Summary:
After seven years in digital marketing, leading a team that has managed over $1 million in ad spend per month and launched over 500 campaigns, the biggest thing Connor Biggar teaches his team is what actually makes someone great at digital marketing, especially now that AI is making the technical fundamentals more accessible than ever. Knowing Google Ads and getting your CPL down is essential but it is not enough. Here is what most agencies are still getting wrong.
Who this article is for:
Agency leaders, marketing leaders and digital marketing specialists who want to understand why digital marketing efforts fall short and why clients keep leaving even when the work gets done.
Key takeaways:
- Great marketers understand how their work actually impacts the business, not just whether deliverables were completed
- A lead is not the finish line. It is where some of your best marketing insights start
- Marketing and sales need to agree on what a good lead actually looks like before any campaign runs
- CTR, CPC and CPL matter but they do not tell you what actually makes the business money
- Report on business progress, not just the work you completed
- Learn the client’s business, sales process and customers, not just their marketing channels
- Do not just improve the numbers. Learn from them, optimize and repeat
What’s inside:
- The marketing efforts that agencies consistently get wrong
- Why metrics alone do not tell the whole story
- Where marketing and sales become disconnected and what to do about it
- How business owners can evaluate marketing performance honestly
- How marketing specialists can elevate into genuine growth partners for their clients
We need to talk about digital marketing differently
I have worked in digital marketing for seven years. I have led a team that has managed over $1 million in ad spend per month and launched over 500 campaigns. And one of the biggest things I teach my team is what actually makes someone great at digital marketing, especially in the era of AI.
Being great at Google Ads, knowing SEO, getting a CPL down: these are obviously important. But today, those skills are becoming more accessible and simpler for business owners to handle themselves. They are fundamental. They are not what separates a good marketer from a great one.
Here is what most agencies are still getting wrong, and what skills matter most as we head into 2027.
Mistake 1: Reporting marketing activity instead of business progress
Marketers lean into reporting deliverables. “I published the content.” “We generated X leads.” “Here is what I did this month.” The conversation stops there, which is precisely where your leverage as a marketing partner is highest.
This happens because most agencies are contractually obligated to complete the work outlined in a statement of work. So they complete it. But if you keep doing this and you keep losing clients, the problem is not the work. It is what you are not saying about it.
We need to start reporting on progress instead
Progress means measurable movement in the key performance indicators that show a campaign is getting closer to its actual target by reaching the right audience. Not that work was done. That the business moved.
The shift is this: instead of “we generated 14 leads,” say “we generated 14 leads, five were qualified, three scheduled appointments and one closed for $X. Here is what we are learning from the other nine.” Clear buyer personas improve campaign targeting, and businesses without a clear target audience waste ad spend. That is a completely different conversation. One tells the client you are executing. The other tells them you are on the same mission.
On my team we make this the subject of every client call. Too many marketing teams fill calls with content reviews and approvals, then leave the actual reporting to an automated dashboard at the end of the month. Quick emails can cover deliverables. Your calls should be about what the work is producing and what you are doing about it.
Mistake 2: Treating the lead as the finish line
It is never the finish line. The lead is the starting point.
For most business owners, “we generated 20 leads” does not tell them much. It tells them something happened. It does not tell them whether it mattered.
For most business owners the line “we generated 20 leads” does not tell them much
This is where you can position yourself as a growth partner early. As soon as campaigns are in place and leads are coming in, rather than saying “here are the leads,” ask this:
[Business owner’s name], I have a few questions about the recent leads that came in:
- Did you contact them?
- How quickly?
- What made them qualified or not?
- What were they looking for?
- Did they schedule?
- How many closed?
- For the ones that did not close, what were the objections?
These are the most important questions you can ask early in a new partnership. This is not just accountability. It is information that can change your targeting, messaging, offers, channels, landing pages, keywords and campaigns, while helping you define the ideal customer, understand the audience, and shape digital marketing content around real pain points. The more aligned sales and marketing can be, the better the marketing outcomes are. And you have to speak the client’s language, and they are worried about their bottom line, so your message stays relevant and quality content builds trust when it reflects what prospects actually care about.
