Accountability
What we are answerable for, written down
Our commitments
In short
Before an engagement starts we agree, in writing, the one number it is answerable for. Every report opens with that number. When we miss it, you hear it from us first, with what we are changing and why.
One agreed outcome, written down before we start
Not a list of deliverables. One number that reflects your business — qualified enquiries, cost per acquisition, share of AI answers, booked jobs. If we cannot agree what success looks like, we should not start.
Measurement verified before anything is concluded from it
Most businesses optimise against fiction: double-firing tags, conversions counting page views, platform-reported attribution taken at face value. We verify what you are measuring is real before we report a single number on it, including numbers that flatter us.
Reporting opens with the outcome, not the activity
Every report leads with the agreed number and the direction it moved. Activity comes after, and only where it explains the movement. No report of ours will bury a bad month under a list of tasks completed.
Misses are raised by us, early
If a programme is off track we tell you in the month it happens, not at the quarterly review. An agency that has never reported a miss is an agency marking its own homework.
We say no to work we do not think will pay
To budget increases the account cannot absorb, to channels that will not work for your category, and to clients we cannot help. This has cost us revenue and it is not negotiable.
You own everything, from day one
Ad accounts, analytics, Search Console, the Google Business Profile, every piece of content and every audience. If you leave you take all of it, including conversion history. There is nothing to hold hostage.
No lock-in on any engagement
Month to month for managed and advisory; a defined scope with an end point for enablement. If we stop earning it, you stop paying it.
Priced on the outcome, never on hours
We do not bill time and we do not take a percentage of your ad spend. One rewards us for being slow, the other for spending more of your money.
Why this page exists
Every agency says it is accountable. The word has been used so freely that it now carries almost no information, which is a problem for the ones who mean it.
So this page is the checkable version. Each commitment above is specific enough that you could point at it in month four and say we are not doing that. That is the entire point — a promise you cannot fail is not a promise.
It also exists because the work changed. When execution was hard, an agency earned its fee by doing things competently. The platforms now do that part well, for anyone. What is left is judgement: choosing the objective, reading whether the numbers are real, deciding what to stop. Judgement is only worth buying from someone who will answer for it, which makes accountability the product rather than a virtue.
What we will not promise
- Guarantee rankings or a specific position. Nobody controls search results, and any agency promising otherwise is targeting worthless keywords or planning something that will cost you later.
- Promise a revenue figure we cannot influence. We are accountable for the marketing outcome, not for whether your sales team converts the enquiries.
- Claim credit for demand that already existed. Branded search and repeat customers are not new business, and reporting them as such is the oldest trick in agency reporting.
Saying these out loud costs us the occasional deal against an agency willing to promise them. That is a trade we are comfortable with, and it is usually the conversation that wins the clients worth having.
See it in practice
Three ways to work with us
Answers
Accountability — the awkward questions
What happens if you miss the agreed outcome?
You hear it from us in the month it happens, with the diagnosis and what we are changing. If it keeps missing, we say whether we think the programme is fixable or whether you should stop. We would rather lose an engagement than keep invoicing something that is not working.
Isn't this just a guarantee by another name?
No, and the difference matters. A guarantee promises a result nobody controls. Accountability means we name the outcome up front, report against it honestly, and own the diagnosis when it moves the wrong way. One is a sales device; the other is how the work gets steered.
Who decides what the outcome should be?
You do, with our advice. It has to be something that genuinely reflects your business and that marketing can actually influence. We will push back on metrics that flatter us — impressions, rankings, reach — and on ones we cannot affect, like your close rate.
Do you put this in the contract?
The agreed outcome and the reporting commitment, yes. We are not going to pretend the whole page is contractually enforceable, because most of it is about how we behave rather than what we deliver. But it is written down and you can hold us to it.
What if our measurement is broken?
Then fixing it is the first phase of the engagement, and we will say so before you sign rather than after. Reporting confidently on numbers we know are wrong would undermine everything else on this page.
Talk to a strategist
Let's find out what's actually holding you back
Fifteen minutes on the phone, an honest read on your situation, and a number. If we're not the right fit we'll say so and point you somewhere better.
