Category: Digital Strategy

1–3. Test business and customer fit

1. What do you need to learn before recommending channels? Look for questions about margins, sales, capacity, customers, and goals.
2. Have you solved a similar type of problem? Industry experience helps, but the problem and sales model matter too.
3. What would you not recommend yet? Strong partners can explain where the budget should not go.

4–6. Ask how the strategy becomes work

1. What happens in the first 30, 60, and 90 days?
2. Who does the work and who approves it?
3. How will SEO, paid media, content, website, and follow-up support each other?

A channel list is not a strategy. You should be able to see the order of work and the reason behind it.

7–8. Connect reports to revenue

1. Which actions count as conversions? Qualified forms, calls, bookings, sales, and revenue should outrank weak clicks.
2. How will lead quality reach the marketing team? Ask how CRM or sales outcomes will improve targeting and content.

9–10. Protect access and ownership

1. Will we own the website, analytics, ad accounts, creative, and data?
2. What happens to access and work if the relationship ends?

Your business should have appropriate administrative access. Agencies can be managers without becoming the only gatekeeper.

11. Listen for honest expectations

Avoid guaranteed rankings, guaranteed lead counts, secret methods, and pressure to spend before tracking works. Google states that there are no secrets that automatically rank a site first and that search improvements can take time. Read Google’s SEO Starter Guide for the same grounded expectation.

12. Define communication before signing

Know the meeting rhythm, day-to-day contact, response time, reporting format, approval process, and escalation path. Ask for a sample report and have the agency explain what action it would take from the numbers.

Learn more about Inkwell or start with a free growth audit.

Common questions

Start with the business goal

Choose one result for the next 90 days. It might be qualified consultation requests, ecommerce sales, booked appointments, or repeat purchases. Avoid a vague goal such as “more awareness.” A clear result tells you what to measure and which channels deserve money.

Work backward from customer value

Estimate gross profit from a typical first sale, then include realistic repeat business. Decide how much of that value you can spend to acquire a customer. This is your maximum customer acquisition cost, not a promise that every campaign will hit it immediately.

• Average revenue from a new customer
• Gross margin after delivery costs
• Close rate from qualified lead to sale
• Refunds, cancellations, and no-shows
• Repeat purchases or retained revenue

Split the budget by job, not by trend

Give each channel one job. Search ads can capture active demand. SEO and useful content build visibility that compounds. Email helps leads and customers take the next step. A strong website makes every channel work harder.

Reserve money for learning

New campaigns need room to learn. Set aside part of the budget for landing-page tests, new creative, call tracking, and better offers. Do not change five things every few days. Make one meaningful change, collect enough data, and document what happened.

The U.S. Small Business Administration also recommends treating marketing as an investment and using revenue percentages as a guide rather than a fixed answer.

Use a 90-day budget review

Review leading indicators every week and business outcomes every month. At 90 days, increase spending only when the complete path works—from click or search impression to qualified lead, sale, and revenue. A low cost per click is not a win if the leads are wrong.

1. Week 1: confirm tracking, offer, and target customer.
2. Weeks 2–4: remove obvious waste and fix the landing page.
3. Months 2–3: compare lead quality, close rate, and customer value.

A practical starting plan

Start with the channels closest to revenue, but do not neglect the website and tracking that support them. If the available budget is too small to run every channel well, choose fewer channels and execute them properly. Inkwell can map that mix during a free growth audit.

Common questions