Mistake 3: Blaming marketing for a sales problem
Before I go further: this can run the other way too. Marketing can absolutely be the problem. But sometimes it is not, and the ability to tell the difference is what separates a tactical vendor from a strategic partner.
Marketing can absolutely be the problem, but sometimes it is not
Three scenarios:
Scenario A: 100 leads generated, 3 were qualified. Probably a marketing problem.
Scenario B: 100 leads, 60 qualified, 2 sales. Worth investigating the sales process.
Scenario C: 100 leads, 60 qualified, 20 appointments, 10 sales. Now you have something to optimize.
Marketing and sales need the same definition of a good lead
We have run into this repeatedly. We define what a good lead looks like based on discovery research, market research, and the existing customer base, and the sales team thinks the leads are garbage even though they look great on paper. We have even worked with clients who wanted leads for one service when that service was better positioned as an upsell from a different one entirely.
Do not assume you know what a qualified lead means to your client. Talk to a sales director or team member directly. Many businesses, especially small businesses, get this wrong because they have never clearly defined their ideal customer or documented buyer personas. Some questions worth asking:
- Think about your last 10 customers you closed. What did they have in common?
- What makes you immediately think “this is a great lead”?
- What makes you know a lead is worth pursuing?
- What problem is someone usually trying to solve when they become a client?
- Which services or products do you want the most leads for? Why that one?
- What are some of the reasons a seemingly good lead did not close?
If you understand this, your path from Scenario A to Scenario C is a lot shorter. And by asking the right questions, you stop being a commodity. You become a growth partner for businesses, helping them reach potential customers and new customers more efficiently.
Mistake 4: Optimizing for the metric instead of the business
Vanity metrics are not necessarily bad. CTR, CPC and CPL are foundational and you need to understand them. But optimizing them without understanding what happens downstream is where most agencies go wrong.
A cheaper lead is not always a better lead
A $30 CPL might give your client a 2% close rate. A $100 CPL might give them a 15% close rate.
My team ran exactly this scenario for a home services company. Two campaigns, each with $3,000 in ad spend. Campaign A had a $30 CPL and generated 100 leads at a 2% close rate, bringing the cost per customer to $1,500. Campaign B had a $100 CPL, brought in 30 leads and closed at 15%, producing 4 to 5 customers at roughly $650 each. A stronger landing page can also lift conversion rate, and video on landing pages can boost conversions by up to 80%.
If you are optimizing for the metric, Campaign A looks great at the top. “Great news, your CPL is $30 and we generated 100 leads this month.” Meanwhile the business owner is watching their bottom line go in the wrong direction. Campaign B was clearly the more efficient campaign. But the marketer who stops at CPL never figures that out.
I see this too often. The metric looks good. The full marketing campaign does not. Those are not the same thing.
So what does good digital marketing actually look like?
There is a formula I teach my team that captures everything in this post:
Strategy. Execute. Measure. Understand sales. Learn. Optimize. Repeat.
The steps can shift in order depending on the situation, but a digital marketing strategy should not rely on one channel alone because overreliance limits diversification. The point is that you do not stop at the metric. You speak the language of your client’s actual business. You align early, stay aligned and keep finding insights as your digital marketing expertise expands into the parts of the business that marketing actually touches.
That is what makes someone a great marketer in 2026 and beyond. Not the technical skills alone. The ability to connect those skills to a business outcome and communicate that connection clearly to the person whose business it is. Good marketing uses multiple platforms and channels to deliver the right message consistently, and a successful digital marketing strategy starts with a clear marketing strategy.
At Big Red Jelly, this is how we build every Grow membership engagement: strategy tied to business outcomes, reporting tied to revenue and a team that understands the full funnel rather than just the channel they manage. If you want to see what that looks like in practice, start with a free discovery call.
Key takeaways
- Reporting deliverables is not the same as reporting progress. Progress is measurable movement toward a business goal
- The lead is where your best marketing insights begin, not where the job ends
- Ask the sales team what a good lead actually looks like before you define targeting. Their answer will change everything
- A $30 CPL that closes at 2% is more expensive per customer than a $100 CPL that closes at 15%. The metric is not the business
- The formula that works: strategy, execute, measure, understand sales, learn, optimize, repeat
- Marketers who connect their work to business outcomes are partners. Those who report activity are vendors. Clients leave vendors
Digital Marketing Mistakes: Frequently Asked Questions
What are the most common digital marketing mistakes?
