💡Thought Shares

c/digital-marketing-agency

3

karen_sanchez49•6h ago

I was sure automated replies were a bad idea until last month

We set up a basic auto-responder for our agency's main email after 5 PM, thinking it would just buy us time. A potential lead in Denver emailed at 7 PM on a Friday, got the auto-reply, and actually replied to it saying they appreciated the quick acknowledgment and it made them feel heard. Has anyone else had a simple automation actually improve a client's first impression?

11

betty_wells•7h ago

TIL our agency had to pick between a $5k retainer or a project fee for a new e-commerce client.

We went with the project fee for the first three months, thinking it would build trust faster. It actually made our cash flow pretty tight until we switched them to a retainer. Do you think starting with a project fee is ever worth the risk?

0

ellioth37•22h ago

TIL our agency's Facebook ad got flagged for a weird reason in Phoenix last Tuesday

We ran a simple ad for a local bakery using the word 'fresh' in the copy, but the system flagged it as a 'weight loss claim' and suspended the entire campaign, forcing us to spend 4 hours on support calls to get it reinstated before the weekend promo started.

10

grays13•1d ago

Showerthought: I thought our agency's 8% conversion rate on a recent PPC campaign for a local bakery was decent until I saw the client's actual revenue jump by $47,000 in a month.

That number made me realize we were measuring the wrong thing and should have been tracking actual sales impact from the start, not just clicks and form fills, so how do you guys tie your digital work directly to client revenue?

9

linda_dixon49•2d ago

TIL a simple Google Ads trick that saved a client $300 a month

A client in Tampa was spending way too much on broad match keywords and getting junk clicks. I switched their campaign to phrase match only and added negative keywords like 'free' and 'tutorial'. Their cost per lead dropped from $45 to $22 in two weeks. Has anyone else found phrase match works better than broad for local service businesses?

15

susanb34•3d ago

Vent: I keep seeing agencies push for more social media content no matter what

Honestly, I think the 'post more content' advice is wrong for a lot of local service businesses. We had a plumbing client in Boise who was posting 5 times a week but getting zero calls from it. We cut it back to one really helpful video a month and their lead form fills went up by 15% in 2 months. Has anyone else found that less is more for certain industries?

26

rose_reed•3d ago

Just spent 3 days trying to fix a broken Google Ads script

Honestly, I had a script for pausing low performers that just stopped working for a client in Austin. Tbh, I thought it was a simple typo, but it turned out to be a change in the Google Ads API that messed up the whole thing. Ngl, it took me like 12 hours of digging through forums to find the right fix. Has anyone else had a script break out of nowhere this month?

24

michaeltorres•3d ago

Just realized how much my client's kid changed my view on TikTok ads

I was talking to a client over coffee last week, a local bakery owner, about their slow social media growth. His 16 year old daughter was there and just said, "Your ads look like my homework." She showed me her feed, full of raw, shaky phone videos from small shops, and said people skip anything that looks "too made." We switched their strategy to just filming the bakers icing donuts with trending audio, no fancy edits. Their follower count went from 200 to over 2,000 in a month. Has anyone else had to totally drop the polished ad look for a specific platform?

7

west.richard•7d ago

My new client's old agency charged them $3k a month for 'brand awareness' with zero tracking

They couldn't show a single lead or sale from 8 months of work. How is that still a thing in 2024?

16

linda114•7d ago

My old boss insisted we stop buying Facebook ads for a local restaurant client, said they were a waste.

He argued the budget was better spent on Google Ads because people searching for food were ready to buy. We switched the $2k monthly spend over, and their leads dropped by half in three months. Has anyone else had a platform switch backfire that badly?

8

dakota415•8d ago

I keep seeing agencies skip the 'why' when they pitch their case studies

They'll list the 40% traffic increase but not explain the one broken backlink audit that caused it... makes the whole story useless for learning. How do you make sure your case studies actually teach something?

16

davis.noah•9d ago

I spent $2,500 on a 'done-for-you' lead gen service that sent me nothing but junk contacts.

I'm torn because part of me thinks outsourcing lead gen is smart for agency growth, but after this experience, I'm convinced you can't trust a third party to understand your ideal client profile, so what's your take: is any outsourced lead gen ever worth it, or should it all be done in-house?

1

tara642•12d ago

Talking to a client who runs a brick and mortar bakery made me question our whole 'always be scaling' pitch.

She said 'I just need 10 more regulars a week, not 10,000 followers.' Made me realize our agency's default growth talk doesn't fit every local business. Anyone else had a client push back on aggressive scaling goals?

1

stone.lisa•12d ago

Our client's Facebook ad account got disabled out of nowhere last Tuesday

It was a local bakery in Portland we've worked with for two years, zero policy issues before. We had to submit an appeal and pause their whole campaign for a week, which was a mess. Anyone else had an ad account just randomly get hit like that recently?

