Why Your "Marketing Guy" Isn't Incentivized to Get You Leads

The Retainer Model Is Broken

Let's start with an uncomfortable question: What happens to your marketing agency's revenue if your leads double next month?

If you're on a typical retainer—let's say $2,000/month—the answer is nothing. They get paid $2,000 whether you get 10 leads or 100. Whether your cost per lead drops by 40% or shoots up by 200%. Whether you're thrilled or barely hanging on.

Same check hits their account either way.

Now ask yourself: What happens to their revenue if they spend an extra 10 hours optimizing your campaigns this month?

Again, nothing. Same retainer. But now they've spent 10 more hours on your account—hours that could've been spent acquiring new clients or servicing the bigger accounts that pay them more.

This isn't about your agency being greedy or lazy. It's about incentive structures. As Charlie Munger famously said, "Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome." When you put smart people in a system where extra effort doesn't lead to extra reward, they naturally—often subconsciously—optimize for efficiency over results.

For more on choosing the right partner: How to Evaluate and Hire a Marketing Partner

What "Good Enough" Looks Like

Here's what the retainer model incentivizes:

Keep you happy enough not to cancel. That's the real metric. Not "maximize your ROI" or "get you more leads than last month." Just... don't make you mad enough to leave.

And what does that require? Not much, actually:

• Send a monthly report (even if you don't read it)
• Respond to emails within 24-48 hours
• Make occasional "optimizations" you can reference on calls
• Sound confident when explaining why results aren't better

Notice what's missing? Actually getting you more leads. That's a nice-to-have, not a requirement. As long as results are "reasonable" and the client isn't actively threatening to leave, the account is profitable.

Here's the brutal truth: the goal isn't to explode your results. The goal is to not get fired.

And "not getting fired" is a low bar. It means maintaining acceptable performance, not maximizing it. It means doing just enough that you don't start shopping for alternatives. It means being good enough—never great.

I've talked to dozens of contractors who've cycled through 3, 4, 5 different agencies. Same story every time: great onboarding, enthusiastic first few months, then a slow drift into maintenance mode. Reports still arrive. Calls still happen. But the fire is gone. Because the fire was never really there—it was just good salesmanship.

And here's what really stings: your agency isn't coming to you with new ideas. They're not proactively testing new angles. They're not reaching out to say "Hey, I think we can do better—let's try this." They're waiting for YOU to complain. They're waiting for YOU to say "leads are slow" before they spring into action. That's not a partner. That's a vendor on autopilot.

The Agency's Hidden Math

Let's look at this from the agency's perspective for a second. Not to vilify them—just to understand the math.

A typical agency might have 20-40 clients paying $1,500-$3,000/month. That's $40,000-$100,000 in monthly recurring revenue. Beautiful, predictable revenue.

Now, how do they maximize profit on that revenue?

1. Minimize time per client. Every hour they don't spend on your account is an hour they can spend on something more valuable—landing new clients, servicing their biggest accounts, or frankly, not working.
2. Systematize everything. Templates, automated reports, standardized processes. Good for efficiency, not necessarily good for your specific situation.
3. Hire junior talent. The person actually managing your campaigns is often someone 2-3 years out of college making $45K. The senior strategist you met in the sales process? They're busy closing new deals.

Again—this isn't evil. It's rational. Economists call this the principal-agent problem—when the person hired to act on your behalf has different incentives than you do, their actions will naturally diverge from your best interests. If you ran an agency, you'd probably do the same thing. The problem is the model, not the people.

The "Marketing Guy" Variation

The same dynamic applies if you've hired a full-time or part-time "marketing guy" internally.

Think about their incentives. They get paid a salary (or hourly rate) regardless of results. Their job security depends on appearing busy and competent—not on actually maximizing your lead flow.

What does that lead to?

• Activity over outcomes. Lots of meetings about strategy. Lots of reports about impressions and reach. Lots of "testing" that never seems to conclude. All of it feels like work, but none of it guarantees results.
• Blame-shifting. When leads are down, it's the algorithm, the season, the economy, the landing page (that you approved), the offer (that they recommended). Never a simple "I need to do better."
• Empire-building. The solution to poor results is always "more budget" or "more help." Rarely "let me fix the fundamentals."

This isn't because your marketing person is a bad person. It's because they're a rational person responding to incentives. Research from Harvard Business School has consistently shown that compensation structure drives behavior more reliably than intentions or promises. When your pay isn't tied to results, you optimize for something else.

The Accountability Gap

Here's the thing that kills me: You, the contractor, are completely accountable for results. If you don't close jobs, you don't make money. If you don't make money, you can't make payroll. The consequences are real and immediate.

But your marketing partner? They face no such pressure. If your leads dry up:

• They still get paid this month
• They can explain it away with industry jargon
• They can blame factors outside their control
• Worst case, they lose one client—but they have 30 others

You're playing with real stakes. They're playing with Monopoly money.

Related: How Much Should You Pay Per Lead?

What Aligned Incentives Look Like

So what's the alternative? Simple: work with partners whose pay is directly tied to your results.

When a partner only makes money if you get leads, suddenly everything changes:

Your bare minimum becomes their bare minimum. If you need 30 leads a month to hit your numbers, they need you to get 30 leads a month to hit theirs. There's no version of success for them that doesn't include success for you.

Your slow days are their slow days. When leads dry up on a Tuesday, they feel it just as much as you do. They're not casually checking the dashboard once a week—they're watching it like you watch your bank account.

