2026-10-15
Marketing guarantees, and which ones mean anything
A guarantee is a promise with conditions attached, and the conditions are the whole product. Here is how to read one before you rely on it.
What a guarantee can honestly promise
Nobody can promise you revenue, because they do not control your prices, your team or whether you answer the phone. What can be promised is effort, timing and a refund: that something will launch by a date, that enquiries will arrive within a period, that money comes back if they do not.
Our own guarantee is in that shape. If you receive no enquiries in the first thirty days after launch, we refund the setup fee, and the conditions are published rather than described on a call.
Read the exclusions first
The value of a guarantee lives in what it excludes. Minimum ad budget, required response times, approvals that must happen within a number of days, a market where advertising is viable at all.
Those conditions are usually reasonable. A refund that depends on the client answering their phone is fair. What is not fair is a condition you only discover when you try to claim.
Guarantees that should worry you
A promise of a specific number of appointments before anyone has looked at your market is a sales line. So is a promise of a position in search results, which nobody controls, and so is any medical, legal or financial outcome.
A guarantee of revenue multiples is the clearest signal to stop. The agency either does not understand the words or expects you not to read them.
The part a guarantee cannot replace
Ask what happens in month two if the result is weak but not zero. A refund clause does nothing there, and that is the situation most businesses actually face.
The useful answer involves reporting you can check weekly and the ability to leave without penalty. A month to month agreement and accounts in your own name protect you in every case, including the ones no guarantee covers.
See where your bookings leak. The audit is free.
Leave an email or phone number. We will ask three quick questions about your business and send the report within 48 hours.
Prefer to talk first? Book a 20-min call