Most agencies send you a creative brief on day one. They want your logo, your brand colors, a headline, and a budget. By end of week they are running your ads. It feels like progress. It isn't.
Before we spend a single dollar of client money on paid traffic, we look at five things. If any of them are broken or missing, we fix them first. This is not how most agencies operate. It is why our clients don't end up in the same situation six months later wondering why their ads "stopped working."
The Five Things We Check First
Not just purchased. Not just logged into. Set up. Does it have defined pipeline stages? Are leads routing correctly? Is there a clear owner for each stage? A CRM that isn't configured is not a CRM. It's a contact list that costs money monthly.
We test it. We submit a form and watch what happens. Does anything fire automatically? How fast? Is there a text message, an email, a task assigned to a team member? If a lead submits at 8pm and nobody responds until 9am, you are starting every relationship at a disadvantage.
Ad creative gets people to click. The landing page gets them to act. We look at load speed, headline clarity, form friction, mobile layout, and what happens after submission. A bad landing page means you pay for every click and convert almost none of them.
If you can't measure it, you can't optimize it. We verify pixel installation, conversion event firing, UTM parameters, and attribution before a single dollar goes out. Running ads without tracking is like driving with your eyes closed and a big budget.
Most leads don't book on the first touch. A business without a multi-step nurture sequence is leaving the majority of its ad spend on the table. We build this before the ads go live, not as an afterthought.
If your agency hasn't looked at your CRM, your follow-up, or your landing page, they're not a marketing agency. They're a media buyer.
Why Other Agencies Skip This
Because it takes time and it delays the start date. Agencies are often compensated on ad spend, which means the sooner the ads go live, the sooner they bill. There is a structural incentive to skip the foundation work and get to the media buy.
We are not structured that way. We make more money when our clients convert better, because they stay longer, refer more often, and upgrade to larger engagements. Our incentive is for the whole machine to work, not just for the traffic to flow.
Common Questions
What should I have in place before running ads?
At minimum: a working CRM with defined pipeline stages, an automated follow-up sequence that fires within 5 minutes of a form submission, a landing page that loads fast and has a clear call to action, and proper tracking to measure what converts. Without these, ads generate clicks but not revenue.
How do I know if my landing page is good enough?
Run the five-second test: show someone the page for five seconds and ask them what the business does and what they should do next. If they can't answer both questions clearly, the page needs work. Aim for a single, specific CTA and a headline that speaks directly to the problem you solve.
Why are my Facebook ads not generating leads?
The most common reasons are landing page friction (too many form fields, slow load time, unclear offer), poor audience targeting, a mismatch between ad creative and landing page message, or ad fatigue from running the same creative too long. Check backend before increasing budget.
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