The red flags
If you've been with an agency for 6+ months and any of these are true, you have a problem:
Reports talk about impressions, clicks, and "reach" instead of booked jobs
This is the most common red flag. Real marketing reports tie spend to outcomes the business cares about: leads, calls, booked jobs, revenue. If your monthly report is just impressions and click-through rates with no link to actual jobs won, the agency either doesn't have call tracking set up (incompetence) or is hiding the conversion data (worse).
They can't explain WHERE your money goes
Ask your agency: "Of the $5,000 I paid you last month, how much was ad spend, how much was your management fee, how much was tools and software?" If they can't answer in 30 seconds, they're either disorganized or playing games. A good agency will email you a one-line breakdown.
Same strategy for every client
If your agency runs HVAC, roofing, plumbing, and dental offices and uses the same Google Ads playbook for all of them, that's a problem. The high-value keywords for HVAC ("emergency AC repair") are nothing like the high-value keywords for dental ("dentist near me"). Specialization matters.
Locked into a long-term contract
12-month contracts protect the agency, not you. Good agencies earn their renewal every month. Look for month-to-month or 90-day initial commitments with month-to-month after.
They own your accounts
If your domain is registered under the agency's name, your Google Ads account is on their MCC and you can't get standalone access, your GBP is managed under their email — when you leave, you lose everything. You should own EVERY account. The agency gets access as a user or manager, not as the owner.
In our experience, this last one is the most painful. We've onboarded clients who couldn't recover their own GBP because the previous agency owned it under a personal email, then disappeared.
How to evaluate a new agency
When you're shopping for a replacement, ask these questions:
Do they specialize in your industry?
General marketing agencies that "work with all industries" rarely understand the nuances of trade businesses. The vocabulary (shoulder season, ticket size, CSR, dispatch, storm response) is industry-specific. So are the high-converting keywords, the seasonal patterns, the buyer journey, and the unit economics.
An agency that has run campaigns for 20 plumbing companies knows exactly what works and what doesn't. An agency that's run campaigns for 100 generic businesses has to figure it out on your dime.
Can they show real results?
"We doubled this client's leads" is a vanity claim. "We grew this roofer from 14 booked jobs/month to 60 booked jobs/month, with cost per booked job dropping from $612 to $187" is a real result. Ask for specifics. Ask if you can talk to a current client.
Do they speak your language?
On the discovery call, do they ask about your ticket size, close rate, gross margin, crew availability, seasonal pipeline? Or do they pitch you on "modern integrated digital strategy"? If you can't follow what they're saying, they probably can't follow your business either.
Will they give you access to everything?
You should be able to log into Google Ads, Google Analytics, Google Business Profile, your website CMS, and call tracking — all under your accounts. If they refuse this, walk away.
What's their reporting cadence?
Weekly or biweekly check-ins with clear numbers (leads, calls, booked jobs, cost per acquisition) is healthy. Quarterly check-ins with PowerPoint slides full of pie charts is not.
How to transition agencies cleanly
Switching agencies is high-risk if you do it wrong. Here's the process that protects you:
Step 1: Take ownership of accounts BEFORE you give notice
- Google Ads: confirm you have admin access to your account (not just user access via their MCC)
- Google Business Profile: confirm you're the primary owner under your own Google account
- Google Analytics / GA4: confirm you have Admin role
- Website: confirm you own the domain and have access to hosting + CMS
- Email / DNS: confirm you control your DNS records
If anything is owned by the agency, request transfer or duplicate access BEFORE notifying them you're leaving. Otherwise they may refuse the transfer or — in our experience — disappear and leave you stranded.
Step 2: Document what's running
- Screenshot every active campaign in Google Ads
- Export your top 100 keywords and their performance
- Note your current monthly spend per channel
- Save the past 6 months of reports
Step 3: Give notice in writing
Be polite. Bridges are short in the trades world. Send an email confirming: "Effective [date], we'll be ending our engagement. Please confirm transfer of all accounts to our names by [earlier date]."
Step 4: Don't let the old agency turn off campaigns on day 1
A common (and ugly) move: the agency turns off all your campaigns the day the contract ends, even if you've paid through month-end. Specify in writing: "Campaigns continue running through [end date]. Account access transfers immediately."
Step 5: Audit before the new agency takes over
The new agency should do a full account audit before changing anything. Don't let them "burn it down and start over" — your current campaigns may have years of conversion data that's valuable.
Be honest about us, too
We're MCANIX and we obviously think you should work with us. We specialize exclusively in hands-on industries. We don't lock you into long-term contracts. We give you full account ownership from day one. We report on booked jobs, not impressions.
But more importantly, we think you should work with someone who actually knows your industry. If that's not us, we'll tell you on the discovery call. Marketing is too expensive to waste on a bad fit.
The bottom line
A bad marketing agency is worse than no agency at all. If yours can't tie spend to jobs, won't give you account access, or doesn't speak your industry's language, end it.
If you want a second opinion on your current agency, we'll do an honest, no-pressure audit of your campaigns and reporting. Worst case, you find out you're in good hands. Best case, you save yourself another year of bad agency relationship.
For more on what a good marketing engagement should look like, see our services overview or read about what trade business marketing actually costs.