You’re in a quarterly review. The agency is walking through their strategy. They talk about omnichannel synergies, programmatic optimization, earned media amplification, and top-of-funnel awareness plays. You nod. You take notes. You leave the meeting feeling like something happened. Later, you try to explain to your business partner what they said. You can’t. That’s the…
The report lands in your inbox on the first of the month. Impressions: up. Reach: up. Engagement rate: up. Your account manager walks you through it on a call, upbeat, confident. You hang up feeling like things are moving. Three months later, the phone isn’t ringing any more than it was before. You’ve been looking…
If your agency’s reports only ever tell a good story, that’s not a coincidence — it’s a technique. Cherry Picking is one of the most common tactics in agency reporting, and most clients never see it happening. Here’s how it works, how to spot it, and how to make sure it stops working on you.
Your agency has every incentive to keep you in the dark. This series exists to change that. Defense Against the Dark Arts is a guide to the thirteen techniques marketing agencies use to extract value without returning it — written by someone who’s seen them from the inside.
