Will you profit from online campaigns?

This article is mainly for business owners or employees who are considering hiring an agency to run their online campaigns.

It can also be valuable for those who are dissatisfied with their results and are looking to understand the reasons behind underperformance.

If you have experience in digital marketing and you are already working with a solid agency, chances are you won’t find anything new here.

I’m writing this to make money.

But not by trying to sell you my agency’s services here. Quite the opposite, this piece is meant for people who are in the middle of choosing an agency and are fed the usual sales narrative. Grand promises, shiny projections and overnight success just a few clicks away, all you need to do is sign the contract, and everything will magically fall into place.

Except it often doesn’t, and almost never does it happen by itself. That’s what this text is really about.

So how do I plan to profit from it? If this helps you understand things better, make a smarter decision or avoid a bad one - maybe you will remember us when you’re looking for digital expertise or mention us to someone who is.

My name is Kuba Puzyna. Since 2019, I’ve been running the agency 4822 (four eight two two) together with my business partner. I’ve been working professionally in digital marketing since 2007.

Over the years, I’ve experienced the client - agency dynamic from every angle. I built a small agency from scratch, as its first employee. I worked at a mid-sized agency. I freelanced for the biggest players in the industry and worked directly with international corporations. Then I switched sides, and for several years I was the client working in a public institution, where I was responsible for selecting digital agencies. That also meant running formal tenders under public finance regulations.

I’ve sat through beautiful presentations and listened to exciting promises…only to end up with a hard lesson instead of the promised success.

But by far the biggest lessons came from building my own agency. When you work with dozens of clients every year, you start to see patterns or signs that a project has real potential, and red flags that suggest it’s heading nowhere. That’s exactly what I want to share with you here.

This piece touches on different perspectives and challenges in the client - agency relationship when it comes to online advertising.

Clients come in all shapes and sizes - so not every point will apply to your specific situation.

Feel free to skip around and focus only on what’s relevant to you. I won’t take it personally and honestly, it takes some pressure off knowing I’m not boring people with stuff that doesn’t concern them ;)

The first question worth asking while looking for an agency is: is this the right time?

If you don’t yet have the budget, resources, or internal processes that would allow you to scale your online revenue, hiring an agency might not be the right move at this stage of your business.

Of course, there are plenty of nuances and exceptions that determine whether it is the right time or too early, but I’ll try to outline some general boundaries:

a. budget Ogólnie rzecz biorąc współpraca z agencją opłaca się tym bardziej, im większy jest budżet.

In general, the more you spend, the more it makes sense to work with an agency.

If spending 10,000 PLN (net) per month on campaign management and media is out of your reach, that’s a warning sign. It’s worth triple-checking whether hiring an agency at this stage makes sense.

Can you get solid results and grow a business with less? Absolutely. But experience shows that smaller budgets usually come with challenges. Just keep in mind that in this case, it will require more effort and a lucky break.

b. resources It comes down to one key resource - your time.

An agency is supposed to take certain things off your plate but in most setups, some time investment from the client is still required.

Sometimes it means reviewing and approving ad creatives, sometimes it’s jumping in to fix a payment issue that’s holding up the campaign, and sometimes you might need to approve a strategy shift when results fall short - these are all common scenarios.

You’d be surprised how often lack of time on the client side becomes a serious issue, especially with smaller businesses. And that time gap often comes at cost if it gets in the way of problem-solving or implementing performance improvements.

If there’s no decision-maker in your company who can realistically spend around 4 hours a month on campaign-related tasks and agency communication, it might simply be too early to bring one on.

c. processes The more solid your internal processes, the better the odds your campaign will actually make money.

What does that mean in practice? Take a clothing brand as an example - if you can quickly restock bestsellers, your campaigns can make solid money. But if the top-selling items go out of stock and the campaign is left trying to sell products no one’s interested in - the results will naturally suffer.

When I talk about well-structured processes, I mainly mean the ability to turn insights from campaign data into your offer. Because in advertising, it’s much much easier to scale something that simply works, than to use ad budget to fight through a lack of visible customer interest.

If your company’s too small to stay flexible on the process side, success will rely more on luck and come with greater risk.

Internet wizards love to tell stories about businesses built purely on performance marketing. A generic product from China, a five-dollar website, some ad spend on Facebook or Google and like magic, digital coins start pouring in.

Maybe some of those stories are true. Maybe it works sometimes. But one thing’s for sure, a lot of people looking for performance marketing services have bought into them. Surprisingly often, clients split marketing into two buckets: the kind that makes money (sales), and the kind they see as some weird branding vanity project.

Very often, these clients expect strong results from sales campaigns while showing zero interest in building the brand.

So, like it or not, our experience shows a clear link between how well sales campaigns perform and how much effort the client puts into building their brand.

Well-run, engaging social channels, a real understanding of your customers, care for brand aesthetics and values, building genuine relationships. It all really works and directly impacts the financial results of your sales campaigns.

Expecting strong sales results without these elements is a risky bet. Unfortunately, shortcuts rarely work as well as we’d like them to.

Many companies come to the agency with a simple ask: we want to make more money.

Fair enough, that is the whole point after all. The catch is that making more money is a result, not a strategy.

To run a successful campaign, you need to answer a whole set of questions first:

a. what are you selling What needs do your products actually solve? How do they stand out from the competition? What are their key strengths and where do they struggle when stacked against the competition? What feelings and associations come to mind when people think about them? In your product category, how is the price justified and how is the value perceived?

b. who are you selling to Who is your target audience? Can it be broken down into smaller, distinct segments? Do all your customers perceive your product the same way and make buying decisions in a similar fashion? Where do they live and which communication channels do they use? What values matter most to them, and what kind of aesthetic appeals to them? Where do they look for product information and who do they trust?

c. how to sell Are your products seasonal, or is demand steady throughout the year? Is the purchase impulsive, or part of a longer decision-making process with clearly defined stages? Are emotions, rational thinking, or aesthetic appeal the key drivers behind the decision? Is it a one-time purchase or something customers come back for? Is there strong potential to grow revenue from each acquired customer, or is it more of a one-off relationship? Will different segments of your audience be drawn to different parts of your offer?

You don’t need to have a full strategy in place from day one. But you do need to be ready to shape it together with the agency. Even if the agency has experience in your industry, they will never know your brand as well as you do and that’s why the best strategies are always built in collaboration between client and agency.

If you don’t have a strategy, you need to be ready to invest time and money to build one. You can’t run an effective campaign without answering these questions first.

The market is constantly changing, campaigns need constant optimization, and algorithms’ performance shifts over time. Yesterday’s wins don’t guarantee tomorrow’s results.

That’s why effective collaboration with an agency requires flexibility and a willingness to make decisions. Sometimes you need to change the target audience, sometimes the creative, and sometimes the entire campaign concept.

If the client isn’t ready to make those moves - or if the decision-making process drags on for weeks - campaigns miss their potential.

In practice, collaboration with an agency works best when it’s a true partnership that is both collaborative and dynamic. When the client is willing to engage in conversation, make decisions, test new solutions, and understands that marketing is a process, not a one-time action.

The four risks described above are the most common reasons online ad campaigns underperform.

If your business is solid in all four areas, you can confidently start working with an agency. If there are gaps - it’s worth addressing them first to get the most out of the collaboration.

If this text sparked your interest and you have any questions, feel free to contact me.

Anyone who reaches out with questions after reading this post is invited to a free 30-minute strategic consultation with me or my business partner. The consultation, like this post, isn’t a sales pitch, it’s about understanding your challenges and offering real support.