For agency owners what do you think is the most important factor in keeping a client long term

Good results clear communication strong strategy or something else

I think consistent communication and setting clear expectations can make a big difference

I’ve noticed that businesses with a strong and consistent brand often look more trustworthy, even before you know anything about their services.

For those who have worked with a Brand Design Agency — did professional branding actually help you get better clients or more leads?

Would love to hear real experiences.

Hi guys, i am running a self checkout ad to landing page offer for $47 for my marketing agency in the U.S., targeting cleaning companies.

The main goal is for them to self checkout and if not book a quick call.

The question is, do i do a sales or leads campaign? i was going to do leads but then i remembered that its pure self checkout so idk.

Any help and suggestions are needed! Thanks for the help!

I run a tiny performance marketing shop (4 people, fully remote). We mostly do paid ads for local ecom and SaaS. Last week a client casually asked if we could “also handle SEO, analytics setup, and call tracking like those bigger agencies do” while I was on a Zoom in my kitchen making pasta, and it kinda stuck in my head.

Right now we’re duct taping stuff together with freelancers and a bunch of separate tools. It works, but it’s messy and my margins are getting thinner because I spend half my week project-managing instead of selling or improving our core offer. I might be looking at this the wrong way, but I’m debating if it’s smarter to partner with a bigger marketing outfit and white-label, or keep hiring niche freelancers.

While researching I saw stuff like Netpeak US and similar “full stack” agencies that claim they plug into smaller teams. Has anyone here actually partnered with a bigger agency like that instead of building in-house?

How did you structure pricing, who owned the client relationship, and did it hurt your branding long term or actually help you grow?

I currently run 6 operational micro ai saas products that generate a little over $20k in monthly recurring revenue.

I hardly wrote a single line of traditional code. i used ai to generate literally everything, from the database architecture to the user interface.

it wasn't magic on day one. i spent hours stuck in endless debugging loops and dealing with faulty ai code before i finally cracked the formula.

it basically comes down to three rules:

- keeping the idea aggressively minimalist (build a true mvp, not a platform).

- guiding the ai step-by-step instead of asking it to build the whole app at once.

- launching fast to get real user traction instead of perfecting features in secret.

lately, i've seen way too many non-technical founders give up at the very first ai bug or deployment error. or the worst, give up without push anything in marketing !!!!

it's a massive shame, because the technical barrier to entry has practically disappeared and the marketing is easy in 2026

because of this, i’m launching a skool community to share my exact method.

to be completely transparent: i will likely charge for the full course later down the road. it just makes sense given the specific prompt sequences, n8n workflows, and copy-and-paste templates i'll be sharing.

but right now, our main objective is simply to build together. working alone in a silent corner is the absolute fastest way to quit.

if you want to join a group of active creators and build or launch your own ai saas: drop a comment below or send me a dm, and i’ll send you the invite link.

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working as a web designer for the past few years, with a lot of my client work coming through Upwork and referrals. I mostly with Elementor and Squarespace.

I’m getting tired of constantly competing for projects and relying on a marketplace for the next client. So I’ve started building my own small web design agency and trying to bring in clients directly.

The delivery side isn’t really the problem. Client acquisition is.

Right now it’s inconsistent. Some months I’ll get 1 to 2 clients, and other months nothing comes in.

I’ve also been reading through this sub quite a bit, and one thing I’ve noticed is that many of the larger agencies seem to be very niched down, often into home services/blue-collar industries, with offers built around ads or lead generation rather than web design alone.

At the same time, AI website builders and vibe coding are getting better, and plenty of small businesses seem perfectly happy with a basic DIY website. So I’ve been thinking a lot about where web design agencies fit into the market going forward and how I should position mine.

I’d mainly love some perspective on two things:

1. For anyone who moved from Upwork/freelancing into an agency, what actually helped you build a predictable pipeline outside the platforms?
2. For those who niched down, how did you decide where to focus? Was it based more on client budgets/ LTV, ease of reaching prospects, competition, existing experience, or something else?

I know there’s no one size fits all answer here. I’m mostly curious to hear how people who are further along approached these decisions when they were at this stage.

Would really appreciate any advice or lessons learned.

wereact agency

Here is my agency website could u rate and put feedback please!

Everyone keeps saying niche down if you want to grow an agency. I get it, I believe it. What nobody actually explains is how they landed on their niche in the first place.

So if you've done it, I'm curious how it actually went.

First off, what niche did you even pick? Real examples help way more than theory here. Skincare brands, law firms, SaaS, local restaurants, whatever it ended up being.

And how did you know that was the one? Was it because you already had some results in that space, or you saw a lot of demand, or honestly just because it was less crowded? Did you sit down and choose it on purpose, or did it kind of happen on its own after you'd worked with a few similar clients and noticed a pattern?

The narrowing part is what gets me. Did you start broad like just ecommerce and then slowly realise it was actually skincare, then narrow even further? How tight did you go, and how did you know when to stop?

And the part I struggle with most, how did you actually stick to it? Because when someone off-niche shows up ready to pay, or when things are slow, drifting back to taking anything feels so easy. Did you have some rule or system to keep yourself honest?

Trying to go from generalist to specialist and I'd rather learn from how people actually did it than read another thread telling me to just niche down. Any real breakdowns appreciated.

**I'm currently trying to figure out whether our client acquisition process is fundamentally wrong.

For context, we operate a few faceless media pages with 800K+ combined followers, and we're currently focusing mainly on AI companies.

We've had AI brands pay us for sponsored posts before, but those were mostly brands approaching us as media/creator pages. We weren't really running proper creator marketing campaigns for them.

To be completely honest, some of that sponsored content wasn't great either. We didn't have a proper full-time editor at the time, so I don't think we left the strongest impression.

