Every agency selling to tradies has worked out that guarantees close deals. So now they all have one, and most of them are worthless, not because the agency is dishonest but because the guarantee is written around a metric the agency fully controls.
Here is how to tell in about sixty seconds whether the one in front of you means anything.
The One Rule
A guarantee is only worth as much as the metric it is written on.
That is the whole article, really. If the metric is something the agency can produce at will, you have been sold a sales tool. If the metric requires your business to actually make money, the agency has taken on real risk.
Take "guaranteed 30 leads a month." An agency can hit that on demand: widen the radius, drop the budget qualifier, remove the questions that filter out renters and tyre-kickers. Thirty names arrive. The guarantee is satisfied. You spend three weekends quoting people who were never going to proceed, and you have no recourse, because the contract said thirty leads and thirty leads is what you got.
The Five Types, Ranked
The ROAS one is worth a moment, because it sounds rigorous. An agency reporting 5x ROAS means every ad dollar produced five dollars of revenue. But revenue is not profit. Out of that five dollars comes materials, labour, fuel, insurance and your own time. A 5x ROAS on a job with a 15% margin is a worse outcome than a 2x ROAS on a job with a 60% margin. We pulled that apart in ROAS vs ROI for tradies.
The Six Questions
Ask these, in this order, and listen for hesitation rather than for the answer itself.
- What exactly is the unit being guaranteed? "Leads" is not an answer. Is it a form fill, a contactable person, a qualified enquiry, a booked appointment, or an accepted quote? These differ by an order of magnitude in value.
- Over what period, starting when? From signing, from campaign launch, from the first month of full spend? A vague start date means the clock never quite starts.
- What is the remedy if you miss? A refund of fees, a refund including ad spend, continued work at no charge, or a credit? "We'll make it right" is not a remedy.
- What are my obligations, and where are they written? Every real guarantee has conditions. That is fine and correct. What is not fine is conditions you only see after you have signed.
- Who decides whether it was met, and off what data? If the agency both reports the numbers and judges its own guarantee, there is no guarantee.
- Has anyone ever claimed on it, and what happened? The best question on the list. An agency that has honoured a claim will tell you the story. One that has never had a claim in three years either has an unclaimable guarantee or is not being straight with you.
The Conditions Are the Guarantee
People read the headline and skip the conditions, which is exactly backwards. The conditions are where you find out whether the promise is real.
Reasonable conditions look like this: maintain the agreed ad spend, follow up leads within a defined window, provide accurate figures on what you booked. Those exist because they are the variables the agency genuinely cannot control, and a guarantee without them would be an agency promising to be responsible for your sales process.
Unreasonable conditions look like this: the client must approve all creative within 24 hours or the guarantee is void. The client must not change their pricing. The guarantee applies only if the client attends every weekly call. Those are not risk-sharing. They are trapdoors, and there is usually one you will fall through.
The test: could you accidentally void this guarantee while running your business normally? If yes, it is a trapdoor. If the only way to void it is to stop doing your part entirely, it is fair.
A Weak Guarantee and a Strong One, Side by Side
Weak: "We guarantee 25 qualified leads per month or we work for free." No definition of qualified, no stated conditions, no data source, and the agency is the sole judge. The agency can satisfy this with 25 form fills of any quality.
Strong: "$100,000 in booked work within 90 days of campaign launch, where booked work means jobs quoted and accepted by the homeowner, measured from your own records, or we continue at no further service fee until you reach it. Conditions: you maintain the agreed ad spend, follow up leads within 24 hours, and give us accurate booking figures."
The second one names the unit, the period, the remedy, the data source and the conditions. It is not stronger because it is a bigger number. It is stronger because every term in it is defined.
Auditing Our Own Guarantee
That second example is ours, so it would be convenient to leave it there. Let us run our own six questions on it instead.
- Unit: dollars of quoted-and-accepted work. Not leads, not impressions. Strong.
- Period: 90 days from campaign launch, not from signing. Defined.
- Remedy: continued work at no additional service fee until the target is met. Here is the weakness, and it is a real one: it is not a cash refund. If you would rather have your money back than have us keep working, our guarantee does not give you that. We chose it because a refund leaves you with your money and no pipeline, but you should know the trade-off you are accepting.
- Conditions: maintain agreed ad spend, follow up leads within 24 hours, provide accurate booking data. Published in full on our FAQ and in section 3 of our terms, before you sign.
- Who judges: measured off your booking records, not our ad platform reporting. Your numbers.
- Has anyone claimed: ask Kevin directly on the call. He will answer it.
We put the weak point in writing because an article about spotting hollow guarantees that quietly exempted its author would be exactly the thing it is warning you about.
And If There Is No Guarantee At All?
That is not automatically a red flag. Plenty of good agencies decline to guarantee outcomes because too much depends on your close rate, your pricing and your follow-up, and that is an intellectually honest position.
What matters more is whether they are specific about everything else: what they will build, how they will measure it, what the reporting shows, and how you get out. An agency with no guarantee, month-to-month terms and honest reporting is a better bet than one with a spectacular guarantee and a twelve-month lock-in. Work through the full list of questions to ask before hiring an agency before you sign anything.
Common Questions
Are marketing guarantees for tradies legitimate?
Some are. A guarantee is only as good as the metric it is written on. A lead-volume guarantee is easy for an agency to hit by loosening targeting, so it transfers almost no risk. A guarantee written on booked revenue or accepted quotes cannot be satisfied with junk leads, so it represents real risk to the agency.
What is wrong with a guaranteed number of leads per month?
The agency fully controls it. Widening the targeting radius and removing qualifying questions will produce almost any lead number on demand. You get the count promised in the contract and no recourse, while spending your weekends quoting people outside your area or well outside your price range.
What questions should I ask about a marketing guarantee?
Six: what exactly is the unit being guaranteed, over what period starting when, what is the remedy if it is missed, what are my obligations and where are they written, who judges whether it was met and off what data, and has anyone ever claimed on it. Hesitation on the last one is the most telling.
Should I be worried if the conditions on a guarantee are strict?
Not necessarily. Conditions like maintaining an agreed ad spend and following up leads within 24 hours are fair, because they cover the variables the agency cannot control. The test is whether you could void the guarantee by running your business normally. If yes, it is a trapdoor rather than a condition.
Is a money-back guarantee better than continued free work?
It depends what you want. A refund returns your money but leaves you with no pipeline and three months lost. Continued work at no further fee gets you to the outcome you originally wanted but keeps you in the relationship. Neither is automatically better, but you should know which one you are being offered before you sign.
Is an agency without any guarantee a red flag?
No. Refusing to guarantee outcomes can be an honest position, since your close rate, pricing and follow-up speed all sit outside the agency's control. Judge them on specificity instead: what they will build, how they measure it, what reporting you get, and how easily you can leave.