Looking for the best digital marketing agency? Start with results, not slogans

You have probably read this line more than once.
“Best digital marketing agency.”

Everyone says it.
Very few can show you what that actually looks like in your bank account.

So let’s treat “best” as something simple.

• More bookings
• More revenue
• Less wasted ad spend

One thing matters here.
We can only connect our work to revenue if you are comfortable sharing those numbers with us.

Some clients are happy to open the books a little.
Others prefer to stay at the level of leads and bookings at first.

Both approaches can work.
When revenue is on the table, the strategy can sit closer to profit.
When it is not, we work with the data you are willing to share and keep the door open for deeper tracking later.

Recently, we worked with a New Zealand service business where:

• Bookings rose from 46 to 53 for the same period, month on month
• Revenue grew from about 125,127 dollars to 155,377 dollars
• Total ad spend moved down to around half of an earlier level

Same business.
Same market.
Less paid media.
Better numbers.

That shift did not come from a magic button in Google Ads.
It came from SEO starting to pull its weight, GEO content helping with AI style search, and careful clean up of the ad accounts.

So when you look for the “best digital marketing agency”, maybe do not start with awards.
Start with a simple question.

“Can you show me where revenue went up while spend went down, when the client shared that data with you?”

If the answer is vague, that tells you a lot.

If you read a few agency websites in a row, your eyes might glaze over.
Everything sounds polished.
Yet you still do not know who to trust.

You see long lists of services.
You see words about growth, strategy and data.
You see badges and logos.

But when you ask “how did this change revenue month on month?” the detail often fades away.
That is usually the moment where the truth shows.

Many owners and managers have tried agencies before.
They have seen:

• Strong first month communication, then silence
• Reports full of numbers that do not link to bookings
• Rising ad spend with no clear uplift in sales

So, it is fair if you feel sceptical.
Being cautious here is smart.

We have sat with plenty of Kiwi businesses who say the same thing in different words.
“They sounded good at the start, then we were not sure what they were doing.”

The good news is you can cut through a lot of noise with one shift in thinking.
Stop asking who is “best” in a vague way.
Start asking who can make the numbers move without burning through your budget.

Open three or four agency sites in new tabs.
Scan the home pages.
You will notice the pattern quite quickly.

Most will say they are:

• Data-driven
• Results-focused
• Full service
• Passionate about your success

They will talk about:

• SEO, PPC, social, content and email
• Discovery sessions and strategy workshops
• Custom plans for every client

None of that is wrong.
It is just hard to tell who can actually help you.

What you rarely see is:

• A plain language walk-through of bookings and revenue over time
• Real numbers that show what happened when budgets changed
• Honest talk about tests that did not work and what they learned

So your brain hears the same tune again and again.
You start to tune out.

You do not need more buzzwords.
You need evidence that feels close to your world, even if the client stays unnamed.

Rather than asking “who is the best digital marketing agency?”, try this:

“Who can grow my revenue without wasting my budget, when I am ready to share that information with them?”

That question changes the whole conversation.

It lets you ask very direct follow ups:

• “Show me a month on month view of bookings and revenue for another client, where they allowed you to track that.”
• “Where did you cut spend but keep results steady or better?”
• “How did SEO and GEO change the lead mix over time?”

It also helps you see through vague answers.
If someone talks a lot about impressions and clicks, yet cannot show the link to bookings, that is a signal.

You do not need perfection.
Not every month will be better than the last.
But you deserve to see a line of thinking.
A plan that aims to get more from every dollar and adjusts when the data suggests a better path.

Keep that question in mind as you read the next part.

Let’s talk about that New Zealand service business.
No brand name.
No glossy logo.
Just a real company where phones ring and people book, they may even book online.

Across three months, a few things stood out.

• September brought 69 bookings and about 156,282 dollars in revenue
• October ended with 66 bookings and roughly 150,000 dollars in revenue across the full month
• For a matched date range, bookings climbed from 46 to 53 between October and November
• Revenue for that same matched period rose from about 125,127 dollars to 155,377 dollars

Nothing wild.
No viral spike.
Just steady movement in the right direction.

At the same time, the total ad spend line moved down.
That is the part that makes people stop and think.
Most owners feel like good months only happen when they push spend up.

Here, the story was different.
There was a shift happening behind the scenes with SEO, GEO and better paid media targeting.

These are the kinds of results you want to see from a digital marketing agency.
Not fairy tales.
Patterns.

It often helps to see numbers side by side in your mind.

Picture this.

