Imagine this. Your agency sends over the monthly report. The numbers look okay, but not great. You have thoughts. You send them over. Two weeks later, nothing’s changed. Or worse, things changed, but not in the direction you wanted. What do you think is the issue? It is not the format of the feedback. Most feedback doesn’t actually help the agency improve. It just creates confusion.
After working with 250+ clients across industries like healthcare, SaaS, e-commerce, and education, we’ve seen what separates feedback that moves campaigns forward from feedback that stalls them.
The Two Types of Feedback (And Why Only One Works)
There’s subjective feedback: “I don’t like this creative.”
And there’s strategic feedback: “This creative doesn’t speak to our target customer’s main pain point.”
One is about personal preference. The other is about business outcomes. Agencies can’t act on the first. They can absolutely fix the second.
Here’s the difference in practice:
Subjective: “The ad copy feels off.”
Strategic: “The headline focuses on features, but our customers buy based on outcomes. Can we test benefit-driven messaging?”
Subjective: “I’m not seeing enough engagement.”
Strategic: “Our sales team says leads from this campaign ask about payment plans immediately. They’re price-sensitive, not value-focused. Can we adjust targeting?”
Subjective: “This doesn’t feel like our brand.”
Strategic: “Our brand voice is conversational, but this reads formal. Here’s our brand guideline doc for reference.”
The pattern: strategic feedback includes context, data, or a clear business reason.
What Good Feedback Actually Looks Like
1. Share what happens after the conversion
Agencies see clicks, conversions, and cost-per-lead. They don’t see what happens next.
But you do.
If certain campaigns are driving high RTO (return to origin) orders, that’s a targeting problem. If low AOV (average order value) customers are coming from specific ad sets, that changes bidding strategy. If your calling team reports that leads from one platform ask better questions than another, that’s gold.
This is the feedback agencies can’t get from dashboards.
We worked with an e-commerce client who kept saying “performance is fine” based on conversion numbers. Three months in, they mentioned that 40% of orders from a specific campaign had sizing issues and high returns. We immediately shifted creative to include sizing guides and adjusted audience targeting. RTO dropped by 30%.
The fix: Loop in feedback from sales teams, customer service, operations, and anyone who interacts with customers after the campaign does its job.
2. Explain the business context behind conversions
Not all conversions are equal. Your agency doesn’t know which ones matter more to your business unless you tell them. Maybe enterprise clients take longer to close, but have 10x lifetime value. Maybe repeat purchases are more profitable than new customer acquisition. Maybe certain product categories have better margins.
If the agency is optimizing for total conversions but you actually need high-margin product sales, you’re solving for the wrong metric.
At Socialee, we’ve run campaigns for SaaS clients where the agency view showed 100 signups. Great numbers. But the client’s sales team reported that only 15 matched their ICP (ideal customer profile). Once we knew that context, we tightened targeting and qualified leads before counting them as conversions. Quality shot up, volume dropped slightly, but revenue impact doubled.
The fix: Define what a “good” conversion looks like for your business, not just what counts as a conversion in the platform.
3. Share customer behaviour patterns you’re seeing
You talk to customers. You see support tickets. You read reviews. You know why people buy and why they don’t. Agencies run campaigns based on platform data and industry benchmarks. They don’t know if your customers said, “we almost didn’t buy because we thought this was only for large companies,” or “we chose you because a competitor’s customer service was terrible.”
That’s insight that changes messaging, creative angles, and platform strategy entirely.
We worked with a healthcare client where dashboard metrics looked solid, good CTR, decent conversions. But the client shared that most inquiries were coming from family members researching on behalf of patients, not patients themselves. That one piece of context shifted our entire approach. We changed ad copy to speak to caregivers, updated landing pages with family-focused messaging, and saw consultation bookings increase by 35%.
The fix: Treat your agency like an extension of your team. Share the qualitative insights your sales and support teams are hearing.
4. Flag operational realities that impact campaign success
Sometimes campaigns don’t work because of something that has nothing to do with the ads. Maybe your inventory for a promoted product runs out fast. Maybe certain pin codes have delivery issues. Maybe your team can only handle 20 qualified calls per week, not 50.
If the agency is driving 100 leads but your team can only follow up with 30, that’s wasted ad spend. If certain products advertised aren’t actually available in key markets, that’s a targeting issue, not a creative one.
We’ve seen this with education clients during admission cycles. Campaigns would drive strong interest, but the client’s counselling team was overwhelmed, and response times slipped. Leads went cold. Once we knew that, we adjusted campaign pacing to match internal capacity. Conversion rates improved even though lead volume stayed similar.
The fix: Share constraints your agency can’t see: team bandwidth, inventory limits, geographic restrictions, seasonal cycles.
When to Push Back vs. When to Trust the Process
Not all agency recommendations will make sense immediately. Some require market knowledge you don’t have. Others are based on platform behaviour that isn’t obvious from the outside.
Push back when:
- The recommendation conflicts with brand guidelines you’ve clearly documented
- The budget allocation doesn’t align with your business priorities
- The timeline doesn’t fit your operational reality
- Data shows a different story than what the agency is reporting
Trust the process when:
- The agency recommends a platform or tactic you’re unfamiliar with, but can explain the reasoning
- They suggest testing something that feels risky but is backed by industry benchmarks
- They push back on your creative preference with performance data
- They ask for more time before pivoting strategy (algorithms need learning periods)
We’ve had clients in the SaaS and B2B space question why we recommended LinkedIn over Instagram. Fair question. Once we showed them audience behaviour data and cost-per-lead comparisons from similar clients, they understood. The campaign delivered a 25% lower cost per qualified lead than their previous agency’s approach.
The Feedback Loop That Actually Works
Here’s how the best clients structure feedback:
Weekly: Quick async updates. “Seeing this. Wondering about that.” Share any immediate customer feedback or operational changes.
Bi-weekly: Campaign-level check-ins. What’s working, what’s not, small adjustments. Include sales team observations or support ticket trends.
Monthly: Strategic reviews. Are we on track for quarterly goals? Do we need to pivot? Deep dive into what’s happening post-conversion.
No surprise escalations. No “I’ve been thinking about this for two months” bombs. Fast, specific, tied to business outcomes-not just campaign metrics. That’s the rhythm that lets agencies stay agile without constantly reacting to every shifting thought.
The One Thing to Remember
The best feedback isn’t what the agency can already see in Google Analytics or Meta Ads Manager. It’s what happens after someone converts. It’s what your sales team hears on calls. It’s which customer segments are actually profitable. It’s the operational constraints that make certain strategies unworkable. That context doesn’t show up in dashboards. It only comes from you.
The brands that get the best results from us don’t just share performance concerns. They share business intelligence-the kind that changes how we think about the entire campaign, not just how we tweak an ad set.
That’s the partnership.
Working with an agency and not seeing the improvements you expected?
It might not be the strategy-it might be how you’re communicating what needs to change. Start with one insight from your sales team or operations, and see what shifts.
For more on building strong agency partnerships, read our guide: How to Get the Best Out of Your Digital Agency