How to read an agency proposal line by line
An agency proposal is a sales document that will become a contract. Most tradespeople read the price, skim the services and sign. This guide walks through a typical proposal from the cover page to the small print and shows where to slow down.
Page one: the summary, and what it avoids
The executive summary tells you what the agency wants you to remember. Read it, then ask what it leaves out. A summary heavy on 'growth', 'visibility' and 'brand' but light on enquiries, calls and jobs is signalling what it will measure later.
Check whether your business appears in it. A proposal that references your trade, your area and the problem you described in your brief was written for you. One that could be sent to any company with the name changed was not. If you followed the guide to what to send before a quote, you will know within a paragraph whether they read it.
The situation analysis: are the facts right?
Good proposals include a short audit: your current rankings, review count, site speed, competitors. Verify a couple of these yourself. If the proposal says you have 14 reviews and you have 41, the agency either used a stale tool or did not look.
This section also reveals how the agency thinks. One that identifies your top three local competitors by name and explains why they outrank you has done real work. One that pastes a generic 'the trades market is competitive' paragraph has not.
Scope of work: the most important two pages
Scope is where the money is. Every item listed is something you are paying for; every item missing is something you will be charged extra for later. Read it as a list of deliverables, and for each one ask three questions: what exactly, how many, and by when.
'Website' could mean five pages or fifty. 'SEO' could mean monthly technical work or a one-off setup. 'Social media management' could mean three posts a week or one. 'Google Business Profile optimisation' could mean a one-time clean-up or ongoing posts and photo updates. None of these words has a fixed meaning, so the proposal must define them.
Look especially for quantities. A proposal that commits to a number of pages, posts, reviews requested or campaigns can be held to account. One that lists activities without numbers cannot.
| Vague line | Ask instead |
|---|---|
| Website design and build | How many pages, which pages, and who writes the copy? |
| Ongoing SEO | What tasks, how many hours, and what is reported monthly? |
| Review management | Does this request reviews, respond to them, or both? From how many customers? |
| Lead generation | Through which channels, at what estimated cost per enquiry, and how is a lead defined? |
| Ad management | Is ad spend included or separate? What is the fee structure? |
| Content creation | How many pieces a month, in what format, and who approves them? |
Pricing: the nine places money hides
The headline fee is rarely the full cost. Go through the pricing section with this list and tick off each one as either included, excluded or not mentioned. 'Not mentioned' is the dangerous category.
The guide to how trades agencies price their work explains each model in detail. Here, the job is simply to find every pound.
- Setup or onboarding fee
- Ad spend, and whether it is paid to the agency or directly to the platform
- Percentage-of-spend management fees that grow with the budget
- Software subscriptions for CRM, call tracking or review tools
- Hosting, domain and SSL after a website project
- Stock imagery, video production or photography
- Revisions beyond a stated number
- VAT, which is sometimes omitted from the headline figure
- Price increases after an introductory period
Timeline and milestones
A timeline with dates is a commitment. A timeline with phases ('Phase 1: Discovery') is not. Ask for the former. Specifically, you want the date the website or pages go live, the date tracking is working, the date ads start, and the date of the first report.
Compare the timeline against what the guide to the first 30 days describes as realistic. A proposal promising page one rankings in six weeks has either misunderstood the work or assumed you will not check.
Reporting and measurement
Find the sentence that says what you will receive each month and what it will contain. If it says 'monthly reports', ask for a sample. If it says 'live dashboard', ask what metrics are on it.
The measures that matter to a trade are calls, forms, enquiries, quotes issued and jobs won, plus cost per each of those where ads are involved. Impressions, reach and 'engagement' are activity, not outcome. A proposal that promises to report the second group but not the first is telling you what it expects to deliver.
Terms: the paragraph that costs the most
Contract length, notice period and asset ownership live in the terms, usually in smaller type near the end. These three clauses determine your exit cost and what you walk away with.
A twelve-month minimum with three months' notice on an £800 retainer means a worst-case commitment of £9,600 and an exit cost of £2,400 even if you are unhappy at month four. Rolling monthly terms with 30 days' notice change the risk completely. Several trades agencies now offer no-contract terms, which puts the pressure on them to perform rather than on you to stay.
On ownership, the wording to look for is explicit: the client owns the domain, the website files and content, the ad accounts and the Google Business Profile, from day one and regardless of payment status. If the proposal is silent, assume the answer is no and ask.
Phrases that should slow you down
- 'Guaranteed rankings' or 'guaranteed page one': nobody can guarantee Google's results
- 'Proprietary system' or a trademarked method name without an explanation of what it does
- 'Unlimited' anything without a fair use definition
- 'Our partner' handling a core service, meaning it is subcontracted
- 'Results may vary' attached to a specific result claim
- 'Investment' used in place of 'price' throughout
- Any results figure without a named client, timeframe and starting point
Scoring three proposals side by side
Draw a grid with the three agencies across the top and these rows down the side: understood my brief, scope with quantities, 12-month total cost including extras, exit cost at month six, assets I own, reporting on outcomes, evidence from my trade, realistic timeline. Score each from one to five.
Price will usually be the deciding factor only when scores are close. More often, the exercise shows that the most expensive proposal has the tightest scope and the cheapest has the longest contract, and the middle one, which you had dismissed, is the one that actually read the brief.
Keep the winning proposal. It becomes the document you measure against when you decide, in a year's time, whether to renew. The guide to when to change agency relies on it.
Frequently asked questions
What is the most important section of an agency proposal?
Scope of work. Every item listed is what you are paying for and every item missing is what you will be charged extra for. Insist on quantities.
What contract terms should a tradesperson accept?
Rolling monthly or short minimums with 30 days' notice, and explicit ownership of your domain, site, ad accounts and Google profile from day one.
How do I spot a generic proposal?
If your trade, area and the specific problem you described do not appear in the first page, it was not written for you.
Should I ask for a sample report before signing?
Yes. It shows whether the agency measures calls, enquiries and jobs or only impressions and reach.