• September
  • Bookings: 69
  • Revenue: 156,282 dollars
  • Ad spend: higher baseline across Google Ads and Meta
• October
  • Bookings: 66 across the full month
  • Revenue: about 150,000 dollars
  • Early signs of SEO and GEO content starting to rank
  • First stage of ad account clean-up
• Matched October and November period
  • October 1 to 25
    • 46 bookings
    • Roughly 125,127 dollars in revenue
  • November 1 to 25
    • 53 bookings
    • Roughly 155,377 dollars in revenue

So you see:

• Bookings up by just over 15 percent
• Revenue up by just over 24 percent for the matched period

That pattern matters more than any bright headline.
It shows the system doing its job.

Ask yourself a simple question.
If your own numbers looked like that, and your ad bill was moving down over time, would you feel more relaxed about your marketing?

Most owners we talk to would say yes.

The part that is not immediately visible in those topline numbers is the drop in paid media.
Over a few months, daily budgets on Meta and Google were trimmed.
Campaigns were merged, cleaned and refocused.

Instead of throwing more money at the problem, the team asked:

• Which campaigns lead to bookings, not just form fills
• Which search terms carry buying intent, not vague research
• Which audiences on Meta keep clicking yet never convert
• Which placements are just “pretty” but do not pay back

Step by step, the least effective spend was cut.
Better-performing segments were kept and watched closely.

Alongside that, SEO and GEO work began to carry more of the lead load.
So it became realistic to reduce paid budgets, almost halving the total media spend compared with earlier months.

Is that always possible?
Perhaps not, and that is honest.
But it shows that “best” can mean sharper spending, not higher spending.

SEO is often sold as a distant promise.
“Give it six to twelve months.”
You may have heard that line.

In this case, things started with basics.
The website was live and functioning, yet not fully set up to be a strong sales tool.

So, the focus moved to:

• Making it easy for search engines to crawl and index key pages
• Cleaning up technical issues and slow-loading sections
• Setting up tracking so that each enquiry and booking was visible

From there, content began to shift.
Service pages were rewritten in plain language.
Location pages made it clearer where the business works.
FAQs were added to answer common questions in a structured way.

You might call this classic SEO.
But it was done with GEO and AI search in mind, too.
So the content carried more structure and entities, ready for both normal and AI-powered search.

This is the sort of background work you rarely see in case studies, yet it often makes the biggest difference.

Before you can trust your numbers, you need to know you are measuring the right things.
It sounds obvious, but it is often missed.

For this client, early steps included:

• Checking that contact forms worked and sent leads to the right inbox
• Making sure phone number clicks and call tracking were set as conversions
• Cleaning up duplicate goals in Google Analytics and Google Ads
• Fixing on page issues that hurt load speed and mobile usability

None of this feels glamorous.
You do not boast about “fixed a broken form” in a press release.

Yet without this foundation, any talk about performance is shaky.
Once tracking was reliable, every booking from organic search, Google Ads and Meta could be counted.

That changed the tone of discussions.
Instead of guessing, the team could say “this many bookings came from organic search last week” and adjust budgets with more confidence.

You can do the same in your own business.
Ask today:

“Do we know which channels created our last ten bookings?”

If the answer is “not really”, that is the place to start.

Traditional SEO content sometimes tries to please algorithms first and people second.
Long pages full of repeated phrases.
You have probably seen them.

Here, the goal was different.
Write content that:

• Answers real customer questions clearly
• Uses the language people type into Google and AI tools
• Gives enough context so search engines know who the ideal client is
• Adds structure so AI tools can pull short, useful answers

This meant:

• Strong H1, H2 and H3 headings
• Bullet lists where it made sense
• Local signals such as areas served, typical job types and response times
• Simple, direct answers under each question

You could call this GEO ready content.
It is shaped so that when AI overviews or answer boxes pull snippets, the business has a fair chance of appearing.

Over time, more visitors arrived from organic search.
Some told the business they had seen them “everywhere online”, which is often a sign that search and GEO style content are doing their job.

As SEO and GEO content gathered momentum, something subtle shifted.
The business was no longer leaning almost completely on ads for new leads.

A few things started to happen:

• Organic enquiries climbed, especially on core service pages
• Repeat visitors came back through branded search, not just remarketing
• People mentioned they had read multiple pages before enquiring

In practical terms, this meant:

• Paid campaigns did not have to carry every month’s target alone
• The team could cut back spend on low intent keywords
• There was less panic when a particular ad set underperformed

With more steady organic demand, it became much easier to ask “where can we safely cut spend and still maintain results?”