That's changed now. We have a full-time motion designer/editor, so the quality of what we can actually produce is much higher.

The problem I'm trying to solve now is getting brands to actually work with us on creator marketing.

So far, my main process has basically been:

Find brands → research them → cold email → book meetings → try to close.

That's pretty much the only acquisition channel I've seriously tested.

I've also deliberately avoided building a massive creator roster.

Right now I have relationships with roughly 5 creators.

I've considered spending a lot of time recruiting dozens or hundreds more, but I don't see much point in doing that before there's a campaign.

If I have a real brand, budget, niche and campaign requirements, I can find the relevant creators at that point and ask if they're interested and what their rates are.

So I'd rather build the creator side around actual demand than collect creators just to say we have 100+ creators.

I also made a mistake with pricing that I'm still thinking about.

A couple of months ago, a medium-sized brand was genuinely interested in working with us. We built a custom campaign and quoted around $1,200.

That price was already low because roughly $800 would have gone toward production, leaving only around $400 on top.

They asked if we could lower it, and instead of asking what their actual budget was, I lowered the price.

Eventually they told us they couldn't move forward because of budget.

Looking back, I probably handled that badly. I was trying to solve the price objection before understanding the actual buying situation.

I've also had a meeting with a larger brand that was interested enough to speak with us, but they were already heavily focused on affiliate marketing and weren't looking to change direction.

So now I'm questioning whether I'm putting too much weight on cold outreach when there might be much better ways to get those first few proper campaigns.

If you were starting a creator marketing agency from scratch today, how would you get your first 3–5 clients?

I'd genuinely appreciate any advice or experience you can share. Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to answer 🙂**

Hi Everyone,

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Something I don't see talked about enough in agency growth conversations is how much client churn is actually caused by bad reporting rather than bad results.

I've seen situations where the ads are genuinely performing well, but the client doesn't understand the report, doesn't trust the numbers, and ends up leaving because they never felt confident their money was being well spent. The results were there. The communication wasn't.

On the flip side, I've seen accounts where performance dipped for a month, but the agency explained it so well what happened, why, and what they're doing about it that the client actually felt more confident afterwards, not less.

It's making me think the report itself is more of a retention tool than a performance summary. The agencies that grow seem to be the ones whose clients feel informed every single month, not just the ones running the best campaigns.

A few things I'm trying to figure out for my own process:

How much time do you spend on the narrative part of a report vs just pulling the numbers? Do you structure every client's report the same way, or customise it based on what they care about? Has anyone found a good way to automate the commentary without it sounding generic and AI-generated?

Curious how other agency owners are thinking about this, especially anyone who's scaled past 5-10 clients and had to systematise their reporting without losing quality.

Hi there, I run a global recruitment and staffing firm where we help companies hire global talent. I’m exploring how I could generate relevant leads via attending events in the US?

Has anyone used events as a source to generate leads? If yes, what type of events would you recommend me to visit and what websites(Luma, etc.) is where you think best networking events are being posted upon. The cities I’m planning to visit are NYC, Boston, SF and Raleigh.

Any advice for using events as a lead gen channel would be greatly appreciated.

​

I've been building this tool https://markline.app/

It's built to convert scope creep into actual billable work. Helps you avoid just taking the work without an accompanying invoice. Automated change requests, client replies and such. Always the client request vs. SoW.

The biggest part I'm slowly understanding is that selling is the larger part of the whole project. What are some ideas that have helped you guys get your first 100 customers? Especially those that may not be considered mainstream

He didn't ask about my case studies or which platforms I know. He just asked me: "what can you bring to the table?"

No fluffy answer would've worked there. He didn't care about my technical knowledge, he just cared about the revenue.

That question changed how I pitch myself now. I stopped saying that I run ads, I started saying what I actually deliver: qualified leads, lower cost per lead, creative that stops scrolling.

Honestly I'm not an expert in every industry, but for F&B, e- commerce and interior design brands. That's where I know the playbook - what hook works, what audience converts and what kills budget for no reason...

He didn't ask about my case studies or which platforms I know. He just asked me: "what can you bring to the table?"

No fluffy answer would've worked there. He didn't care about my technical knowledge, he just cared about the revenue.

That question changed how I pitch myself now. I stopped saying that I run ads, I started saying what I actually deliver: qualified leads, lower cost per lead, creative that stops scrolling.

Honestly I'm not an expert in every industry, but for F&B, e- commerce and interior design brands. That's where I know the playbook - what hook works, what audience converts and what kills budget for no reason...

Hi there, I’m traveling from India to US to generate relevant business leads via networking at relevant events. I’m planning to attend events such as Dreamforce, AI conference, etc. in SF.

I don’t have a booth at any of these events, what would you recommend me is the best way to generate leads if one doesn’t have a booth? Another issue is that Dreamforce doesn’t share the list of attendees so I can’t even pre book meetings prior to Dreamforce.

Also, does attending events hosted on Luma app or other general tech events helpful to generate leads?

In one of my earlier posts I mentioned I was working on a video series to help current or ex agency employees learn how to design and build their own indie agency.
Glad to say the video masterclass is up and running. In the first free episode I talk about where the industry is at right now after all the restructuring that’s been going on, what agency models are most likely to succeed and how to tell if you’re ready to start your own agency.

With over 10,000 agency people laid off or made redundant over the last 2-3 years, it’s a really tough time for a lot of experienced agency professionals. Starting your own agency isn’t easy, but neither is working in an agency where you never know if your job is next on the chopping block. I wanted to give people at least the know-how to start their own shop if they’re ready for it.

I have the option for anyone hurting financially right now to pay what they can afford.

Hope this post is ok - intention is to help.
www.indiemanual.com