In this guide
- Offer measurement first: tracking, consent, server-side events. Everything else depends on it.
- Pair it with paid media, creative, CRM and lifecycle and reporting.
- Package services as outcomes with fixed scopes, plus a retainer.
Agencies used to sell channels: a Google Ads service, a Facebook Ads service, an SEO service. Clients now buy results and ask harder questions about numbers. This page describes the services that make a modern agency useful, how they fit together and how to package them. It draws on server-side tracking for agencies and why agencies should start offering it.
The service map
| Service | What it does | Why clients buy it |
|---|---|---|
| Measurement and tracking | Tracking set-up, consent, server-side events, validation | Trustworthy numbers |
| Paid media | Search, social, video and marketplace ads | Customers and revenue |
| Creative | Ads, landing pages, video, testing | Better conversion and lower cost |
| CRM and lifecycle | E-mail, SMS, lead follow-up, offline conversions | More value from each lead and customer |
| Analytics and reporting | Dashboards, profit reports, experiments | Decisions based on money |
| Privacy and compliance | Consent set-up, records, vendor reviews | Lower risk |
Orders from your store, back to the ad that earned them
Your store sends the order once. Open Tracked passes it on to each ad platform, cleaned and deduplicated.
Why measurement comes first
Paid media and creative decisions depend on data. If the data is poor, the best campaigns look average and the worst look fine. An agency that fixes the data first earns trust and makes every other service work better. See attribution tracking.
Packaging
Starter
An audit and a fixed-scope tracking set-up.
Growth
Tracking plus paid media management and monthly reporting.
Scale
Everything above plus creative testing, CRM and offline conversions, and quarterly strategy.
Ask Ari instead of digging through reports
Ari reads your tracking and ad data and answers in plain words.
Pricing models
| Model | Good for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Fixed project fee | Set-up and audits | Scope creep |
| Monthly retainer | Ongoing care and media management | Unclear deliverables |
| Percentage of spend | Paid media | Rewards spending, not efficiency |
| Performance fee | Lead generation with clear value | Disputes about attribution |
Make reports the product
A clear, honest monthly report is often the main reason clients stay. Use one page: spend, revenue, ROAS and profit by channel, the three most important changes and one recommendation. Tools such as Open Tracked analytics give that view on first-party data, and are easy to put in front of clients.
What to avoid
- Selling channels with no measurement plan.
- Promising results you cannot control.
- Locking clients into accounts you own.
- Reporting vanity numbers.
A realistic example
A small agency used to sell paid social management for a percentage of spend. Clients kept leaving when the ROAS reported by the platform and the numbers in their own shop diverged, and the agency could not explain why. It added a measurement service: an audit, a server-side tracking set-up and a monthly one-page report on profit by channel. The service was priced as a fixed project and a modest monthly fee. Within a year, most of its paid media clients also took the measurement service, retention improved because the conversations moved from "whose number is right" to "what should we do next", and the agency could raise its paid media fees because clients trusted the numbers. Measurement was not the largest line on the invoice, but it made every other line easier to sell and to keep.
Put the services in plain words on one page: what the client gets, how often, how it is measured and what it costs. Clients compare agencies by outcomes they can picture, not by lists of channels. A page that says "every month you receive a one-page report on spend, revenue and profit, and a call to decide what to change" is more persuasive than a long menu. Keep the page current and let your sales conversations follow it.
3 things to remember
Scroll and the points stack up.
Offer measurement first: tracking, consent, server-side events. Everything else depends on it.
Pair it with paid media, creative, CRM and lifecycle and reporting.
Package services as outcomes with fixed scopes, plus a retainer.
Frequently asked questions
What services should a marketing agency offer?
Measurement and tracking, paid media, creative, CRM and lifecycle, analytics and reporting, and privacy support.
Why start with measurement?
Every other service depends on reliable data.
How should I price?
Fixed fees for set-up, retainers for care and media, and avoid pure percentage-of-spend where possible.
How do I package services?
Into Starter, Growth and Scale tiers with clear scopes.
What report do clients value most?
A one-page summary of spend, revenue, profit and what to do next.
Do I need spreadsheets to read my results?
No. Once tracking is live, the Open Tracked analytics shows spend, revenue, ROAS and profit, and you can ask Ari, the built-in AI assistant, questions about your own numbers in plain words. Ari's allowance depends on your analytics plan.
Is Open Tracked different from Open Track or Open Space Track?
No. Open Tracked is the official name of our server-side tracking platform, and the website is opentracked.io. Many people search for it as Open Track, OpenTrack or Open Space Track. All of them lead to the same product: server-side Google Tag Manager hosting, first-party analytics and a CRM pipeline.
Fix your tracking at the source
Open Tracked hosts your server-side Tag Manager, keeps first-party cookies alive and shows what each ad is really worth.
The Open Tracked team
We build Open Tracked: server-side tracking hosting, analytics and the tools around them, for stores that spend on ads. Questions about this guide, or an idea for the next one?
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