That question opened the door to the large drop in media spend without breaking revenue.

GEO and AI search: why your next agency must think past classic SEO

AI search is changing how people find and judge businesses.
You have probably noticed AI overviews and answer style boxes appearing more often in Google.

If your agency is still only talking about “keywords and backlinks”, that may be a sign they are working from an older model.

GEO, or Generative Engine Optimisation, is about getting your brand in front of people when AI summarises answers.
It touches:

• How you structure content
• How you cover entities, topics and FAQs
• How you connect your website, reviews and other proof points

For the client in this case study, the content was planned with AI tools in mind.
That meant:

• Clear topics on each page
• Strong question and answer sections
• Consistent signals about services, locations and audience

So when AI pulled together answers, this business had a reasonable chance of being cited or mentioned.
It is not perfect, but it is far better than ignoring AI altogether.

When you choose your next agency, it is fair to ask how they are preparing you for this shift.

GEO can sound technical.
In practice it changes simple, visible things.

For example:

• Writing page titles and headings that reflect how people really search
• Adding FAQ sections that mirror common questions
• Making sure your business details are consistent across your site and key directories
• Structuring content so AI tools can pull out neat, self contained answers

On a service page, this might look like:

• A short, clear summary at the top saying who you help and how
• A section that lists typical jobs or situations
• A local area section
• A block of FAQs at the bottom

You might also see schema markup added behind the scenes.
That extra data helps search engines and AI tools understand the page better.

The point is not to chase every new feature.
It is to make your content easy to understand for both humans and machines.
That is where a good agency should guide you.

For this client, GEO work did not arrive as a big event.
There was no “switch on” day.

It showed up gradually.

Over time, we saw:

• More impressions for queries that sounded like natural questions
• Better click through on pages with strong question and answer blocks
• Customers saying “I kept seeing you recommended when I searched around”

That last point matters.
People rarely remember exactly which search feature led them to you.
They just recall that your brand kept appearing when they were checking options.

In an AI rich search world, that sense of “you keep showing up” is powerful.
It can tip a buyer your way before they ever click an ad.

So while the numbers in Analytics told one part of the story, the language customers used on the phone told another.
Together, they suggested GEO was playing its part in that revenue uplift.

Paid ads still matter.
The goal is not to switch everything off.
The goal is to stop paying for traffic that never turns into customers.

For this client, the ad work focused on three things:

• Making tracking honest and clean
• Stopping obvious waste
• Doubling down on what actually led to bookings

Instead of adding more campaigns, the team removed clutter.

They:

• Cut out underperforming audiences
• Simplified structure so budgets were not spread too thin
• Tightened targeting around high intent keywords and segments

This may not sound glamorous, yet it works.
Because the money you already spend begins to work harder.

Combine that with stronger SEO and GEO, and you have room to lower daily budgets without fear.

Before reducing spend, the team needed to trust the conversion data inside both Google and Meta.
If the goals are wrong, you can easily cut what was actually working.

So the process included:

• Mapping what a real, valuable action looks like for this business
• Checking which actions were tracked as conversions and which were ignored
• Removing “soft” goals, such as long time on page, if they confused the picture
• Making sure booking forms, phone calls and direct enquiries were all recorded

In some cases, they found campaigns that looked strong on surface metrics, but produced few true conversions.
Once those were corrected, it became clearer where the money should stay and where it could safely go.

For your own campaigns, ask a straight question:

“Are we counting conversions that match real revenue, or are we chasing vanity events?”

That answer shapes everything that follows.

Once tracking was fixed, it was easier to see where budget leaked away.
Wasted spend often hides in:

• Broad match keywords with weak intent
• Display placements that gather impressions but not leads
• Social audiences that click out of curiosity, not need
• Campaigns left running long after their purpose ended

For this client, the team:

• Trimmed search terms down to those showing strong lead to booking rates
• Switched off placements that drove clicks but no follow through
• Reduced daily budgets on campaigns that struggled to convert even after testing

This led to short term dips in some top level metrics like impressions.
Yet the metrics that matter moved well.
Cost per booking improved.
Total revenue went up for the period.

That is the trade most owners want.

Fewer empty clicks.
More paying customers.

The important part is that the pull from SEO and GEO made paid cuts possible.
If you try to slash ad spend without another traffic source building, results usually fall.

In this case, as organic and GEO informed content improved:

• More people found the business while researching
• Branded search increased
• Some bookings arrived entirely from organic paths

With that as a safety net, the team could:

• Drop daily budgets across Google and Meta
• Hold or grow bookings for the comparison period
• Lift revenue by over 24 percent for the matched dates

Not every month will look like this.
Markets move.
Weather changes.
Yet this pattern shows that “best digital marketing agency” work is as much about rebalancing channels as adding new ones.

