01The Direct Answer
How do I know whether I should change my agency?
Direct Answer
Decide on process evidence, not on the result — because the result is the one thing the agency does not fully control.
Sales are the product of what marketing brings in, of what the sales team does with it, and of what the company can actually deliver and price. An agency controls one part of that chain. So judging it by revenue alone tells you almost nothing, while judging it by process tells you a lot: whether the work can be inspected, whether it was measured against something agreed in advance, whether flagged errors became corrections, and whether what was produced belongs to you. Those four are visible this week, without waiting for a quarter.
02Five Signs of Bad Execution
Five things you can check without waiting for a result
None of these is about talent or effort, and none of them requires you to understand marketing. They are contract hygiene, and the same list would work for a machining supplier.
The Five Signs
1. You have to ask to find out
What was done this month only becomes visible when you request it. A supplier that reports on demand is reporting to defend itself, not to be corrected.
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2. No measurement was agreed first
If nobody wrote down what would be observed and by when, before the work started, then any number can be presented afterwards as success — and any number can be dismissed as unfair.
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3. An error does not become a change
You flagged something wrong — a technical term, a wrong application, an audience that does not buy. It was acknowledged in a call and nothing changed in what is published. Acknowledgement without correction is the clearest sign.
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4. Nothing is in your name
Ad accounts, analytics, domain, source files, contact base. If they live inside the supplier, you are not hiring a service — you are renting your own operation back.
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5. It cannot state the hypothesis
Ask what it was testing last quarter. A competent supplier answers with a sentence: which audience, which message, which expected effect. If the answer is a list of tasks delivered, there was no reasoning behind the work — only production.
Three or more of these signs is an execution problem, and a change of supplier is a legitimate answer to it. Zero or one, with sales still flat, is a different diagnosis and the rest of this page is about not confusing the two.
03Contracted vs. Expected
Reread the contract before the next argument
A large share of the frustration in these relationships is not a breach — it is a mismatch between what was sold and what was hoped for. The contract says a number of articles per month, a media budget managed, a site delivered, a certain number of posts. You signed it expecting orders. Both parties are being sincere, and the deliverables are arriving.
Contractual failure
What was promised did not arrive
Deliverables late or missing, agreed scope not executed, no reporting, no access. This is a supplier problem and it is solved by enforcing the contract or ending it. It does not require a diagnosis — it requires a decision.
Unstated expectation
What arrived was not what you were buying it for
The deliverables are there and revenue is not. Changing supplier fixes nothing here, because the next contract will be written the same way. What fixes it is rewriting what is being bought — from volume of output to an outcome both sides can observe.
The practical test takes ten minutes: open the contract and underline every obligation. If the underlined text describes production and your complaint describes revenue, you found the gap, and it is not in the supplier — it is in the object of the purchase.
04The Cost the Proposal Does Not Show
Comparing prices compares the smallest part of the cost
A new pitch produces comparable monthly fees, which is the one number that is easy to put side by side. Three other costs are real, are paid by you, and appear in no proposal.
Three Costs Nobody Quotes
Rebuilding context
Someone in your company has to explain the product, the application, the segment and the objections again, from scratch. That someone is usually the person with the least free time — a commercial director or an engineer.
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Retesting what already failed
The hypotheses the previous supplier ruled out were never written down, so the new one will try several of them again in good faith. You pay twice for the same negative answer.
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The interval
Between the end of one contract and the first published work of the next, the operation is idle. In a long industrial sales cycle, an idle interval today shows up as a hole in the pipeline much later, when nobody connects the two.
These three are mechanisms, not estimates, and this page will not put a figure on them. [EVIDÊNCIA NECESSÁRIA: custo real de uma troca em uma conta documentada — horas de pessoa interna gastas em reonboarding, intervalo em dias entre o último entregável do fornecedor antigo e o primeiro do novo, e lista de hipóteses retestadas. Sem isso, manter apenas como mecanismo.] The decision-grade version of this section is the one filled with your own numbers, taken from the last change you made.
05What Has to Survive
Make the list before you make the call
Whatever you decide, this list decides how expensive the decision is. Write it now, while the relationship is still working, because after notice is given everything on it becomes a negotiation.
The Inventory
Access in your name
Domain, hosting, analytics, ad accounts, business profile, automation tool. Administrator, not guest.
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Source files
Not the exported PDF — the editable file. Layouts, catalogues, photos, video footage, the site repository.
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Approved copy
The technical descriptions your own engineering signed off on. Rewriting those is slower than redesigning a site, because it needs people who are busy.
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Tested hypotheses
What was tried, and what it produced. This is the item nobody asks for and the only one that makes the next supplier start ahead instead of level.
If you cannot fill this list today, you have already learned something more useful than the answer to the switching question: nothing produced so far has stayed with the company. [EVIDÊNCIA NECESSÁRIA: histórico de fornecedores de uma conta real — quais itens deste inventário existiam na troca e quais tiveram que ser refeitos. É a evidência que transforma esta seção de conselho em constatação.]
