Contracts built to keep you
Sign a year-long term that renews on its own, and you keep paying whether the work helps or not. And some agencies take the site down when you leave and hand you a file of the website you paid for.
/ Marketing agency oversight
Someone on your side of the table, checking your agency's work
Most of what a marketing agency reports can be checked. We look at who owns your website and ad accounts, what your contract allows, what was actually done, and what it produced in signed clients. Then we hold every vendor to one plan. It's what an in-house CMO would do for you, without the salary.
What we check
- Who owns your website, ad accounts, and data
- What your contract and invoices say
- What was actually done on your accounts
- What it produced, all the way to the signed client
- Whether your agency also works for your competitors
I'm Joshua David Little. I've run my own consulting firm since 2004, I've helped attorneys prepare complex cases for trial, and I ran the first family-law ad on ChatGPT, before the platform allowed legal-services ads. Checking an agency's work is how Aquila began.
/ Why so many owners stop trusting agencies
Many law firms don't own the marketing they pay for
An agency will sell a lawyer a website and keep ownership of everything underneath it: the domain, the hosting, the site itself. The lawyer is building on rented space. It's often the same with ad accounts. The agency owns the account, and the firm is renting it. When the relationship ends, the firm's access can end with it.
Reports full of clicks, with no word on clients
The reports kept coming, and none of them showed you what you'd paid for. A report full of impressions and traffic can look healthy while nobody can tell you which clients it brought in.
Content that got the law wrong
One firm says it paid an agency $90,000 for a project that came back with inaccurate legal information. The firm paid for it, and the firm's name was on it.
Callout · How Aquila started
I didn't set out to start a law firm marketing business. Nashville family lawyer Brenda Clark, whom I'd worked with on litigation, asked me to look at her ads. I could see right away how the agency was burning her, and that what they were telling her was blowing smoke. Then I started looking at other firms, and I found it was the rule instead of the exception.
/ How it affects you
When the agency writes its own report card, it decides what you see
Each vendor reports the number that makes its own work look good. If you only sell one thing, every problem looks like it needs that one thing. Meanwhile, the questions that tell you whether your money is working go unanswered: what each signed client cost, where they came from, and what you'd keep if you walked away tomorrow.
/ How oversight works
What I check, vendor by vendor
Ownership
Your domain, hosting, website platform, Google and Meta ad accounts, Google Business Profile, analytics, call-tracking numbers, and social media logins. We find out who holds each one and help you move anything that should be yours into your firm's name.
Contract and billing
The term, renewal, and exit terms, any markup on your ad spend, setup fees, and what the retainer covers in writing.
What was done
Google Ads and Meta both keep a history of the changes made to an ad account. We read it, so you know what was done, when, and whether the senior person who sold you the work is anywhere near your account.
What it produced
Cost per lead and cost per signed client, where each lead came from by channel, real leads set apart from spam, and the trend over time.
Conflicts
Whether your agency works for other firms in your city and practice area, and whether your leads go to you alone.
Coordination
Every vendor working toward one goal and one set of numbers. I know what each vendor should be doing and how it should perform, so I can hold it to that.
After the review
For each vendor, there are three choices: keep it and hold it to the plan, bring in a specialist for part of the work, or replace it. Where some of the work belongs with your own staff, I'll train them to take it over.
/ Part of your Fractional CMO
Senior leadership across every channel and vendor
Oversight is the vendor half of what a Fractional CMO does, and it's part of every Fractional CMO engagement. The Client Magnet System's tracking is what makes a vendor's work checkable, because leads and signed clients can be traced back to where they came from.
If your firm isn't ready for a full engagement, I also take on some firms for consulting by the hour, and a look at your agency's work can be part of that. → Fractional CMO · → The Client Magnet System
/ What the work includes
What you get
- Findings on ownership, contracts, the work done, and what it produced
- The fixes, starting with getting your assets into your firm's name
- A plan for each vendor
- Monthly reporting in consultations, signed clients, and cost per client
What your firm gives
Admin access to your accounts, or your agency's cooperation in granting it. Copies of your marketing contracts and invoices. And your intake records, so leads can be matched to the clients who signed.
By practice area
/ What we see in your practice
Family law
Directory and lead-seller contracts that are hard to leave, and leads that may have gone to other firms too.
Business law and estate planning
Year-long contracts, and agencies that never showed where the leads came from. → Business law marketing · → Estate planning marketing
Personal injury
Lead sellers who also sell to the firms you compete with, so part of what you pay funds the firms you compete with. And firms choosing a new agency after a bad one, who want to know what to check this time.
Medical malpractice
We compare what an agency says your clicks cost with what Google's own planning tools show for the same searches.
Mass tort
If you buy cases or leads, we measure what a signed case really costs once the ones that fall away are counted, and we build channels the firm owns so less depends on any one vendor.
/ Results for clients
Where this work started
Brenda Clark Family Law
Before, an agency ran her ads, and they broke even at best. After we rebuilt them around the Client Magnet System: new clients at about $200 each, leads at about $21, and about $135,000 in estimated case value.¹
"In 40 years of practicing law, this is the best way to get more clients that I've ever had." Brenda Clark, Family Law Attorney
/ Two kinds of report
An agency's report and an owner-side review
| An agency's own report | An owner-side review | |
|---|---|---|
| What it counts | Clicks, impressions, and rankings | Consultations, signed clients, and cost per client |
| Who owns the accounts | Whoever set them up | Your firm, in your firm's name |
| What it shows | What went well | What was done, what it produced, and what didn't work |
| Who it answers to | The agency | You |
FAQ
Will you replace our agency?
Not necessarily. If your agency is doing good work, we keep it and hold it to the plan. If part of the work isn't getting done, we bring in a specialist for that part. Replacing a vendor is one option among three.
Do we have to fire anyone?
No. The review tells you what each vendor is doing and what it's producing. What you do with that is your decision, and I'll give you a straight recommendation.
What access do you need?
Access to your ad accounts, analytics, website, and Google Business Profile, plus your marketing contracts, invoices, and intake records. If the accounts are in your firm's name, you can grant most of it yourself.
What if our agency won't cooperate?
Ask in writing for access to each account on the list. Where the accounts are already in your name, you don't need the agency's help to give us access. Where they aren't, getting them into your name becomes the first fix.
How do we get our website and accounts back?
List every asset and who holds it, ask in writing for owner-level access to each one, and set up new accounts in your firm's name where the old ones can't be recovered.
I lead a practice group inside a bigger firm that hires its own agency. Can you help?
Yes. We work out who owns which page, phone number, video, and ad account, so your marketing and the firm's don't trip over each other.
How often do you review?
A full review at the start, then the numbers every month as part of your Fractional CMO reporting.
¹ Case value estimated from average case value.