By Chris Leo, Movou
You’ve got two marketing quotes in front of you. One is a few hundred dollars cheaper. Both say “SEO” and “Google Business Profile.” You can’t tell what’s different, so you pick the lower number and hope. Don’t. The price is the least useful line on the page. Here are the five lines that tell you what you’re really buying, and how to compare them side by side in about 20 minutes.
Key Takeaways
- Compare what gets done each month, not the price.
- Ask who does the work. A named person beats “our team.”
- You should be able to see results without asking for them.
- You should own your Google profile, your website, and your content.
- A fair quote lets you leave without a fight.
How do you compare two marketing quotes?
Put the two quotes next to each other and answer five questions for each one. What happens every month? Who does it? How will you see results? Who owns the accounts? What does it take to leave? If a quote can’t answer one of those in writing, that’s your answer about the quote.
Don’t start with price. A price only means something once you know what’s attached to it. Two quotes at $600 and $900 a month might be the same work with a different markup. They might be completely different jobs. You won’t know until you line up the five answers.
Why is one marketing quote cheaper than the other?
In our experience, a cheaper quote usually does less, or does the same thing for every client. Neither one is automatically a bad deal. A small business with one location and a simple need might not want the bigger package. The problem is paying for a short list and thinking you bought a long one.
Say you get two quotes. Quote A lists “SEO services.” Quote B lists a Google profile update, two new service pages, review requests, and a monthly report. Quote A looks cheaper because it says less. If you’d asked A for its task list, you’d have found out what’s missing before you signed.
What should a marketing quote list every month?
This is line one. Ask each company for a month-by-month task list. Not a menu of services, a list of what gets done in month one, month two, and month three.
A real list has verbs and things. “Rewrite the service descriptions on your Google profile.” “Publish one page for your top service.” “Ask your last 20 customers for reviews.” A weak list has nouns and adjectives. “Premium local optimization.” “Comprehensive visibility strategy.” If you can’t picture someone doing it on a Tuesday, it isn’t a task.
Line two is who does the work. Ask for the name of the person, or at least the role. “Our team” is fine as a company, but you want to know whether your account goes to someone with experience or gets passed around. Small businesses can ask this question. A good company answers it without a pause.
How will you see the results of your marketing?
Line three is reporting. Ask what the report looks like and when you get it. Better yet, ask to see a real one with the client’s name removed.
You want to see things you can check yourself: calls, form fills, where you show up on the map, and what changed since last month. If the report is mostly impressions and “traffic growth” with no calls in it, it can’t tell you whether the money is working. Also ask how the company will show you what it changed. A simple change log means you can see the work, not just the outcome.
Who should own your Google profile and website?
Line four decides who has the power later, so read it twice. You should own your Google Business Profile, your website, and your content. If the company sets these up under its own account, you could lose them the day you stop paying.
Google’s own help page explains how profile access works. A Business Profile can have multiple owners but only one primary owner, and Google says that if you’re the primary owner, you can’t remove yourself until you transfer primary ownership to someone else. So the question to ask is simple: “Will I be the primary owner of my profile?” Get the answer in writing. The same goes for the website login and the domain.
How long should a marketing contract be?
Line five is the exit. Ask what happens if you want to stop. Month to month with 30 days’ notice means the company has to earn your business every month. A long contract protects the seller more than it protects you.
That doesn’t mean every annual deal is a trap. Some work, like a full website build, can be priced as a project. But if the quote locks you in for a year and doesn’t tell you what you’d get in month three, that’s a problem. Also watch for guaranteed rankings. Nobody controls Google, so a guarantee is a sales line, not a promise anyone can keep.
What does a marketing quote usually cost?
Small service businesses commonly pay anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars a month for local marketing. What moves the number is how competitive your trade and town are, how many locations you have, and whether the quote includes reviews, content, and the website. Notice that every one of those is about scope. That’s why the task list matters more than the total.
What if both quotes look the same?
Ask both companies the same question: “What will you do in my first 30 days?” Then compare the answers. The one that gives you specific tasks, a date for the first report, and a plain way out is the better bet, even if it costs a bit more. If you want a second opinion on a quote you already hold, our answers page covers the same questions in short form, and our post on whether to do it yourself or hire help covers the step before this one.
Conclusion
Price is the loudest line on a quote and the least useful. Line up the five answers: what happens each month, who does it, how you’ll see results, who owns the accounts, and how you leave. The quote that answers all five in plain words is the one worth paying for. Want a hand reading yours? Send it over at movou.com and we’ll tell you what’s in it and what’s missing.