06The Reversible Decision First
One cycle with a written hypothesis, then decide
Ending a contract is irreversible in practice: the relationship does not come back, and the interval is paid whether or not the decision turns out to be right. There is a reversible move that costs one cycle and produces the evidence the irreversible one needs.
The One-Cycle Test
Write one sentence
Which customer, with which application, should respond to which message. One sentence, signed by you, not by the agency. This is the input that was missing.
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Agree what will be observed
Not a target — an observation. What you will look at at the end of the cycle, and what would count as the hypothesis being wrong. Both sides sign it before the work starts.
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Reduce scope, do not cut it
Narrow the contract to the fronts that serve the hypothesis. A smaller scope with a clear hypothesis tells you more in one cycle than a broad scope told you in a year.
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Then the decision is easy
With a written hypothesis and an agreed observation, the supplier either engages with it or cannot. Both outcomes are an answer, and neither depends on anyone being persuasive in a meeting.
There is a side effect worth naming: the sentence you wrote in step one does not belong to that contract. It stays with the company, and it is what the next supplier — if there is one — would have needed on day one.
07The Next Question
And if you have already changed once?
This page is written for the first decision. If you have already made it — if there was a pitch, a new supplier, a fresh start and the same result at the end — then the useful question is no longer whether the agency is good. It is what actually changed between the first and the second, beyond the person doing the work.
That is the subject of the next page: why different agencies produce the same result.
Either way, the material you write in section six — the customer, the application, the message, what will be observed — is the part that does not belong to any contract. Organizing it deliberately, before hiring rather than after being disappointed, is what the Prebound Marketing method does.
Prebound Marketing is cheaper before.
08FAQ
FAQ
How do I know whether I should change my agency?
Judge it by process, not by revenue. Check four things: whether you can see what was done without asking, whether a measurement was agreed before the work started, whether a flagged error became a documented correction, and whether accounts and source files are in your name. Three or more failures there is an execution problem, and changing supplier is a legitimate answer. Zero or one, with sales still flat, means the cause is upstream of the agency and a change will reproduce it.
What criteria should guide this decision?
Visibility, prior measurement, correction and ownership — in that order, because each one is checkable this week. Add a fifth that separates a competent supplier from a productive one: ask what hypothesis it was testing last quarter. An answer that names an audience, a message and an expected effect indicates reasoning behind the work. An answer that lists deliverables indicates production without reasoning, which is the failure that no amount of volume fixes.
How do I separate the lowest price from the lowest total cost?
The monthly fee is the only part of the cost that fits on a comparison sheet. Three others are paid by you and appear in no proposal: rebuilding context, which consumes hours from the busiest people in your company; retesting hypotheses the previous supplier already ruled out but never wrote down; and the interval between the last delivery of one contract and the first of the next, which in a long industrial cycle becomes a pipeline hole months later. Price the change with those three included, using your own numbers from the last time.
What has to be preserved if I change supplier or scope?
Four things, and write the list before giving notice, because afterwards each item becomes a negotiation. Administrator access to domain, analytics, ad accounts and automation. Editable source files, not exported PDFs. Technical copy your own engineering approved, which is the slowest thing to rebuild because it depends on busy people. And the record of what was tested and what it produced — the item nobody asks for and the only one that lets the next supplier start ahead.
My agency delivers what the contract says and I am still unhappy. Who is right?
Probably both, which is why the argument does not end. Open the contract and underline every obligation. If what is underlined describes production — articles, posts, media managed, a site delivered — and your complaint describes revenue, the mismatch is in the object of the purchase, not in who executed it. Changing supplier without rewriting that object gives you the same contract with a different logo.
Should I open a pitch to compare or talk to the current supplier first?
Talk first, because it is the reversible move and it produces the evidence the irreversible one needs. Write one sentence saying which customer, with which application, should respond to which message. Agree what will be observed at the end of one commercial cycle and what would count as the hypothesis being wrong. Narrow the scope to the fronts that serve it. The supplier either engages with that or cannot, and both outcomes answer your question without you paying the interval.
Is it fair to charge an agency for sales results?
It is fair to charge it for what it controls and unfair to charge it for the whole chain. Sales are the product of what marketing brings, what the sales team does with it, and what the company can deliver and price. A supplier can be charged for the composition of what arrives — segment, application, size — and for whether the message matches what the buyer searches for. It cannot be charged for a rep who does not call back or for a price the market rejects.
When does the next question become "second agency, same problem"?
The moment the change has already happened and the result repeated. At that point the question about whether the agency is good has been answered twice and stopped being informative. What becomes useful is comparing the briefing you handed to the second supplier with the one you handed to the first: if it is the same document, the executor changed and the input did not, and that is a different diagnosis with a different fix.
Write the hypothesis before opening the pitch
The sentence that says which customer, with which application, should respond to which message is the input every supplier needs and almost none receives. Organizing it is the work of the Prebound Marketing method — and it stays with your company regardless of who executes.
