“I’m not sure my agency is earning what we pay it.”
Find out what your marketing spend is actually returning.
A two-week review of the agencies, channels and contracts behind your locations. You get the evidence, the scorecard and the plan — whether or not you keep anyone.
- Duration
- 2 weeks
- Scope
- Fixed before we start
- Ends with
- A 90-day plan
The suspicion is usually right, but the evidence is missing
Most operators who question their agency are not angry with it. They simply cannot tell whether the money is working, and the reporting they receive is built to reassure rather than to answer. Without evidence, the choice is between renewing on faith and switching on instinct — and switching costs a quarter of lost momentum.
This review replaces both with a scored picture of what you are buying. For a sense of the shape before you talk to anyone, we published a breakdown of what a $15k monthly retainer actually buys.
Signals worth checking
- Reporting arrives as impressions and reach rather than customers and revenue.
- The senior people who pitched you have not been on a call in months.
- Creative refreshes have stopped, but the payments have not.
- Nobody can tell you the cost of acquiring one new member, by location.
- Your best-performing location and your worst get the same plan.
- The contract auto-renews, and nobody has read it since signing.
What you get, and when
- Deliverable 01
Spend and performance audit
Every channel and every vendor set against what it returns, with the gaps between what you are billed for and what shipped.
- Deliverable 02
Agency scorecard
Scored on delivery, reporting quality, seniority of the people actually doing the work, and the terms of your contract.
- Deliverable 03
90-day action plan
Sequenced, owned and costed. Written so you can hand it to your current agency if you decide to keep them.
- Deliverable 04
Live readout
A working session with you, and with your agency in the room if you want it. No slide theatre, no surprises.
How it runs
The full method →- 011–2 weeksDiscoveryProblem definition, impact analysis, current-state assessment, stakeholder map.
- 022–3 weeksSolution designSolution architecture, implementation roadmap, resourcing, risk and mitigation.
- 03Scoped to the workImplementationDeployment plan, adoption and training, performance monitoring, success measures.
How we price it
One fixed price for the whole scope, quoted after a twenty-minute call once we know how many locations and vendors are in play. No hourly billing, no annual lock-in. The number does not move once we start. If we do not think the review will pay for itself, we will say so on that call.
Common questions
- How do I know if my agency is underperforming?
- Usually it shows up in three places: reporting that talks about impressions instead of customers, senior people who disappeared after the pitch, and a spend mix nobody can explain by location. The review scores all three, and you get the evidence rather than an opinion.
- What do you actually look at?
- Your ad accounts and analytics, the last six to twelve months of invoices and deliverables, the contract itself, and the reporting you receive. We also talk to whoever owns marketing internally, because the problem is often the brief rather than the agency.
- Do you talk to our agency?
- Only if you want us to. Plenty of reviews run quietly. If you would rather have the conversation in the open, we will sit in the readout with them, so the plan is discussed with the people who will run it.
- What if we decide to keep our agency?
- That is a perfectly good outcome. The 90-day plan is written to be handed over, so the work is useful either way. We are not trying to sell you a replacement agency, because we are not one.
- How long does it take and when can you start?
- Two weeks from kickoff to readout, and we generally start within a week or two of a first call. The timeline is fixed before we begin, along with the scope.
- What does an agency performance review cost?
- SOLVBL charges a fixed price for the whole scope, quoted after a twenty-minute call. Never hourly, and never on an annual lock-in.
Tell us what is going on.
Five questions, two minutes. You get a written read on your situation before anyone talks about scope or price.