Why a traditional Ads Agency won’t get you results in 2025

(And What To Do Instead)

The Numbers Don’t Lie

Here’s something to chew on, 67% of B2B marketers say they struggle to generate high-quality leads through their existing advertising strategies. [WebFX]

Across industries, businesses are seeing diminishing returns from traditional ad agency approaches. The cookie-cutter campaigns, slow turnaround, and obsession with TV spots just don’t cut it anymore.

Let’s be real, the marketing landscape is a whole new beast in 2025. If your ads agency is still riding the coattails of what worked a decade ago, you’re in trouble. But here’s the good news, recognising the problem is your first step toward transformation.

What Is an Ads Agency?

First things first, lets start with answering what is an ads agency. Simply put, it's a company that specialises in creating, planning and managing advertising campaigns for clients. They can handle everything from creative design and copywriting to media buying and campaign analysis.

Traditionally, these agencies focus on promoting a brand’s products or services through channels like print, TV, radio and digital platforms.

However, in 2025, the role of an ads agency must evolve far beyond catchy slogans and expensive TV spots. Clients are demanding performance, not just presence. They want measurable results, optimised campaigns, martech integration and marketing partners who understand both brand building and lead generation.

Sadly, this can lead to a cycle of doing "more" in pursuit of the goal to reach client's expectations. All too often we see this approach doesn't lead to better results,  but instead creates a messy advertising soup you wouldn't serve to anyone with discerning tastebuds!

What’s Wrong with the Traditional Ads Agency Model?

Many traditional agencies are still clinging to TV, radio and print like it’s the only way to make a splash. But your audience is on TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube - not flipping through magazines.

Slow, Siloed and Stale

Old-school ad agencies are known for their rigid processes. It takes weeks to launch a campaign. In 2025, that’s a lifetime. Meanwhile, your competitors are A/B testing ads in real time.

Data? What Data?

Traditional agencies often lack the tools or the know-how to make data-driven decisions. Gut instinct only takes you so far - especially when your competitors are using AI-driven insights.

How to avoid wasting Ad Spend

Hundreds of thousands of pounds.

That’s what I’ve seen simply thrown away by enterprise businesses.

Often, dressed up as some sort of ‘testing,’ learning what doesn’t work to grow their sales.

The problem arises when those insights aren’t sufficient to drive meaningful change in growth strategy.

Heads roll, agencies are swapped out, and the cycle begins again - most often, the same tactics with a new name. Demand generation, anyone? Marketing is an expert in rebranding itself…

So, where does the waste come from?

Frequently, it’s due to a lack of proper planning and an appreciation for the systems surrounding customer acquisition.

Advertising, many will soon learn, is not enough.

Millions have been spent worldwide chasing a silver bullet: that simply “running ads” will suffice to inundate a sales team with hot-to-go leads that are ripe and ready to become customers.

There are several reasons why this strategy, sadly, does not work.

Lack of Landing Page

One of the most common culprits for wasted advertising spend is driving traffic to a destination on your website that’s ill-prepared to engage prospective customers and encourage them to take the next step.

I still see, more often than you can imagine, ads directing all traffic (regardless of medium or intent) to a website’s homepage. There is almost no world in which this can be defended as an advisable marketing strategy.

Given that advertising can (and should) be targeted to specific segments of your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), the worst scenario is taking them to a generic homepage that demonstrates no tailored offer or relevance.

Here’s a hint: they won’t self-segment.

B2B buyers are smart. They’ll recognise your spaghetti-on-the-wall tactics - and they won't stick, they'll bounce.

What you can do instead - use templates and AI to create landing pages 

Discover how to quickly create impactful landing pages using an advanced AI assistant integrated with HubSpot Content Hub

Lack of Lead Follow-Up

The next misstep is failing to properly follow up when a contact actually converts. Imagine spending thousands on ads and landing pages only to ghost a warm lead. Surely it can't get any worse than that?

