How To Make Marketing More Efficient – Business Results Input For Agency

When marketing agencies work with clients, the scope of their involvement can vary significantly. Some agencies only focus on delivering a specific service, while others dive deep into the client’s business operations. But can a marketing agency be genuinely effective without knowing how its work affects sales or overall business results?
Recently, I had an interesting discussion with one marketing manager about this. We agreed it depends on the case, so here are some of the cases we discussed.

No business insight – just task execution

A marketing agency does not have access to a client’s business metrics. Its responsibility is simply to complete the assigned tasks, whether managing social media accounts or running Google Ads campaigns.
Recently, I spoke with an agency owner who told me he creates content for his client on social media but does not have access to a Facebook page to publish that content. I’ve never had this situation in my career, but this is a clear case where an agency can’t do much. They measure their success based on the execution of the campaign, not on its broader impact on the business.
An agency can only measure engagement rate, growing followers, or number of clicks. It doesn’t know if those efforts (social media posting, Google Ads “clicks”…) lead to sales, new leads for its client, or meaningful business growth.
This model is straightforward for the agency. There is a fixed scope of work and lower responsibility. Since the agency is not responsible for understanding or improving business outcomes, its job is more straightforward, with fewer variables to consider. However, the problem is that this kind of work has limited value for the client. The agency cannot optimize its work based on what genuinely benefits the business because it lacks access to sales data or other performance metrics. At this level, the agency and client relationship is transactional. The agency is a service provider, delivering what the client asks for without deep strategic insight.

• Difficulty for the agency: 10/100
• Easy to replace an agency: 100/100

Access to online data and e-commerce metrics

Moving to the next level, marketing agencies gain access to a client’s online data through tools such as Google Analytics. We have access to all our clients’ Google Analytics to see how users interact with their websites, how Google Ads campaigns perform, and how marketing efforts translate into sales for e-commerce clients. This is mandatory for all e-commerce clients – the agency has to know how their ads perform. For example, an agency can see that a product page is receiving a lot of traffic but few conversions – the reason can be the ad targeting, the landing page, or the checkout process. With this level of insight, the agency can optimize campaigns more effectively. For instance, they could recommend adjusting the ad budget to prioritize higher-converting products or suggest improvements to the website’s user experience to boost sales.
This is how data-driven decisions are made—the agency can adjust campaigns based on real-time data and provide much more value to a client. More data is being reported to a client – not just clicks but also sales or lead generation. This is more than enough for clients who do only e-commerce, but for those who have brick-and-mortar stores as well, this might not be enough. The agency can only influence and track online metrics but does not know how its efforts affect the client’s offline business. Online metrics are just one part of the bigger picture. The agency might not know how customers behave after interacting with an ad, such as visiting a physical store or becoming repeat customers.
At this level, the agency becomes a more valuable partner by focusing not just on task execution but on outcomes. They can use data to optimize campaigns and ensure their work contributes to the client’s revenue.

• Difficulty for the agency: 40/100
• Easy to replace an agency: 80/100

Combining online and offline business data

In the third layer, agencies expand their involvement to include online and offline business metrics. This allows for a more holistic marketing approach, where the agency understands how online efforts influence offline results. In many industries, especially retail, this type of collaboration is crucial for assessing the full impact of marketing campaigns.
With clients who track leads, we try to communicate with them to check the percentage of leads turned into customers. We create a simple Excel spreadsheet where we input the number of leads, and the client needs to input the number of clients from those leads. That’s how we also measure the success of our efforts.
Sometimes, a direct connection between online and offline activities is impossible; in that situation, we communicate the RoPo (Research Online, Purchase Offline) effect with our clients.
This layer provides the agency with a complete view of campaign effectiveness. The agency can analyze how online and offline efforts contribute to the client’s goals, providing a more comprehensive strategy. With feedback from offline data, such as in-store sales or lead-to-customer conversion rates, the agency can fine-tune campaigns for better results. However, this is not an easy layer: combining online and offline data requires more sophisticated tracking, reporting, and analysis, which may require additional resources. The agency relies on the client to provide accurate and timely offline data, which isn’t always guaranteed (don’t ask me how I know this :-)).

• Difficulty for the agency: 80/100
• Easy to replace an agency: 50/100

Access to profit margins for maximum business results

The highest level of agency involvement is when the client shares sales data and details about profit margins for specific products or services. This allows the agency to make more strategic decisions beyond driving sales. Instead of focusing solely on increasing revenue, the agency can help the client prioritize profitability.
Only a small number of our clients provide this information, but for those who do, we can suggest switching the budget from promoting a product with a low profit margin to a product with a high profit margin. This way, we can help clients make decisions that maximize profit, not just sales volume. Sharing sensitive information like profit margins reflects a higher level of trust between the client and the agency, leading to a stronger relationship. But our role becomes much more complex as we take on a broader business advisor role – which also raises our prices.

• Difficulty for the agency: 100/100
• Easy to replace an agency: 10/100

The importance of transparency and collaboration

At Kontra, we have clients in all four layers. We would like to work as much as possible in the fourth layer, but we also understand that some clients are not yet ready to disclose all their information to us (like profit margins). With access to sales figures, profit margins, and offline metrics, Kontra can develop highly targeted campaigns that drive traffic and increase client profitability.
Our clients who provide more data receive precise recommendations on where to focus advertising efforts, improving ROI and business results. It costs more because we need our most senior employees to work on those campaigns, but it is well worth it.