Most small businesses assume the problem is their marketing agency.
I've certainly heard some horror stories.
But according to the Australian Small Business and Family Enterprise Ombudsman (let's call them the ASBFEO from here on as clearly no marketer with brand expertise was involved in the naming of this organisation... BOM take note), the issue is often deeper.
Their research found:
That’s an extraordinary failure rate.
More effective (and cheaper!) is starting out with personalised visibility recommendations to avoid selling (on the agency side) or getting (on the client side) what you don't need.
Three out of every four small business owners onboard — and then offboard — a marketing agency within 12 months.
And one in two feel they were sold the wrong solution from the beginning.
There are more than 12,000 organisations in Australia delivering marketing services, according to industry data. Most of them are also small businesses, meaning the impact cuts both ways:
Founder-led businesses (the clients) feel burned.
Founder-led businesses (the agencies) lose clients.
That level of churn isn’t sustainable for anyone.
It’s a problem worth solving.
And it reveals a deeper issue in how most businesses approach digital marketing.
Small businesses are usually asked to buy marketing services before they understand their visibility problem.
So they purchase things like:
without knowing whether those are actually the constraint.
The result is predictable:
misaligned expectations, wasted spend, and frustration.
Most founders don’t have a clear answer to three questions:
Without those answers, marketing becomes guesswork.
And guesswork is expensive.
The smarter order looks like this:
That shift alone changes everything.
Instead of buying services blindly, you’re investing in a personalised AI recommendation plan that matches your specific gaps.
Your agency, instead of leaving you to guess what marketing you need, should begin by measuring your visibility across:
and then identifying and recommending the highest-impact improvements for your business.
The ASBFEO guide encourages small businesses to ask better questions before hiring digital marketing providers.
Visibility clarity should come first.
But the responsibility doesn’t sit solely with founders.
The guide also calls on anyone selling digital marketing services to ensure they are only selling the client the solution to a problem they actually have.
Selling something else may be understandable in a cost-of-living crisis when the vast majority of marketing businesses are founder-led.
But it’s ethically indefensible.
We must remain in this together as founders; working for our shared success, not achieving it at the expense of one another.
When the wrong services are sold, the result is predictable:
Which ultimately harms everyone.
Marketing works best when it solves a clearly defined problem.
So before hiring an agency — or committing to another retainer — make sure you get low-cost personalised visibility recommendations first.
Because the right strategy starts with understanding what to fix.
By Suzanne Hevey
Founder, Gro Me
Published: 17 March 2026
Melbourne, Australia