How to Check Whether a Web Agency's Results Are Real

Every agency website, including this one, has a page of work with numbers on it. Some of those numbers are results. A lot of them are not. Here is how to tell the difference before you sign anything.

Deliverables are not results

"6 landing pages built." "Launched in 3 weeks." "25 pages of content." Those describe effort, not outcome. They are worth knowing, but they do not tell you whether the phone rang.

We are guilty of this too. Until recently, one of our own case studies had a section labeled "Results" that showed landing pages built, weeks to launch, and the client's own project history. We renamed it "What We Built," because that is what it was. Hold us to the same standard you hold everyone else.

Vanity metrics are not results either

"300% increase in traffic." Traffic from what, to what? 100 visits to 400 is a 300% increase and might be zero jobs. "Ranked on page one for 500 keywords" sounds impressive until you ask which keywords, and whether anyone searching them is a homeowner with a budget.

The only numbers that matter to a contractor are tracked calls, tracked form submissions, booked jobs, and what those jobs were worth. Everything else is a leading indicator at best.

Three things to ask for

1. A lead report from the client's own account. Not a slide. Not a screenshot with the logo cropped out. A call tracking or Google Ads conversion export from an account the client owns, with dates. If the agency does not set up tracking in the client's name, they cannot produce this, and that tells you something.
2. The date promised versus the date launched. Ask for both on a recent project. A gap is not disqualifying; the reason for the gap is what matters. If they cannot tell you, they do not track it.
3. A client you can call. Not a testimonial. A phone number. Ask that client two questions: did the agency hit the dates it set, and can you trace jobs to the site?

What a real case study looks like

A case study worth trusting answers these in order: what was going on before, what the client considered instead (including doing nothing), what was built and why that scope, when it launched versus when it was promised, what the tracked numbers were before and after over a stated period, and what did not work. The last one is the tell. Nobody has a project where everything worked.

If a case study has no "what did not work" and no before number, it is marketing copy, not evidence.

How to read ours

Our work pages are honest about what was built. They are not yet honest enough about outcomes, because most of our clients' numbers live in their own accounts and we have not asked permission to publish them. We are fixing that. Until a case study on our site shows before and after lead numbers with a date range and the client's consent, treat it as "here is the work" and ask us for the numbers on the call. We will show you what we have and tell you what we do not.

The short version

Ask for the account export, the two dates, and the phone number. Any agency that can produce all three is worth a conversation. Any agency that gets defensive about the request has answered your question.