The Lead Guarantee Is the Biggest Lie in Local Marketing
David Selva · · 2 min read
Marketing Claims, Lead Generation, Local Service Business
Nobody can guarantee you 30 leads a month without controlling your offer, your market, and your competitors — and any contract that promises it is selling you a number, not a result.
How does a marketing company guarantee you 30 leads a month in a market they don't control, for an offer they didn't build, against competitors they can't see? I've asked variations of that question in a dozen sales calls I sat in on as the person brought in to clean up afterward, and I have never once gotten a straight answer.
The three things no agency actually controls
A lead count depends on your offer, your local competition, and the season — three variables that shift constantly and that no outside company owns. An agency can control targeting, budget, and creative. It cannot control whether a hurricane just hit your service area, whether a competitor undercut your price last week, or whether your intake form scares off half the people who land on it. A number that depends on variables you don't control isn't a guarantee. It's a bet with someone else's confidence.
What the guarantee is actually protecting
Read the contract closely and the "guarantee" usually protects the agency, not you. The common structure: if the lead count comes up short, you get a partial refund or an extra month of service — not the revenue those missing leads would have produced. The guarantee is priced to be cheap to honor, which is the only way an agency can afford to offer it in the first place.
The number that should worry you more than the guarantee
Ask what counts as a "lead" in that contract. I've seen the definition stretch to include anyone who filled out a form, regardless of whether they ever answered a follow-up call, lived in the service area, or had any real intent to buy. Thirty "leads" a month means nothing if the agency's definition of a lead is a form submission with a fake phone number.
Ask this before you sign anything
Ask for the exact definition of a qualified lead in writing, and ask what happens contractually if the count comes in low. If the answer is vague on either one, that's the actual guarantee you're signing up for — not the number on the sales deck.