The Problem with Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency (That No One Talks About)

January 01, 2026•7 min read

Key Takeaways

Most digital marketing agencies fail on transparency, not effort.
Des Moines businesses need location-focused strategies—not templated blogs, vanity metrics, or generic SEO.
Deep Google Business Profile optimization, local signals, schema, and AEO are ignored because they’re hard and not scalable.
Rankings and traffic don’t equal revenue, if digital marketing isn’t tied to calls, form fills, or real leads, it’s not working.
AI search has changed the rules. Businesses must be optimized to be the answer, not just rank—traditional agency models are falling behind.

Hiring a digital marketing agency should feel like a growth decision—not a gamble.
Yet for many small businesses in Des Moines, it becomes an expensive lesson in frustration.

At Tech Stack Digital Solutions, we often meet business owners after they’ve already worked with one or two agencies. They’re not skeptical of digital marketing—they’re skeptical because they’ve been burned.

The truth is, the biggest problems with hiring a digital marketing agency aren’t always lies.
They’re what no one explains upfront.

Here’s what no one talks about.

The Top Frustrations Clients Bring to Us

Before clients come to us, they usually say the same three things about their previous digital marketing or SEO agency:

No visible improvement after 6+ months of work
No clear reporting showing what was done
No regular strategy check-ins or explanations

They were paying monthly—but couldn’t tell you:

What changed on their website
What was optimized on Google
Or why leads weren’t coming in

That’s not a marketing failure. That’s a communication failure

The Biggest Lie by Omission in Digital Marketing

Most agencies don’t outright lie.
They just leave out critical details when selling digital marketing services.

What’s often missing:

A documented roadmap
A discussion about business goals
A timeline for measuring progress

Without those, “digital marketing” becomes a black box—one you’re expected to trust blindly.

In Des Moines’ competitive local market, that’s a recipe for wasted budget.

Paying for Work That Doesn’t Move the Needle

One of the most common problems we see is businesses paying for busy work instead of meaningful digital marketing.

Examples we see all the time:

Blogs with no local relevance
No keyword research behind the content
Random backlinks with no authority
No updates to NAP consistency across directories
No Google Business Profile strategy

For local businesses, location-centered digital marketing matters more than generic SEO tactics

The Problem with Hiring an Digital Marketing Agency….

Related: Check the cost of SEO blog: https://get.thetechstack.org/post/cost-of-seo-in-desmoines-iowa

The Biggest Mismatch: Expectations vs Reality

The biggest mismatch in digital marketing comes down to expectations versus reality. Many small business owners are led to believe that digital marketing delivers immediate results, works as a one-time setup, and requires little to no involvement after launch.

Effective digital marketing—especially local SEO—is an ongoing process. It requires consistent effort, regular optimization, and continuous adaptation to changes in Google Maps, search algorithms, and AI-driven search behavior. When these realities aren’t clearly explained from the beginning, even well-executed strategies can feel disappointing, not because they don’t work, but because expectations were never aligned.

When expectations aren’t set early, disappointment is guaranteed.

“We’ve Been Doing SEO for Years… But No Calls”

This is one of the most common stories we hear.

Businesses tell us:

“We’ve been doing digital marketing for months (or years), but the phone still isn’t ringing.”

When we audit their setup, we usually find:

Weak or unoptimized Google Business Profiles
No local content strategy
No conversion tracking
No schema or entity signals
No alignment between website, GBP, and search intent

They weren’t failing at digital marketing.
They were missing local strategy.

These rankings are driven by local SEO strategies that drive real leads, including Google Business Profile optimization and consistent local signals.

Why Agencies Lose Client Trust

One of the biggest reasons digital marketing agencies lose client trust is failure to educate.

Instead of helping business owners understand what’s happening behind the scenes, many agencies rely on jargon-heavy reports, keyword ranking charts, and surface-level metrics that don’t clearly connect to real business outcomes like phone calls, form fills, or booked appointments. When reports focus on impressions and rankings without explaining how those numbers impact revenue, clients are left confused and frustrated.

Over time, this lack of clarity creates doubt—business owners start questioning whether any real work is being done at all. Trust erodes not because digital marketing isn’t working, but because no one has taken the time to explain why specific strategies matter, how progress is measured, and what success realistically looks like.

When education is missing, churn becomes inevitable.

The Work Many Agencies Avoid (Because It’s Hard)

Some of the most impactful digital marketing work is also the hardest to scale—and that’s exactly why many agencies avoid it. These tasks take time, require hands-on involvement, and can’t be fully automated or templated across hundreds of clients. Instead, agencies often prioritize activities that look good on a report but don’t always drive meaningful local results.

The work that often gets skipped includes:

Deep Google Business Profile optimization, beyond just filling out basic fields
Verification support, especially for new or multi-location businesses
Entity building, which helps search engines understand who you are, what you do, and where you operate
Schema implementation, to provide structured data that supports both search engines and AI-driven results
Real local signal development, such as consistent NAP citations, local relevance, and geographic context

While these efforts are more time-consuming, they are critical for local visibility. For Des Moines–based businesses, these foundational elements are often the difference between showing up in the map pack or being buried beneath competitors. This is the kind of behind-the-scenes digital marketing work that doesn’t always feel flashy—but it’s exactly what moves the needle, drives calls, and builds long-term local authority.

How AI Search Is Exposing Old Agency Models

With the rise of AI-driven search tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and voice assistants, traditional rankings alone are no longer enough. For years, many agencies have focused almost exclusively on surface-level metrics—keywords, rankings, and raw website traffic—as indicators of success. While those factors still matter, they no longer tell the full story of how customers actually find and choose businesses today.

Traditional agency focus often includes:

Keyword rankings without understanding search intent
Traffic growth that doesn’t translate into leads
SEO reports centered on visibility, not conversions
Modern digital marketing requires a much deeper approach. Today, businesses need to:
Be the answer, not just another result on a list
Use structured data and schema so search engines and AI tools can understand their services
Build local authority, especially for map-based and “near me” searches
Optimize for context and intent, matching how real people ask questions

This shift toward Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) has exposed agencies that never evolved beyond outdated SEO models. In an AI-driven search landscape, visibility isn’t just about ranking—it’s about being trusted, understood, and chosen as the best answer.

What We Do Differently at Tech Stack

Our onboarding process is intentionally different:

Clear education from day one
Transparent expectations
Shared visibility into work
Local-first digital marketing strategy
Automation + reporting clients can actually understand

This changes outcomes because clients understand what’s happening—and why.

Businesses ready to compete locally benefit most from dedicated local SEO optimization services focused on Google Maps, proximity signals, and local intent searches.

The One Question Every Business Owner Should Ask

Before hiring a digital marketing agency, there’s one question that can save business owners in Des Moines a significant amount of time, money, and frustration. Instead of asking about rankings or deliverables, ask this:

“How will this work turn into real leads for my business in Des Moines?”

A credible agency should be able to explain—clearly and confidently—how their strategy connects to phone calls, form submissions, bookings, or walk-ins. They should be able to show how local visibility, website optimization, and ongoing digital marketing efforts work together to drive real customer action.

If the answer is vague, filled with buzzwords, or focused only on traffic and rankings, that’s a red flag. When an agency can’t connect their work to actual business growth, it’s a strong sign that results will be hard to measure—and even harder to trust.

Final Thoughts

Digital marketing works—but only when it’s: