The Agency Swap That Revived Sales and Marketing

How the Right Agency Turnaround Boosted Leads and Revitalised a B2B Marketing Team

Last autumn I stepped into a quick, in and out, fractional CMO role for a mid-sized B2B software firm in Reading as a favour for an old friend who had found herself on the board (“easy for some”). Despite very sizable revenue, the marketing team was very small and they relied upon a local marketing agency for their needs.

On paper things looked fine: steady web traffic, active ad campaigns and a marketing agency they had worked with for years. But the CEO had a hunch something was wrong. Results were not matching the spend and the sales team was grumbling.

Three Red Flags in Three Weeks

Within the first week three clear signs emerged.

The first came when the agency handed over a beautiful monthly report. It was full of colourful graphs and claimed a twenty-three per cent growth rate. But when I traced the numbers back they told a different story. Most of the metrics were vanity driven. Impressions, clicks and likes looked good in a presentation but none of it tied to meaningful pipeline growth. There was no tracking from marketing activity to actual closed deals. And no-one was actually pulling them up on it.

The second sign appeared in week two when I reviewed the paid ad campaigns. Many of them were running exactly as they had six months earlier with the same creatives, the same audiences and the same stale landing pages. One campaign was still promoting a product the company had decided not to focus on (they’d even removed sales quote to remove the incentive to sell it). When I asked why, the agency said it was still getting clicks as though that were enough reason to keep spending.

The third sign quickly followed after they ran an email campaign to a targeted list of ‘warm’ prospects. Sales quickly flagged that demo requests dropped, the copy was confused and that they received complaints that they were calling people that had unsubscribed. None of that feedback reached the agency because the account manager did not speak directly with the sales development team due to their ‘negativity’. Valuable insights that could have improved the next campaign were lost completely.

Finding the Right Alternative

It was obvious the agency was not being challenged, and the relationship had slipped into autopilot. The business was paying for activity not outcomes. And the contract with the agency wasn’t worth enough revenue for them to address it.

So I started looking for an alternative solution. I could have coached the existing agency but I, nor the firm, had the time.

I introduced the CEO to a boutique full-service marketing agency I had worked with before. They were the sort of team who have worked together forever, working directly with the Googles of the world to improve the tools they used and had the office dog on their ‘meet us’ page. Sometimes size doesn’t matter, it’s about fixing the problem. They built proper lead tracking from the ground up, refreshed ad creatives monthly and opened a direct feedback loop with sales. And all of it came in on a leaner retainer.

The Results: Measurable Growth and Renewed Confidence

Within the year, marketing generated leads had multiplied. Campaigns were measurable from click to close. The overall ad spend was higher they had been paying before because they could justify it. And they were able to start the process of hiring a new internal marketing team from the ground up because the mood had shifted and they realised if done correctly, marketing was worth backing.

But best of all, sales were hitting their numbers and had one less reason to whinge.  

How You Can Do the Same

If you are consulting in a firm that is just going through the motions, keep an ear out for these signs. And if you can, point them to someone who will not just fix the symptoms but improve their go-to-market without blowing the budget. In other words, doing what marketing is supposed to do.

If you are not sure where to start, Paartner can connect you with agencies who have done it before and even reward you for making the introduction.