Transparency should be the standard, not the selling point
Something odd has happened in trades marketing. Agencies now compete on promises that would be unremarkable in any other trade: we show our prices, we do not lock you in, you own your own website. Those are not differentiators. They are the floor, and the fact that they sell tells you how low the floor has been.
The strange prominence of basic honesty
Read the homepage of a trades agency and you will find the pledges near the top. No percentage of ad spend. No contracts. We will not hold your website hostage. Clients approve all content. Prices published. Each one is framed as a reason to choose that agency over the next.
Now imagine a plumber whose van said 'we will not steal your boiler'. The claim would not reassure; it would raise the question of who does. That is where trades marketing has arrived. The norms have been poor enough for long enough that ordinary decency reads as a premium feature.
How the floor got so low
Three practices did most of the damage. Website rental, where the agency owns the site and the client's years of search history vanish on cancellation. Percentage-of-spend fees, where the agency earns more every time it persuades the client to spend more. And twelve-month contracts with long notice periods, which protect the agency from the consequences of poor work.
None of these is illegal and each has a plausible justification. Together they produced a market in which a tradesperson could pay for three years and walk away owning nothing, having never seen a report that mentioned jobs won.
The agencies that now advertise against these practices are responding to real pain. The pain is why the message lands. But the fact that it has to be said at all is the indictment.
What a baseline standard would contain
If the trades agency market had a code of practice, the way the trades themselves have TrustMark, Gas Safe and the FMB, it would not need to be long. Seven commitments would cover it.
- Prices or price ranges published, or at least given in writing before any discovery call
- The client owns the domain, website, content, ad accounts and Google Business Profile from day one, regardless of payment status
- Ad spend paid directly by the client to the platform, never routed through the agency
- Management fees fixed or capped, not a percentage of spend
- Rolling monthly terms or short minimums, with notice of 30 days or less
- Monthly reporting that includes outcomes: calls, enquiries, quotes, jobs, and cost per each where ads are involved
- Every results claim tied to a named client, a timeframe and a starting point
The agencies already meeting it
Parts of this standard already exist in the market, scattered across different firms. Some publish prices in full. Some refuse rental and sell sites outright. Some take no percentage of spend and run rolling monthly terms. Some build the whole system before the client pays a penny, which goes further than any code would require.
What is rare is an agency doing all seven. More common is an agency doing two and advertising them loudly, while being quiet about the others. A firm that shouts 'no contracts' and whispers about who owns the Google profile has learned which part of transparency sells and which part costs.
| Commitment | How common in trades agencies | Why it is resisted |
|---|---|---|
| Published prices | Growing but still a minority | Fear of being undercut before the pitch |
| Client owns all assets | Improving, with notable holdouts | Rental and account lock-in retain clients |
| No percentage of spend | Increasingly advertised | It was a profitable model |
| Short notice terms | Common among small specialists, rare among large firms | Long terms protect revenue |
| Outcome-based reporting | Rare | Activity is easier to show than jobs |
Why the buyer has to enforce it
There is no regulator coming. Marketing agencies are not licensed and there is no trade body with teeth. The standard will be enforced by buyers or not at all.
That is less bleak than it sounds, because tradespeople already know how to do this. They demand to see Gas Safe cards. They check TrustMark. They ask for references and ring them. The same instincts, applied to an agency, are enough. The guide to reading an agency proposal turns the seven commitments into questions to put in writing, and the guide to what to send before a quote gets them asked before any money moves.
When enough buyers ask the same seven questions, the agencies that cannot answer them will either change or lose the work. That is how standards form in the absence of a regulator, and it is how they formed in the trades themselves.
What the agencies should do
Stop selling the floor as the ceiling. Publish all seven commitments, not the two that sound best. Put ownership and notice terms on the homepage next to the prices. Report jobs, not impressions.
The agencies that do this will lose the ability to differentiate on honesty, because honesty will be universal. They will have to compete on the quality of the work instead. For the good ones, that is a trade worth making. For the rest, it is the point.
Buyers working through the buyer's guide to trades marketing agencies should treat any agency falling short of the seven as disqualified, not merely marked down. The standard only becomes standard if the market insists.
Frequently asked questions
What should a transparent trades marketing agency commit to?
Published prices, client ownership of all assets, ad spend paid directly to the platform, fixed rather than percentage fees, short notice terms, outcome-based reporting and evidenced results claims.
Why do agencies advertise 'no contracts' and 'no lock-in' as features?
Because website rental, percentage fees and long contracts were common enough that their absence became a selling point. It should be the baseline.
Is there a regulator for marketing agencies in the UK?
No. There is no licensing or trade body with enforcement powers, so buyers have to enforce standards themselves by asking the right questions in writing.