Search this phrase and you will find the same three or four agencies at the top, each showing a wall of logos and a percentage: 300% ROI, 535% revenue growth, 720% month-on-month. None of them tells you the starting number, the timeframe, or what was spent to get there. A 535% lift from a store doing A$1,000 a month is A$6,350. This page is the checklist we would want if we were the one buying, and it applies to us as much as to anyone else.
Six questions that sort agencies quickly
Where does the number start? Any result without a baseline, a timeframe and a spend figure is decoration. Ask for all three. Who actually does the work? Sales call with a director, delivery by a junior you never meet, is the standard model at scale. Ask who will be in your ad account on a Tuesday. How is the fee calculated? A percentage of ad spend rewards the agency for spending more; a percentage of sales rewards revenue at any margin. A flat fee is the only structure where the agency earns by making you more profitable. Do they mark up media? What you pay Google and Meta should be what Google and Meta receive. What is the exit? Twelve-month lock-ins exist because results are uncertain. Month-to-month exists because the agency expects to earn it. Where is the company? Several agencies ranking for this search are UK or US firms with an Australian landing page. That is not disqualifying, but you should know which time zone the decisions are made in.
What “growth agency” should mean
A digital agency runs channels. A growth agency owns the system the channels feed: the store that converts, the retention engine that makes a second purchase likely, the marketplace that catches the shopper who was never coming to your site, and the ledger that reports all of it in contribution margin rather than platform-flattering ROAS. If an agency runs your Meta ads but has no opinion on your free-shipping threshold, your post-purchase flow or your Amazon listing, it is a media buyer with a broader website.
The Australian specifics an agency should already know
Shipping distances that make delivery promises a conversion lever, not a footnote. A buy-now-pay-later habit that changes how price should be shown. GST on the invoice and on imports. Amazon Australia, which is thinner and less contested than the US and rewards brands that treat it as its own market. And a calendar that runs EOFY, Black Friday, Boxing Day and a January lull, which decides stock, cash and creative months ahead. An agency importing a US playbook will learn these at your expense.
Where the work actually happens
We run the national practice from Geelong and publish a local read for each major market: Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Queensland, and Geelong, where the team sits. Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Hobart and regional brands are served remotely on identical terms, with a senior person in the accounts and a fortnightly recorded breakdown of exactly what changed and why.
How we answer our own six questions. Baseline, timeframe and spend on every result we publish, and we never round up. The people you meet on the audit are the people in your accounts. A flat fee by revenue band, stated plainly on the call, never a percentage of anything. No media markup. Ninety days to build, then month to month. Australian-owned, headquartered in Geelong, Victoria.
The honest limit
We take on six new clients a month across both practices, which is why we start with an audit rather than a proposal. If the audit says your margin, your product or your timing will not support growth yet, we will say that, with the numbers, and tell you what to fix first. The audit is free either way and you keep the findings.