Choosing a partner is not only about skills.
It is also about how you will work together, month after month.

You can keep things grounded by asking:

• “Can we talk through a recent client example in real numbers?”
• “What did you stop doing for them, not just what you added?”
• “How do you react when campaigns underperform?”

You are not looking for someone who claims they never miss.

You are looking for someone who:

• Notices problems early
• Explains what is happening in plain language
• Makes changes based on data

You should also think about how they will work with your team.
Will they keep you in the loop, or ask you to stay out of the way?

If you get a sense that it is “their way or nothing”, that might not sit well long term, especially if you already have in house skills.

To keep conversations practical, you can ask:

• “How do you decide when to cut spend on a campaign?”
• “Can you show a time where you reduced media and still kept results strong, with the client’s permission to share those numbers?”
• “What metrics do you watch most closely for revenue impact?”
• “How do you separate campaign performance from seasonal trends?”

You can also push a little.

Ask them to walk through a situation where results dropped and they had to respond.

Listen for:

• Clear, specific actions
• Time frames
• Honest reflection on what they learned

If answers stay vague or swing back to sales talk, that tells you something.

Because search is changing, it is fair to explore how your agency approaches SEO and GEO together.

Some useful questions:

• “What does GEO mean in the way you plan content for us?”
• “How are you preparing our site for AI style answers and overviews?”
• “Can you show examples of pages that are structured for both SEO and GEO?”
• “How will you measure whether our GEO work is starting to pay off?”

You do not need to be a technical expert.

You just need to hear whether they have thought about it in a structured way.

If the reply is “we just write good content and see what happens”, that might feel a bit thin in the current search environment.

Some warning signs are subtle, some are very clear.

You might want to pause if:

• There is no discussion of tracking or attribution
• Reports focus on impressions and clicks, with little link to revenue
• You are pushed into long contracts with complex exit terms
• They dodge questions about times where results dipped
• They never mention SEO, GEO or AI search, only ads

One or two of these on their own might be manageable.
If you see several together, your risk grows.

You can go back to that core question:

“Can this partner help me grow revenue without wasting budget, based on the data I am willing to share?”

If your gut says no, or “I am not sure they heard me”, it may pay to keep looking.

You live with this relationship every week, not just on the day you sign the agreement.
So it helps to think about how it will feel in your normal routine.

With a good agency, you should:

• Know roughly what is planned this month
• Have access to simple dashboards or reports
• Feel comfortable asking basic questions
• See that they are watching your account, not leaving it on autopilot

You should not feel:

• Embarrassed to say you do not understand something
• Nervous to open your inbox near report time
• Left in the dark about what is happening

The right partner becomes part of your wider team.
You still make decisions.
They bring data and options to the table.

It will not always be smooth.
There will be months where tests fail.
Yet even those months can feel manageable if communication is steady and honest.

A thick PDF full of charts is not helpful if you cannot see the story.
Useful reporting tends to be simpler.

Each month you might see:

• Bookings and revenue by channel
• Spend by channel
• Cost per booking
• A short note on what changed and why

Sometimes a short Loom video or quick call to walk through the numbers beats pages of text.

For the client in this story, reports highlighted:

• The steady rise in revenue
• The reduction in media spend
• The shifting mix between paid and organic sources

That is what you want.
Information that helps you make decisions, not just admire graphs.

When an agency and business work well together, the line between them softens a little.
Everyone pulls toward the same goal.

You might see:

• Shared calendars for campaign launches and content
• Joint folders for creative, offers and landing pages
• Message threads where people on both sides ask quick questions

In the case we have been talking about, the business and the marketing team shared:

• Access to booking systems
• Insight into seasonal patterns
• Feedback from front line staff about lead quality

That made the work more grounded.
Ads and content could respond to what was really happening, not just what the numbers hinted at.

If an agency wants to keep everything behind a curtain, you may struggle to reach that kind of partnership.

Markets move.
Competitors change tactics.
Your own offers will evolve.

So it makes sense to have:

• Monthly reviews to look at key numbers
• Space to adjust offers, budgets and focus
• Occasional deeper sessions to revisit strategy

For the client in this story, regular touch points made it possible to spot:

• Which campaigns could be trimmed
• Which search terms deserved more focus
• When SEO and GEO gains meant further paid reductions were safe

You do not need long meetings every week.
Even a focused half hour once a month can keep things on track.

