How to choose a digital marketing agency, honestly.
Top-firm rankings, SMB-vs-enterprise selection criteria, and the questions Canadian buyers should ask before signing a 12-month retainer.
Independent digital-agency comparison guides
- 16 evaluation guidesUpdated quarterly
- No pay-to-playWe don't take agency referrals
- Carooga+758% impressions, 6 mo
- SMB + enterpriseBoth segments covered
Featured case study
Carooga: +47% organic clicks and +758% search impressions in 6 months.
Carooga
“A three-point on- and off-site content strategy: site audit, competitor benchmarking, and a real backlink program through high-authority placements. Six months of measured GSC growth.”Unalike project recap
- +47%
- Organic clicks (6-mo GSC)
- +758%
- Search impressions
- Financial Post
- + BC Living, Vancouver Is Awesome, Techcouver placements
How we help.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Full-funnel SEO — technical, on-site, off-site link building, content strategy. The discipline behind the Carooga results above, applied to your category.
See how it works →Google Ads.
Search + Performance Max + Display, tuned to your CPA target, not to ad-platform-recommended "smart" defaults that quietly favor Google's revenue over yours.
See how it works →Marketing Strategy & Planning.
If you're choosing your first agency or rebooting after a bad fit, the strategy + media-mix decision matters more than the channel execution. We do that audit work first.
See how it works →Playbooks for digital marketing agencies.
See all articles →Ecommerce Advertising Agency: What to Actually Expect Before You Sign Anything
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What Is Native Advertising (And When Does It Actually Work)?
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What an AI Automation Agency Actually Does (and Whether You Need One)
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Questions buyers ask.
- How should I evaluate a digital marketing agency?
- Three honest tests: (1) Ask who will actually be running your account day-to-day — if they can't name them in the pitch, you're getting an account-manager relay. (2) Ask for a campaign teardown of an account in your category, with real numbers — not a case-study one-pager. (3) Ask what they'd refuse to do with your budget. Agencies that say "yes" to everything are upselling; agencies that push back on bad ideas are usually safer to hire.
- What's a fair monthly fee for a Canadian SMB digital agency?
- Most Canadian SMB engagements land in $1,500-$5,000/mo in fees (separate from ad spend). Lower end: single-channel (SEO-only or social-only) with light reporting. Higher end: multi-channel + CRM wiring + content production. Below $1,000/mo is usually a templated junior account; above $7,000/mo for an SMB is usually overkill or hidden ad-spend markup. See /pricing for our published tiers.
- Should I hire a generalist agency or a specialist (e.g., SEO-only)?
- Depends on your stage. New brand without a clean attribution baseline: generalist who can run a strategy + media-mix audit before specializing. Established brand with a known winning channel: specialist in that channel beats generalist 9 times out of 10. Most SMBs are in the first category and don't realize it — they hire a specialist for a channel that wasn't actually their best lever.
- What's the typical contract length, and should I sign one?
- Industry standard is 6-12 months. Honest framing on contract length: SEO realistically needs 6 months minimum to show signal, paid ads needs 30 days, content marketing needs 6 months. A 12-month commitment is fine for SEO + content; a 12-month commitment for paid-ads-only is usually a red flag (the agency is locking in their revenue before they've earned it).
- Do you take agency referral commissions?
- No. Our content here recommends specific Canadian agencies we believe are good — those are honest editorial picks, not paid placements. We don't take referral fees, kickbacks, or affiliate commissions from agencies we mention. If a guide recommends an agency we work with directly (Unalike), we say so explicitly.
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