24

max_torres44•13d ago

Am I the only one who had a client ask for a refund because their ad got too many clicks?

A local bakery hired us to run Facebook ads, and after one week their phone was ringing nonstop with people asking about a $5 cake deal we never actually set up. The owner was furious about the wasted time, even though the campaign hit its click goal, and demanded we cancel everything. How do you explain that more traffic isn't always good if the offer is wrong?

11

the_taylor•14d ago

Why does nobody talk about how much better a fixed monthly retainer is than project work?

I ran my agency on project work for the first two years, and it was a constant scramble. Last year, I switched my top three clients to a flat $3,500 monthly retainer for a set list of services. The difference is night and day. My income is predictable, I can plan my team's time months ahead, and the clients get better results because we're not rushing to finish a one-off. It took about 6 months to get the contracts and scope right, but now I wouldn't go back. Has anyone else made this switch and found it changed their whole business model?

25

avery_flores17•15d ago

Just had a client in Austin get their Google My Business suspended after using a 'growth service' last month.

They paid $300 for some company to post fake reviews and get them to the top of the map pack, but now their listing is gone right before their busy season, so has anyone else had to clean up a mess like this and how long did it take to get reinstated?

21

nancyn69•15d ago

Unpopular opinion: Most agencies overcomplicate client reporting with 20 page decks.

Switched to a single slide with three core metrics and our client retention jumped 15% in a quarter. Anyone else found simpler is better for keeping clients happy?

19

oliverhernandez•17d ago

I spent $2k on a fancy SEO audit tool and it was a total waste

Everyone in here talks about needing deep data tools, but I bought one for my agency last quarter. It gave me a 100-page report full of terms like 'crawl budget' and 'indexation issues' that were just common sense. We spent three weeks trying to fix its flagged problems, and our client's traffic actually went down a bit. For that money, I could have just hired a good writer for a month to make real content. Has anyone else found these automated audits to be more confusing than helpful?

17

the_willow•18d ago

PSA: I keep seeing agencies treat social media like a megaphone, not a conversation

I was working with a local bakery here in Austin last quarter, and their old agency just blasted the same promo post across all platforms every single day for two months. No replies to comments, no asking questions, nothing. Their engagement tanked. We switched them to a plan where we actually answer every comment and ask our followers what flavors they want next. In three weeks, their post reach went up by 40% because people started talking to them. It's basic, but so many shops still just post and ghost. They forget it's called social media for a reason. What's the most basic thing you see other agencies still getting wrong with social?

7

the_linda•18d ago

Had a meeting with a new restaurant owner in Portland last month that went sideways

He wanted a full social media plan but his budget was only $500 a month. I tried to explain we could maybe handle one platform for that, but he got upset and said his friend's nephew does it for free. It felt like we were speaking different languages about what marketing actually costs. How do you handle those first talks when someone's expectations are totally out of line with reality?

27

wood.eric•18d ago

I heard a client call their own website a 'digital brochure' and it made me stop.

I was on a call with a new client from Phoenix yesterday, and they said, 'Our site is just a digital brochure, right?' It hit me how many people still think that way. We spent the next 20 minutes talking about lead forms and tracking, and their eyes just lit up. It's wild how a simple phrase can show a whole gap in thinking. Has anyone else had a client say something that totally showed their old-school view of marketing?

16

elliot_gibson27•20d ago

Pro tip: A client's website went from 20 visits a day to 2000 after we fixed one dumb thing

We took on a local bakery in Portland last month, and their site traffic was flat. I was looking at their Google Analytics and it was just sad, like 20 people a day. Turns out their entire sitemap file was blocked by a robots.txt rule from 2018, put there by some old developer. We removed that one line of code. Three weeks later, they're getting over 2000 visits daily and their phone won't stop ringing. Has anyone else found a single, simple fix that just blew up a client's results?

11

murphy.mason•20d ago

I tried a free tool for client reports and it cut my work time in half

I was spending maybe 8 hours a week building custom reports for a small retail client. Last month, I tried using Google Data Studio, which is free, to connect their ads and social data into one simple dashboard. I set it up once and now it updates on its own. The client loves the live view and I get my time back. Has anyone else found a free tool that actually saved you real hours?

1

murphy.aaron•21d ago

Rant: Heard a client call TikTok 'the new Google' and it threw me back to 2010

I was at a coffee shop in Austin and overheard a business owner telling her friend she doesn't even bother with search ads anymore because 'everyone just looks on TikTok now'. It made me think about how we used to fight clients on the value of a basic Google My Business page. What's the biggest shift in client expectations you've had to explain lately?