They want to fix problems fast. A broken landing page isn't just your problem—it's costing them money right now. They're not waiting for you to notice and complain. They're already fixing it.

They want to scale what works. If a campaign is crushing it, they're the ones pushing to increase budget. They're not waiting for you to ask. They're coming to you with ideas: "This creative is working—let's double down." "This audience is gold—let's expand it."

They WANT you to grow. Most agencies are secretly content when clients stay the same size—it's easier to maintain than to push for growth. But when your growth means their growth? They're actively strategizing how to help you scale, because a contractor doing $3M who wants 50 leads a month is way more valuable than a contractor doing $1M who only needs 15.

This is what it feels like to have someone genuinely on your team. Not someone servicing your account—someone whose success is your success. Research on performance-based pay consistently shows that tying compensation to outcomes increases effort and results—something that's been proven across industries.

The "But What About Quality?" Objection

When I talk about pay-per-lead models, some contractors worry: "Won't they just send me garbage leads to inflate their numbers?"

Fair concern. And yes, there are low-quality lead gen companies that do exactly that. (See: Exclusive vs. Shared Leads)

But a well-designed pay-per-lead model solves this:

When the lead gen partner has real skin in the game—and knows you can dispute bad leads—their incentive shifts to quality, not just quantity. They're not trying to generate noise. They're trying to generate leads that actually become customers, because that's what keeps you paying.

The Trust Difference

Here's something I've noticed after years in this space: contractors working with aligned partners just trust more.

They don't second-guess every recommendation. They don't need to micromanage campaigns. They don't lie awake wondering if their agency is actually trying.

Because when incentives are aligned, trust is rational. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely's research at Duke has shown that people respond predictably to incentive structures—not because they're dishonest, but because that's how humans work. You don't need to hope your partner is working hard—you know they are, because their paycheck depends on it.

Compare that to the typical retainer relationship, where there's always a nagging suspicion: "Are they really doing everything they can? Or are they just doing enough to keep me from leaving?"

That suspicion is warranted. Not because agencies are dishonest, but because the model makes it rational to do the minimum. When you remove that suspicion by aligning incentives, everything gets easier.

Proactive vs. Reactive: The Day-to-Day Difference

Here's where this really shows up in practice.

The retainer agency waits. They wait for you to notice leads are slow. They wait for you to ask why performance dropped. They wait for you to say "I want to scale." They wait for you to bring up problems. They're reactive by default—because being proactive takes effort, and effort without reward is irrational.

The aligned partner initiates. They notice a slow Tuesday before you do—and they're already testing new creative to fix it. They see an opportunity to scale and bring it to you: "Your cost per lead dropped 20% this week. Want to increase budget and capture more?" They're not waiting for you to tell them something needs to change. They're the ones telling you.

Think about your own business. If one of your installers got paid the same whether they finished one job a week or five, how hard would they hustle? If your sales guy got a flat salary regardless of close rate, would he stay late to follow up on leads? Of course not. Incentives drive behavior.

The retainer model doesn't just fail to reward going above and beyond—it actively punishes it. Every extra hour an agency spends on your account is an hour they could spend landing a new client or servicing a bigger account. The rational move is to do just enough to keep you from leaving, and not a minute more.

When pay is tied to results, that math flips completely. Every hour spent improving your campaigns is an hour that might generate more leads—which means more revenue for them. Suddenly, going above and beyond isn't charity. It's self-interest. And self-interest is a much more reliable motivator than hoping someone will do the right thing.

What to Look For

If you're evaluating marketing partners—whether agencies, lead gen companies, or individual consultants—here's how to assess incentive alignment:

Ask: "How do you get paid?"

The answer tells you everything. Flat monthly retainer? They're optimizing for client retention, not your results. Percentage of ad spend? They're incentivized to increase your budget, not your ROI. Pay-per-lead or pay-per-result? Now we're talking.

Ask: "What happens if results are bad?"

A retainer agency might offer to "work harder" or "try new things." But their paycheck doesn't change. A pay-per-lead partner? They make less money. That's accountability.

Ask: "What happens if results are great?"

A retainer agency might ask for a raise (which you may or may not give). A pay-per-lead partner automatically makes more money—and is therefore motivated to keep pushing. That's alignment.

More on evaluating partners: How to Evaluate and Hire a Marketing Partner

The Transition

If you're currently stuck in a retainer relationship that feels stale, here's the uncomfortable truth: it probably won't get better. The incentives are baked in. Your agency isn't going to suddenly become performance-driven because you asked nicely.

The fix is switching to a model where incentives are aligned from day one.

That might mean:

• Moving to a pay-per-lead partner who only earns when you get results
• Negotiating a performance component into your current retainer (good luck—most agencies won't go for it)
• Bringing marketing in-house with a compensation structure tied to lead generation (harder than it sounds)

The path matters less than the destination: a relationship where your partner wins when you win.

The Bottom Line

Your marketing partner's incentives shape their behavior—often more than their intentions or their promises. When those incentives are misaligned with your goals, you end up with a partner who's optimizing for something other than your results.

That's not a people problem. It's a structure problem.

The fix is working with partners whose pay is tied directly to your outcomes. When they only make money if you make money, you finally have someone on your team who's as motivated as you are.

Stop paying for promises. Start paying for results.

Related reading: The Complete Guide to Lead Generation for Home Improvement Contractors