Is Anyone Holding Your Marketing Agencies Accountable? Here Is How to Fix That.
Here is a conversation that happens in law firms every day.
Partner A: “How is the SEO going?” Partner B: “I think it is going well. The agency sends us a report every month.” Partner A: “Are we getting more cases from it?” Partner B: “…I am not sure how to tell.”
This is not a knock on law firm partners. You went to law school to practice law, not to audit digital marketing performance. But the result is that many firms are spending $5,000, $10,000, even $50,000 per month on marketing agencies that are not being held accountable for anything that actually matters to the firm.
A fractional CMO fixes this. Let’s talk about how.
The Problem With Marketing Agencies and No One to Manage Them
Marketing agencies are not inherently the problem. Most of them are doing exactly what they were hired to do: executing on whatever scope was agreed upon, reporting on the metrics they promised to track, and renewing your contract each year.
The problem is that those metrics are almost never the ones your firm actually cares about. Agency success is measured in deliverables and activity. Law firm success is measured in signed cases.
Without someone in your corner who understands both worlds, this gap never closes. Your SEO agency delivers 10 articles per month and shows you your keyword rankings improving. Wonderful. But are those rankings translating to consultation requests? Are those consultations converting to retained clients? Nobody is connecting those dots unless you have someone whose job it is to connect them.
The Three Most Common Ways Agencies Underdeliver Without Anyone Noticing
- Reporting on vanity metrics that look good but mean nothing for your intake pipeline
- Optimizing for their own ease of execution rather than your business objectives
- Renewing contracts on autopilot because no one is asking hard questions about ROI
The Transparency Advantage: Why Aligned Incentives Matter More Than the Label
Before we get into how great vendor management works, let’s address something important: who is doing it and whether their financial interests are actually pointed in the same direction as yours.
Some fractional CMO providers present themselves as purely advisory while quietly earning referral fees, applying undisclosed markups on third-party spend, or steering clients toward vendors they have financial relationships with. That is the conflict worth worrying about, and it has nothing to do with whether a firm offers services of its own.
At Esquire Interactive, we are straightforward about how we operate. We offer integrated marketing services including SEO, PPC, Google Ads management, video, and web alongside our fractional CMO work. We think that integration is actually a strength when it is done with complete transparency, because the team building your strategy is the same team executing it, with no gap between intent and outcome. But we also recognize that not every client needs every service we offer, and we will tell you that directly. If an outside vendor is genuinely the better fit for a specific need, we say so.
What you should be asking any provider is not whether they offer services, but whether they are completely transparent about what they offer, how it is priced, and why they are recommending it. Ask whether there are any hidden markups on media spend. Ask whether they earn referral fees from any third parties. Ask whether they will give you full ownership of your ad accounts, your analytics, and your website if you ever decide to make a change. A provider who hesitates on any of those questions is telling you something important.
What a Fractional CMO Reviews for Each Vendor Every Month
Vendor Type
What Gets Reviewed
Key Questions Asked
SEO Agency
Keyword rankings, organic traffic quality, content output, link acquisition, technical health
Are target keywords driving intake inquiries? Is organic traffic converting, or just visiting?
PPC / Google Ads
Cost per click, cost per lead, lead quality scoring, ad copy performance, landing page conversion
What is the actual cost per signed case from paid search? Are we bidding on high-intent terms?
Web Vendor
Page load speed, Core Web Vitals, conversion rate, contact form completion, call tracking accuracy
Is the site converting visitors to leads? Are technical issues hurting our Google rankings?
PR Firm
Media placements, backlink quality, mention sentiment, SERP appearance for firm name
Is earned media improving our domain authority and our reputation with high-value clients?
Social Media
Engagement rate, audience growth, referral traffic to site, lead generation from social
Is social media producing intake contacts, or just likes? What is the content driving?
Content / Copywriter
Publishing cadence, keyword targeting accuracy, topical authority development, compliance review
Is the content answering questions our ideal clients are actually asking? Is it compliant?
When a Fractional CMO Recommends Replacing a Vendor (And How It Works)
Firing a marketing agency is uncomfortable. Many law firms keep underperforming vendors far too long because someone on the team has a relationship with the account manager, or because the transition feels complicated, or because they are not confident they will find something better.
A fractional CMO removes the emotion from this process. When a vendor is not performing against agreed benchmarks over a defined period, the CMO initiates a structured review: the vendor is presented with the performance gap, given a defined improvement window, and assessed at the end of that window.
If performance does not improve, the fractional CMO manages the RFP process for a replacement, transitions the work, and ensures continuity. You do not have to manage any of that directly.
It is one of the most practical and underappreciated benefits of having senior marketing leadership in your corner.
Stop Wondering Whether Your Agencies Are Delivering. Find Out for Sure.
You deserve clear, honest answers about whether your marketing spend is producing results. The Esquire Interactive team builds the kind of vendor accountability structure that gives you those answers every single month.
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Written by Desiree Martinelli, J.D. | Director of Marketing & Analytics, Esquire Interactive
Desiree Martinelli is the Director of Marketing & Analytics at Esquire Interactive, where she leads website development, branding, and digital marketing strategy for law firms nationwide. She holds a Juris Doctor degree, summa cum laude, from the University of Mississippi School of Law with a concentration in business law, and has practiced as a business and intellectual property attorney. Prior to her role at Esquire Interactive, Desiree served as a law firm marketing director and entrepreneur, giving her a firsthand understanding of how law firms grow and what marketing strategies actually produce results. She is a frequent presenter at Bar Association events and CLE seminars, and her rare combination of legal credentials and marketing expertise makes her a recognized authority on digital marketing compliance and strategy for law firms.