A marketing retainer for a service business should pay for the ads themselves, including new ones before the old ones wear out, plus the page those ads send people to, the tracking that ties each booked job back to the ad behind it, and somebody working the account every week, ideally every day. The ad accounts, the pages, the creative and the lead data should belong to you the whole time, with ad spend billed to your own card and kept apart from the fee. And the report you get each month should tell you what a booked job cost, because a report built on clicks and impressions can look healthy in a month when nothing booked.
What should a monthly marketing fee pay for?
Mostly labour, meaning the hours that go into making ads, launching them, watching what they cost and replacing the ones that tire out. On Meta that starts with a batch of 8 to 12 ads, each on a different hook or angle, so the platform can find out which ones your buyers stop for. On Google it means picking the searches worth paying for and keeping a running list of the ones that aren't, like anything with "jobs" or "free" in it. The fee should also cover the page the ads point to, built to turn a click into a call or a booking, plus the tracking that tells the platforms which leads became paying customers. Some retainers include follow-up as well. Mine does on most packages. If a proposal lists "social media management" and says nothing about booked jobs, ask which line on it puts a customer on your calendar.
Is ad spend part of the retainer?
It shouldn't be. Ad spend belongs on your own card, billed by Meta or Google straight to you, and the fee pays for the person running it. When the two get bundled into one "media budget," you can't see how much reached the platform and how much stayed with the agency. I don't mark up ad spend, and you can open the account on any given Tuesday and see every dollar. Budget for it separately. On Meta I don't start an account under about $50 a day, which is about $1,500 a month, because below that the platform doesn't get enough leads to learn who your buyers are. Google search usually needs more, closer to $100 a day. I go through the math in how much you should spend on ads.
Should a marketing retainer include new ads every month?
Yes, because every ad wears out. Once enough people in your area have seen the same ad a few times, they stop reacting to it and your cost per lead climbs until a new ad replaces it, and the smaller your service area, the sooner that happens. The retainer should say how often new ads go in and where they come from. A proposal that says "creative included" without a number can mean two new ads a quarter or eight a month, so ask which. I build from your own jobs where I can, using clips you send from the jobsite or footage from a shoot at your location, and because I'm also the one reading the numbers, each new batch starts from whichever angle won last time.
What should you own when you pay a marketing company?
Everything the retainer builds, from the first day, at the admin level. That covers the ad accounts, the business page, the domain, the website or landing page, the ads and footage, and the contact details of every lead. The account history counts too. Each month of spend teaches Meta and Google more about who buys from you, and if the account sits under an agency's login, that history stays with them when you leave and you start over with the next company from zero. Both platforms let you give a marketer full working access to an account you own, which is how I work with every client, so if we stop, you keep all of it. There's more on this in why your marketing feels like a black box.
What should a monthly marketing report show?
What you spent, how many leads came in, what each lead cost, how many of those leads booked, and what each booked job cost, near the top and in that order. Then what changes next month. Impressions, reach and clicks can sit further down if you like seeing them, but a report that leads with them is often covering for a weak cost per booked job. Cost per lead can mislead on its own too. A $25 lead that books one time in fifteen works out to $375 per booked job, and a $60 lead that books one time in three works out to $180, so the $60 lead costs less than half as much per job. To report booked jobs at all, somebody has to track them, which is why the tracking belongs in the retainer. I wrote the full math up in what a booked job costs you.
Does a retainer cover what happens after a lead comes in?
It should. A lead you paid for that waits three hours for a callback has often called somebody else by then. Follow-up means every new lead gets a text and an email back within minutes, day or night, and missed calls get a text back automatically. The ones who go quiet keep getting chased. If your retainer leaves that out, ask who answers a lead that comes in at 8pm on a Sunday. If the answer is you, on Monday, that paid lead sat for 12 hours, or more like 14 if Monday starts on a job site. I build follow-up into most packages, because every lead that slips through still got paid for, and that cost gets added onto the jobs that did book. Speed to lead covers why the first business to answer usually gets the job.
How long should a marketing retainer last?
Long enough to find out what a booked job costs you, which takes about 90 days. The first two weeks are the learning phase, when cost per lead jumps around while Meta or Google works out who responds, and the weeks after that are where the numbers settle into something you can plan around. Expect cost per lead in month one to run higher than it will in month three. Judge it on the 90-day number. One slow week tells you very little. A 12-month contract with nothing in it tied to results mostly protects the agency. Mine starts with a 90-day term, and after that you stay because it's working. You own the accounts, so leaving means removing my access.
How often should you hear from your marketing company?
Often enough that you never have to wonder what they're doing, which for me means a kickoff call, a short strategy call each month, and a text or email whenever something needs your decision. That rhythm gets set on the kickoff call so nobody is guessing when they'll hear from me next, and if a week goes badly, you hear it from me before you see it in a report. Your side should be short. Answer the phone when leads call, show up to the appointments that get booked, send the odd clip from a job, and approve the big decisions. Everything else sits with whoever you're paying. If the only things you get from your agency are an invoice and an auto-generated PDF, you're paying for less than the proposal said.
Putting my retainer through the same list
Hold mine to every section above. Start with ownership and the report. You'll have the exact price by the end of the call, before you sign anything, and it depends on which of these pieces your business needs. Book a call and bring a rough idea of what one customer is worth to you.