Before you sign anything, you can run a simple checklist.
One for owners and directors, and one for in house marketers.

For owners, consider:

• Can they show revenue and booking results, not just traffic, when clients allow it?
• Have they reduced spend for a client while holding results?
• Do they explain things in language you understand?
• Are contract terms clear and fair?
• Do you feel you can call them when something worries you?

For marketing managers, think about:

• Will they share access and work with your tools?
• Do they respect the work you already do in house?
• Are they open about tests that fail?
• Do they provide the data you need without drowning you?

You do not need every box ticked.
But if most of them feel strong, you might be on the right track.

Here is a short list you can keep handy.

Ask yourself:

• “Do they talk about profit and cash, or only about clicks?”
• “Have they been honest about the limits of what they can do?”
• “Do they understand my sector well enough to talk about real risks?”
• “If things go wrong, do I trust them to tell me quickly?”

If you cannot answer “yes” to most of these, perhaps slow down.
There is rarely harm in taking a few extra days to decide.

If you are inside the business managing daily work, your questions might differ.

You could ask:

• “Will they respect our brand and approvals process?”
• “Can I see how they structure campaigns and naming?”
• “How will we handle access to accounts and tools?”
• “Can I get help if I am stuck, or will I be left to figure it out?”

You want someone who makes your job easier, not harder.
Someone who brings extra skills without taking away your control.

The strongest relationships here feel like having an extra senior team member you can lean on when you need it.

You might still have a few questions in your mind.
Here are some that come up often.

Q: How long does it usually take to see revenue movement?

It depends on your starting point.
If tracking is in place and you already run ads, you can sometimes see changes within one to three months.
SEO and GEO tend to take longer to show full impact, often over six to twelve months.

The key is to look for early signs:

• Better quality leads
• Lower cost per booking
• Clearer reporting

Those show you are heading the right way, even before major revenue changes arrive.

Q: Can an agency really lower ad spend and still grow results?

Yes, in some cases.
This usually works where:

• There is wasted spend in current campaigns
• Tracking is weak and leads are not properly connected to bookings
• SEO and GEO are underdeveloped, leaving room for organic growth

The case we walked through shows revenue rising with media spend moving down.
That is not guaranteed for every business, but it is a realistic goal when you tidy the basics and use data well.

Q: Do you have to change platforms or can they work with what you have?

Often, you can stay on your current website platform and ad accounts.
The first step is usually to clean and improve what is already there.

In some situations, a rebuild might be wise:

• If your site is very slow
• If tracking cannot be fixed easily
• If you cannot edit key content at all

A good agency will explain why a move is needed and what you gain, rather than pushing a rebuild by default.

Q: What budget range makes sense for a New Zealand service business?

There is no single right number.
Many local service businesses start in a range where:

• Media spend covers search and social at a level that generates enough data
• Management and SEO or GEO fees sit at a fair level for the work done

What matters more is:

• Can you sustain that level for at least three to six months?
• Are you clear on what success looks like?
• Do you know when you would be comfortable increasing or decreasing budget?

It can help to start with your margins and work backwards, rather than picking a random figure.

Q: How does GEO fit into what we are already doing?

Think of GEO as a layer on top of your existing content and SEO work.
It affects how you:

• Structure content
• Choose topics
• Connect your on site and off site signals

You do not throw away everything you have.
You look at how to make your content more understandable for both search engines and AI tools.

That way, when someone asks a question about your services, your business has a chance to appear in both classic and AI generated answers.

If you are reading this and thinking “our data is a bit of a mess”, you are not alone.
Many businesses are in the same place.

A practical next step could be:

• Gather your last three months of bookings and enquiries
• If you feel comfortable, note your revenue for the same period
• Note your average monthly media spend
• Write down your main worries in one or two short sentences

If you would rather not share revenue yet, that is fine.
We can start with leads, bookings and spend.
Over time, many clients choose to bring revenue into the picture once they see the value of that deeper view.

From there, a good agency can sit with you and ask the right questions.
Where is spend helping?
Where is it leaking?
Where can SEO and GEO help take pressure off paid channels?

If you would like to explore that with a team that focuses on helping you be seen, be heard and be found online, you can reach out here.

Net Branding Limited – Be Seen, Be Heard, Be Found Online
Remuera
Auckland 1050
New Zealand
Phone: 09 523 0478

Bring your questions, your doubts and your last few reports.
We can look at the story behind the numbers with you and work out what “best” might mean for your business, not just as a search phrase.