(I've seen businesses ghost their leads and then send a tone deaf marketing email 3 weeks later, so actually yes, it can.)

Even when follow-up occurs, it’s often misaligned. Sales teams don’t always have context: what the lead was searching for, what ad messaging brought them in, or what pain they’re trying to solve.

This lack of insight makes the difference between a lead that feels understood and one that disappears forever.

What you can do instead - automate your lead management 

Read more about sales automation tools, including workflows and sequences to easily manage leads with HubSpot Sales Hub

Lack of Learning (Pipeline Attribution)

Attribution gets a bad rap. It’s messy and imperfect, which doesn’t fit the neat case studies agencies like to pitch.

So many agencies push for traffic, clicks, or leads - but never talk about how those translate into actual paying customers.

Smart businesses are walking away from vanity metrics and looking for agencies that can show the real ROI: attributed, correlated, revenue-based outcomes.

Smart agencies work to connect the dots from click to customer. Agencies of the future will prioritise making client investments that can be attributed, not absolutely, not perfectly; but with a high degree of correlation, to their revenue returns.

One misguided belief is that fundamental attribution (the kind that starts to give you meaningful insights, on which you can take action) is time-consuming or an exorbitant expense.

The systems required? Often no more complex than a connected CRM and integrated tracking.

What you can do instead - use Big Business Agency Ad intent data

The Evolution of Ads Agencies 

From Campaigns to Continuous Optimisation

Winning agencies in 2025 act like growth hackers. They don’t launch and leave, they tweak and optimise constantly. They start with a detailed understanding of your existing and desired customers, their pain points, wants and needs.

Teams will ask about your competition, not with a view to copying them, but to immerse themselves in your marketplace and use that understanding of the competitive landscape to design strategies that will help you to stand out.

They use that knowledge to refine their channel selection and ensure that advertising budgets are being put where their predisposed to succeed. In terms of content, they'll ensure you have what you need today and tomorrow, working with you to develop high-impact formats like video, in ways that make sense for your business and budget.

Seamless Integration with Digital Strategy

Ads are just one cog in the machine. They must sync with SEO, content, email and social media. A modern, professional ad agency will ensure that your campaigns are both efficient (leveraging assets created for your other marketing activity to maximum effect) and effective (delivering the numbers you need to push your business forward).

They'll be masters of context and ensure that paid media is playing it's role in maximising your total return on marketing investment.

The Rise of Account-Based Marketing

Especially in B2B, targeting key accounts with personalised content and messaging is crucial. Forward-thinking agencies use Account Based Marketing to tailor campaigns to individuals within target companies, improving engagement and conversion.

By aligning your marketing activities with your sales team's objectives, marketing can support activities at various stages of the customer journey to support pipeline volume, velocity and ultimately, achieve your teams' shared objective: to drive more closed won deals.

What to Look for in an Ads Agency in 2025

Data-First Thinking

If an agency isn’t fluent in CAC, LTV and ROAS (and helping you to be) you’re wasting your time.

Agility Over Aesthetics

Speed and adaptability matter more than beauty. Running ten test ads in a week beats perfecting one for a month. Go with someone who tests, learns and iterates. 

B2B-Specific Experience

Selling to decision-makers is a different game. Get an agency that knows how B2B buyers think.

Buyers Have Changed, Has Your Acquisition Strategy Changed too?

What's changed? B2B buyers do more independent research, expect faster responses and demand immediate value. They're not interested in being sold to, they want to be understood.

Your strategy must meet buyers where they are: mobile-first, digitally fluent and always evaluating your brand against the competition.

Your systems need to leverage intent data, AI, workflows and automation to gain a competitive edge. You'll need to supplement organic search with paid search strategies that align with your buyer's journey, all while staying up to date with social media platform and regulatory changes. 

You're sure to have questions, there are so many moving parts... get in touch, we are happy to help.

