What Does An Honest Marketing Agency Look Like?

I grew up blue collar. My father worked in a machine shop, my grandfather as a mechanic among many other things in his life.

Go backwards or sideways in my family tree and you’ll find a lot of similar stories. My leap into marketing made me an outlier.

Grow up blue collar and you’ll absorb a certain kind of philosophy of work. That is, “say what you mean, and mean what you say.”

If the plumber said he’d fix your pipes for $200 and have it done by Thursday, that’s exactly what ought to happen. And if it didn’t, there should be a good explanation. You’d rightly complain if there wasn’t one.

But marketing ain’t plumbing.

When you sell something that’s inherently uncertain—where outcomes depend on the market, competitors, and a hundred other variables you can’t control—what does honesty look like?

I’ll tell you the wrong answer: confidence disguised as certainty.

Honesty in this line of work is a subtler thing. And it’s more like being clear about what you know and don’t know, what you can do and what you can’t do, what’s reasonable to expect and what’s unreasonable to expect.

And let’s be clear: this is true in the trades too. Not every car problem can be diagnosed by ear over the phone, after all. But marketing takes uncertainty to a whole other level.

Lots to unpack here, so let’s work backwards. What’s not honesty?

I get a lot of cold email as an agency owner, and most of it is bad.

And I say that as a guy who thinks cold outreach is a perfectly valid way to generate business—and one I’ve used for myself and for clients.

People promise to generate 50 qualified leads for me in a month. They say they’ll give me $1 million in annual recurring revenue in 12 months. They say they’ll 10x my business.

At first glance, the figures and the confidence sound reassuring, like an offer I’d be a fool to decline. But it’s also misleading.

Marketing agencies face a lot of pressure to sound certain about uncertain outcomes. Clients want guarantees and they need to make decisions based on deliverables. Everybody wants predictable inputs and guaranteed outputs.

And by all means: marketers should do what they can to get closer to this when they can.

But here’s the thing: you can’t warranty marketing results the way you can warranty a new water heater. Market conditions change. Competitors respond. Algorithms update overnight. Customer behavior shifts for unpredictable reasons. And you might not even be able to accurately track the things you want to track.

Does that mean confidence and flashy figures are bad?

Not necessarily. But real honesty is deeper than that.

Freelance or agency, it’s the same situation. Real honesty in marketing starts with being clear about what you can control and what you monitor and respond to.

Marketers can help you:

Marketers can respond to:

The honest conversation sounds like this: “We can take actions A, B, and C. We believe these give you the best chance of accomplishing your goals of X, Y, and Z. Here’s our track record with similar work and how we’ve handled cases like yours.”

This is not as flashy as promising a 10x result or guaranteeing performance. But it’s a lot more honest because the difference is promising capable execution and intelligent adaptation. And that can be reliably delivered even if trade policy changes suddenly, a novel virus shuts down the world, or—more prosaically—the product just isn’t something the audience wants to buy.

Blue collar honesty is partly about accuracy, but more deeply, it’s about respect. It’s about giving people the straightest possible answers to their questions.

My grandfather could explain what was wrong with your car in plain language. He didn’t hide behind technical jargon or make you feel dumb for not knowing how a transmission worked. If someone asked for car help, he told them what was wrong, even if that meant the car was totaled.

And if a job was more complex than he thought? He’d tell you something like, “I didn’t realize how bad the undercarriage was rusted. It’s making it hard to get to what needs fixing. And once I get this part right here off, there’s a good chance I’ll have to replace other parts too. I’ll tell you what I find out as soon as I know.”

And yes, I know, this doesn’t map neatly onto marketing work. After all, marketing doesn’t have physical parts! We can’t show people wiring diagrams and we speak in abstractions because it’s the best way to get a handle on the problem. We use jargon and technical explanations because it helps us do our jobs.

It’s when communicating with clients that things can go sideways. Our terminology and explanations can shut down questions rather than invite them. (A problem which is by no means unique to the white collar world, though it’s definitely more pronounced here.)

So here’s what I’ve found is the best way to show respect and demonstrate real honesty in the marketing profession.

When in doubt “here’s our thinking, what do you think” beats “we’re experts, trust us.” That might feel like a small difference, but it’s not. One builds dependency, and the other partnership.

For this section, I’m going to assume you’re an executive or a decision maker. And here, I’ll share the things that I look out for in fellow marketers that you can screen for as well. These are the kinds of actions that I see honest marketing agencies and freelancers do, and these are the things that make me trust others as partners.

They acknowledge uncertainty. It can be subtle, along the lines of “based on similar clients in your industry, we typically see X results. Here’s the range of possible outcomes and the factors that influence where you’ll land in this range.”

They’re transparent about learning. “We’ll try three approaches in the next 30 days and measure results. Then we’ll double down on what’s working and eliminate what’s not. We won’t know which approach will win until we see real market response.”

They write down their thoughts, including their assumptions, expectations, and outcomes. That is to say, they don’t just track metrics, but they write down what they expect to happen, what actually happened, why they think there’s a difference (when there is), and what they plan to do next.

They share data with context. Instead of showing flashy case studies with impressive figures (”10x revenue”), they explain how success came to be and the different factors that led up to it.

They’re clear about assumptions. “We saw this work for a company like yours in Michigan. It’s possible that buyers where you are in Des Moines will respond differently. Here are the early indicators we’ll watch.”

They’re willing to say when something’s not working. The willingness to stop campaigns and recommend budget cuts when appropriate is a sign that you’re working with an honest marketer. Doubly so if they’re willing to even suggest ending relationships that are not mutually beneficial.

In short, they try to keep you informed as much as possible without overwhelming you.

Agencies that acknowledge uncertainty often do better than their peers who don’t. They build trust by being transparent, which makes it easier to communicate and problem-solve with the client.

So here are some questions you can ask if you want to reveal how honest and mature a potential marketing partner really is:

For what it’s worth, as an agency owner myself, I’ve found that the longest client relationships have come from businesses that understand the uncertainty that goes with marketing. They give us room to test and optimize because they trust our processes. And they refer other clients for that reason too.

But we also know that hiring someone to handle parts of your brand can be kind of scary. That’s why we feel it’s so important to be communicative and straightforward with our clients. And every peer I respect in the industry feels the same way too.

Blue collar honesty in marketing doesn’t mean guaranteeing outcomes. It means being honest about uncertainty while showing competent execution.

The most trustworthy marketers are not the ones who promise the most. They’re the ones who are clear about what they don’t know and who actively try to loop you into their thought process.

Marketing will always involve uncertainty. But uncertainty doesn’t excuse sloppy thinking or poor communication.

An honest plumber delivers exactly what they promise. An honest marketer walks you through their thought process and treats you like a partner, not a follower.

Both approaches come down to respect. And that’s what honesty really means.