The biggest digital marketing mistakes happen when marketers focus too heavily on campaign execution and not enough on the business behind it. Reporting leads without understanding lead quality, optimizing solely for metrics like CPL, failing to communicate with sales, and letting brand messaging drift across channels can confuse consumers and weaken a clear visual identity all cause marketers to miss the bigger picture. Campaign metrics matter but understanding what those metrics mean for the business matters more. A consistent brand presentation supports customer engagement and brand’s reputation, and 62% of consumers prefer brands with consistent messaging because brand consistency builds trust with potential clients.
How do I know if digital marketing is actually working?
Start by defining what success means for the business and work backward. Overlooking mobile optimization weakens performance because 62% of all digital media time is spent on mobile devices. Responsive design and testing content before publishing help the website work properly for mobile users, and neglecting mobile optimization can alienate a large audience. Instead of stopping at impressions, clicks or leads, look at what happens further down the funnel. How many leads were qualified? How many became appointments or opportunities? How many turned into customers? How much revenue was generated? Not every campaign can be tied directly to revenue, but the closer you can get to understanding the actual business impact, the better you will be able to evaluate performance.
What makes a lead qualified?
A qualified lead is someone who matches the characteristics of that business’s target audience and ideal customer profile, making them a realistic potential customer for that specific business. The definition will be different for every company. Factors might include the service they are interested in, location when local seo matters, budget, company size, urgency, the problem they are trying to solve, key pain points, alignment with your buyer personas, or their ability to make a purchasing decision. One of the best ways to define a qualified lead is to talk directly with the sales team. Ask them what their best customers have in common and what makes them immediately recognize a lead as worth pursuing, then use proper keyword research and search intent to attract more relevant leads through search engine optimization on search engines.
How can you tell the difference between a marketing problem and a sales problem?
Look at the entire funnel instead of just the number of leads or sales. If you are generating 100 leads and only three are qualified, there is probably something worth investigating on the marketing side. If 60 of those 100 leads are qualified but very few become customers, it is worth looking further into the sales process. The goal is not to blame marketing or sales. Tracking tools help both teams make informed decisions about where prospects are dropping off. It is to identify where prospects are dropping off so both teams can work together to improve it.
Is a lower cost per lead always better?
No. A lower cost per lead only tells you how much you are paying to generate the lead. It tells you nothing about what happens afterward. A $30 lead that closes 2% of the time can ultimately be much more expensive than a $100 lead that closes 15% of the time. That is why CPL should be evaluated alongside lead quality, appointment rate, close rate, customer acquisition cost, ultimately revenue, and whether the landing page drives higher engagement that improves conversion rate quality, not just lead volume.
What should digital marketing agencies report to clients?
Agencies should report on both marketing performance and business progress whenever the available data allows it across digital campaigns. Instead of only reporting that a campaign generated 20 leads, go a layer deeper and, when relevant, show audience engagement or low engagement patterns. How many were qualified? How many scheduled appointments? How many became opportunities? Did any close? Marketing reports should help explain what is happening, what you are learning and what you are going to do next, not simply prove that work was completed, and email marketing and social media may need different reporting views even when they support the same goal.
How can digital marketers become better partners to their clients?
Learn more about the client’s business than what is strictly necessary to run the campaign. Talk to sales. Understand what makes a good customer. Learn how leads are handled. The right partner will do a deep dive into which channels drive qualified demand, from search and local SEO to email marketing and social media platforms, not just focus on running ads. Ask why opportunities are not closing. For companies serving more than one area, overlooking local SEO and failing to create localized content can significantly reduce visibility. Understand which services are most valuable to the business and why. Technical marketing skills are still fundamental, but marketers who can connect those skills to the client’s larger business goals become much harder to view as a commodity, because customer experience is crucial for turning prospects into loyal customers. Trust-building tactics such as user-generated content strengthen credibility, while buying fake followers can damage it, and inbound content built around audience needs can increase lead generation—93% of companies using inbound marketing do so through stronger organic traffic.
