These guides are written for the person who signs the marketing cheques, not the person who runs the campaigns. Each one teaches a single job you can do yourself: hire an agency, set a budget, or audit a vendor. They use worked examples with Canadian context and plain language throughout.
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The agency audit checklist: 40 checks you can run before renewal
Run this checklist a few months before your agency contract renews. It covers ownership, tracking, paid ads, search work, reporting, software and value, and needs no marketing background.
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How to choose a marketing agency without regretting it a year later
Write a brief before you talk to anyone, interview three candidates with the same questions, score them on the same sheet, and settle ownership and reporting before you sign.
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How to set a marketing budget you can defend to anyone
A good marketing budget starts from what a new customer is worth in gross profit, caps what you'll pay to win one, and is limited by how many customers you can actually serve.
Why we publish buyer-side guides
Most marketing content online is written by agencies, for agencies' prospects. It tends to explain why you need more marketing, not how to judge what you already buy. We think owners deserve the opposite: tools to ask sharper questions and spot problems early.
If a guide is all you need, that's a good outcome. Many owners who read them never hire an advisor, and that's fine. Others use them to prepare for a conversation with us, which makes that conversation shorter and more useful.
How to choose a marketing agency
How to choose a marketing agency lays out a seven-step hiring process: know your numbers, write a brief, build a shortlist, interview with the same questions, score on one sheet, settle terms, and plan the first 90 days.
What you'll learn:
- The four numbers to know before your first agency call
- What belongs in a two-to-three page brief
- Ten interview questions, including the one that reveals the most
- A weighted scorecard you can copy
- The terms to settle before signing, especially ownership and exit
Read it when you're hiring for the first time, replacing an agency, or moving from a freelancer to a team.
How to set a marketing budget
How to set a marketing budget builds a spending number from the economics of your business instead of habit or vendor suggestion.
What you'll learn:
- How to calculate customer value from gross profit and repeat business
- How to turn that into a target cost per customer and per enquiry
- Why capacity caps your budget, and how to calculate the ceiling
- A sample split between fees, ad spend and software
- How to shape spend around Canadian seasonal demand
- Simple rules for when to raise, hold or cut the budget
Read it before you talk to any agency, and again every quarter.
The agency audit checklist
The agency audit checklist gives you 40 yes-or-no checks across seven areas: ownership, tracking, paid advertising, search work, reporting, contract and invoices, and value.
What you'll learn:
- How to confirm you own your domain, website and ad accounts
- A five-minute test that shows whether call tracking works
- How to read a search term report for wasted spend
- What a useful monthly report should contain
- Where Canadian rules on advertising claims and commercial email touch your marketing
- How to score the results and what to do next
Run it three or four months before your contract renews.
How the guides fit together
The three guides follow the order most owners need them. The budget guide gives you a target. The agency guide uses that target to hire well. The audit checklist uses the same target to check, a year later, whether the hire is still paying off.
| If you are... | Read first | Then |
|---|---|---|
| About to hire an agency | Budget guide | Agency selection guide |
| Unsure about a current agency | Audit checklist | Budget guide |
| Comparing proposals this week | Agency selection guide, step 6 | Our proposal review |
A note on our examples
The numbers in these guides are illustrations chosen to make the arithmetic easy to follow. They aren't benchmarks, and they aren't promises of what any channel will cost you. Replace them with your own figures as you read; the method holds even when the numbers are very different.
When reading isn't enough
The guides cover the method. Applying it to your own accounts takes time and some experience, especially for tracking and ad accounts. If you'd rather have help, our services mirror the guides: budget planning, agency selection and vendor audits. Fees are on the pricing page, and the first conversation is free.
Frequently asked questions
Are these guides free?
Yes. They are free to read and use, with no sign-up of any kind. Print them, share them with a business partner or use them in a meeting with your agency.
Which guide should I read first?
Read the budget guide first if you are about to hire. Read the audit checklist first if you already have an agency. The agency selection guide makes most sense once you know your budget.
Do the guides apply to my industry?
They are written for any owner-led business that buys marketing services, from trades and clinics to retailers and professional firms. Examples use round numbers so you can swap in your own.