Whenever I speak to anyone working at an ecommerce brand, it seems they’ve all got horror stories about bad agencies.

So… having been on the ecommerce digital marketing agency side of the fence for the last 10 years, here are some of the biggest red flags you should watch out for when working with our kind:

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1. Do-it-all agencies 🚩
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There’s no faster way to get mediocre, subpar work than hiring a generalist agency. These are the teams that’ll build your website, run your ads, do your SEO, and send your emails. 

Chances are, you’re getting a jack of all trades who’s trying to spin too many plates and ends up being a master of none. 

Ecommerce success needs deep, focused channel expertise, not a generalist ecommerce digital marketing agency trying to do it all under one roof.

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2. They own the ad account 🚩
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It still baffles me that this happens - but yes, some agencies are still creating and holding ownership of their clients' ad accounts, Pages, or even tracking pixels.

Even worse, I’ve heard of agencies refusing to give clients access to their own ad accounts because of "sensitive information."

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3. Crazy metrics in their case studies 🚩
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It’s always interesting to sift through another agency’s case studies and hear about all the huge increases in returns they’ve driven for their clients… Think 1000% increases in revenue. 

More often than not they’re comparing month on month performance, which in the world of ecommerce is completely pointless. Anyone can drive huge uplifts in performance when comparing November to October… 

At Adnomics, we base our case studies on year-on-year performance - ideally looking at full quarters or half-years. We also exclude branded traffic from the data to give a truer picture of our uplift. 

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4. Lack of real-time reporting 🚩
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There’s zero excuse for agencies still delivering spreadsheets once a week (or month!) with vague commentary and a few charts.

At Adnomics, we built our own reporting platform - ADX - giving clients access to daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly data, all updated in real-time.

Often we’ll onboard a client only for them to send over some of their previous agencies reports, which is just a spreadsheet with last month's numbers in it and a few lines of commentary. 

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5. Lives by in-platform metrics 🚩
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If your agency is hyping up a “record-breaking week” based purely on what Meta or Google Ads reports, that’s a red flag. 

Ad platform sales and revenue reporting is plagued by over-attribution, duplicated conversions and just pure estimations. 

A good ecommerce digital marketing agency knows that in-platform data is directional, not 100% correct. They’ll dig into your real sales data, cross-reference it with analytics, and give you a clear view of true performance. Not just what the ad platforms want you to believe.

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6. No dedicated creative reporting 🚩
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We all know now that the biggest lever you can pull to improve your Meta performance is creative. 

Yet some agencies still rely on scrolling through Ads Manager when asked, “What’s working?

Creative performance is so integral to your success as an agency, it’s so surprising that so many agencies still aren’t using a dedicated creative reporting tool like Atria or Motion to truly breakdown what is working and what isn’t when it comes to creatives. 

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7. Only focuses on existing 🚩
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All ecommerce businesses will go out of business if they only sell to their existing customers. It doesn’t matter how good your product is, or how loyal your customers are, eventually everyone will churn. 

That’s why it’s so important that agencies are focused on driving new customers as much (if not more) than existing customers. 

Sure, incremental revenue from loyal customers is great, but an agency should be obsessed with driving new customer acquisition. 

Too many take the lazy route: not excluding existing customers from Meta campaigns or letting brand search dominate your PMAX campaigns. 

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Conclusion

Honestly, I could go on. (Maybe we should turn this into a series...)

But the bottom line is - a great ecommerce digital marketing agency should feel like a true extension of your team. They should understand your product, your margins, and your challenges - and be constantly pushing for real, sustainable growth.

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If any of these red flags sound a little too familiar, it might be time to reassess the relationship. Drop us a line.

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