How to Tell If Your Marketing Agency Is Working | Contractor Marketing
How do you know if your marketing agency is actually working? Jason Phillips sits down with Brandon Pierpont, founder of Painter Marketing Pros, to discuss how painting contractors and home service business owners can evaluate marketing results, ask better questions, and make more informed decisions about their advertising budgets.
They break down why cheap leads can be misleading, how cost per booked estimate helps measure performance, and what contractors should expect from SEO, Google Ads, and Facebook advertising. Brandon also shares a real agency mistake—and what his team did to make it right.
Whether you’re hiring your first marketing agency, evaluating your current provider, or considering bringing marketing in-house, this conversation covers both sides of the partnership: what your agency should deliver and what your business needs to do to turn leads into sales.
In this episode:
• When a painting business is ready to hire a marketing agency
• Website mistakes that hurt lead generation and conversions
• Agency contracts, account ownership, and transparency
• How to think about agency fees versus ad spend
• Why lead quality matters more than lead volume
• Realistic expectations for SEO and paid advertising
• How AI search may affect contractor marketing
• Turning old estimates and existing contacts into new opportunities
Painter Marketing Pros is the premier sponsor of the 2026 Contractor Freedom Summit.
CHAPTERS
00:00 Welcome to Contractor Freedom
00:36 Meet Brandon Pierpont of Painter Marketing Pros
01:56 Why specialize in marketing for painters?
04:53 When should a contractor hire a marketing agency?
07:19 Paid ads, SEO, and realistic investment expectations
09:50 Website mistakes that cost contractors leads
11:44 What to look for in a marketing agency
13:48 Marketing contracts and cancellation terms
15:23 Account ownership and advertising transparency
18:57 Is your agency managing results—or just sending reports?
23:02 Leaving an agency and protecting account access
24:34 Agency fees vs. ad spend
27:46 Bringing your marketing in-house
29:37 What happens when marketing doesn’t work?
32:16 An agency mistake—and how they made it right
35:22 How long should SEO and paid ads take?
40:40 Cost per estimate vs. cost per lead
43:19 How agencies grow without sacrificing quality
45:56 Could pay-for-performance marketing work?
48:10 Google Local Services Ads and rising marketing costs
51:41 When to diversify your lead sources
53:14 AI search, SEO, and answer engine optimization
55:26 Marketing fundamentals that still matter
58:44 Generate opportunities from your existing database
1:00:18 Following up with leads that never closed
1:02:30 Final takeaways for contractor business owners
What’s the biggest question you wish you had asked before hiring a marketing agency? Share it in the comments.
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