralph
And

00:40:12:08 – 00:40:16:23
Ralph
your agency shouldn’t be reporting well, it should be performing well.

00:40:17:09 – 00:40:31:07
Lauren
And that’s the best line of this, because I was like, when you were talking about DAF, I was like, you know, there are people that make way better dashboards and I, I go for production over pretty like I don’t want to hyper focus. I’m saying that to underline, yeah, yeah.

00:40:31:07 – 00:40:32:04
Ralph
It’s like a report.

00:40:32:04 – 00:40:34:05
Lauren
It’s reading. It’s the reporting of it.

00:40:34:06 – 00:40:50:08
Ralph
We have more of whatever it is. Yeah, absolutely. But it’s true for as long as it’s truthful, like it’s actually capturing the essence of what you guys are doing. Like that’s it. So, All right, so I’ll say it again. So your agency shouldn’t be reporting. Well, it should be performing well.

00:40:50:10 – 00:41:03:14
Lauren
So and if it performance is down, they should be bringing to the conversation solutions and trying hard because it’s that proactive. So yeah if you can’t perform well you better be proactive.

00:41:03:14 – 00:41:05:01
Ralph
Well

00:41:05:03 – 00:41:07:13
Lauren
How can you please mark Ralph Rockaway.

00:41:07:13 – 00:41:31:11
Ralph
Levity I love it I love proactive. It’s one of my favorite things without being asked, you’ll always get my highest praise. Well, we so appreciate you’re listening to the show here. Of course. Wherever you listen to podcasts, please leave us a rating and review. And we really do appreciate that. Helps us get out to a wider audience to teach people how to do this stuff the right way, through metrics of matter and growth at scales.

00:41:31:11 – 00:41:54:11
Ralph
And also, hopefully we taught a few, a few things today about how to work alongside your agency. So of course you can check this out over on our YouTube channel at perpetual traffic.com/youtube. Lauren E Petrillo. We’re going to be together next week and recording live how exciting is that? Rigging my microphone I won’t have the hot pink microphone, by the way.

00:41:54:11 – 00:42:15:07
Ralph
I will anyway. You will. All right. Well I’m pretty excited about that. So, so on behalf of my amazing co-host, Lauren E Petrillo. So till next show. See you.

Episode 782: How to Tell If Your Agency Is Performing (Not Just Reporting)

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How to Tell If Your Agency Is Performing (Not Just Reporting)

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