The Future of Ad Agencies

Aside from closing the gaps above, by implementing a proper landing page, follow-up sequence and attribution system, every business now needs to think “beyond advertising” to stand a chance at reaching, engaging and converting their target audience.

Ads are a dime a dozen, and with AI, that’s only set to lead to more, less effective pieces of “content”. AI-generated artwork and copy, insufficiently directed and devoid of a wider campaign idea, is destined to fail.

That’s not to say that I think AI shouldn't be part of the conversation. It’s a fantastic tool for efficiency, to speed up market research, to collaborate on and stress test strategic thinking. Even to assist in developing key assets.

But the magic that has, throughout time, made the best advertising campaigns effective? That still requires an expert, human eye.

It starts with having a deep understanding of your market and audience needs, a clear strategy and a plan of attack.

The hard work comes from sticking to it, knowing that consistency is the key to growing your relevant reach, earning attention and generating new business enquiries and customer growth.

What's coming next

Hyper-personalisation

Emerging platforms will allow brands to personalise content at scale. That means content that speaks to individuals, not demographics. Integrated these systems with your advertising and broader marketing campaigns will be fundamental to engaging with increasingly savvy - and distracted - buyers.

Real-time Optimisation

It still takes traditional agencies too long to adapt to changing market conditions and buyer preferences. You need a partner and technology that can adjust messaging mid-flight, not after the fact.

Unified Campaigns

Just as marketing and sales teams must work more closely to identify where targeting, online advertising campaigns can have the biggest impact, so too must your campaigns work cohesively with the other tactics deployed in service of how your brand and business shows up, both online and in the real world. A modern ad agency will help you to break down silos between digital, print and social media, not build more walls.

Breaking Up with Your Outdated Ads Agency

This part's never easy, no one enjoys the break up speech. So here are a few tips to help soften the blow.

Try having the: "it’s not you, it’s your metrics" talk. If they’re not hitting ROI benchmarks or moving fast enough, it’s time for a change.

At the same time, start interview the new breed. We're not suggesting you work with two agencies at the same time, but be aware of the other players on the field. Modern agencies will talk metrics, not fluff. They’ll show results, not theories.

Once you're ready to make the change, it's very important to set clear expectations upfront. If you want fast, data-driven results... say so from the get-go.

How Big Business Agency can help 

Ad Intent Data

Our turnkey ad intent data solution can connect your advertising channels and CRM in a one-off project, or as part of a managed service. Don't delay in getting the insights you need to stop wasting advertising budgets, today.

Google Ads

Our Google Ads experts will work with you to reduce wasted spend and implement campaigns that maximise both efficiency and effectiveness. Ultimately, we want you to give less of your hard earned money to Google and invest in consistently improving your customer experience. 

LinkedIn Ads

The leading B2B advertising platform, designed to help you cut through and reach the business professionals who matter most to you, is known for being expensive and hard to crack. Fortunately, we've spent years creating campaigns that generate real impact: bring new names into your world and reducing spend which gets your ads seen by irrelevant users.

Meta Ads

While Facebook and Instagram might not be the first platforms you think of for your audience, their massive reach means they can't be ruled out as part of an integrated B2B lead generation campaigns.

The old adage that a customer needs to see a message 7 times to react, means that including Meta's typically lower ad costs as part of an omnichannel campaign, can help to ensure your overall spend is as efficient as possible.

Sales Process Review

Our Sales Process Consulting ensures that your campaigns are aligned with what happens at the pointy end of the customer journey, ensuring that advertising works in service of your sales teams and the prospects they are targeting.

Whether it's acquiring net new customers or expanding existing accounts, talk to us about how we've helped teams to grow better, together.

Discover how our Ad Intent Data insights can save you time and money

Done for you Google Ads that deliver measurable results and drive business growth

Learn more about LinkedIn Ads

Onmichannel Campaigns that deliver results you can rely on

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