Clients see posts and reports. That is roughly a tenth of the work, and it is not the tenth that decides results. Here is where the hours actually go — written partly because it is a fair question, and partly because knowing it is how you tell a working relationship from an expensive one.
Every morning: read, then act
The first task of the day is not creative. It is opening the accounts and answering one question: what changed since yesterday, and does it need a decision today? A cost per result drifting upward for three days is a different problem from one that jumped overnight, and the difference between catching it on day two and day ten is most of a month's budget.
Most days the answer is to change nothing — which is itself a discipline. The instinct to adjust something daily is how campaigns get trapped permanently in the learning phase.
The creative pipeline never stops
Ads tire. The same video in front of the same audience gets more expensive every week, because the people most likely to respond already did. So there is always a batch in production: angles being written, a shoot being planned, edits being finished, captions being written in two languages.
This is the single most important recurring task and the one least visible from outside. In the ICAR account the cost per conversion held at 4.87 EGP across 2,235 conversions while budget scaled, and the main reason was a new batch every week — not a clever setting.
The inbox is a sales floor
A conversation costs money: 1.13 EGP in e-commerce, 1.36 in food and beverage, 5.68 in premium clinics, in our published accounts. Every one that waits hours for a reply is budget already spent and handed to a competitor. Whoever owns that inbox — us or your team — is doing revenue work, not admin. The figures are on the benchmarks page.
The work nobody can see
- Tracking. Verifying the pixel fires once, on the right event. Half the accounts we audit report misleading numbers because of this alone.
- Pruning. Turning off what is not working, which feels like doing nothing and is most of the saving.
- Cleaning search terms. On Google, removing the words you are paying for and do not want.
- Checking the landing page on a real phone on mobile data, not on a desktop.
- Testing the whole path from ad to confirmation message, because any broken step is invisible in the ads manager.
A week, honestly
| What happens | |
|---|---|
| Monday | Read the weekend, cut what tired, set the week's priority |
| Tuesday | Production — shoot, design, write |
| Wednesday | New creative into rotation; check tracking on anything new |
| Thursday | Read early signals, adjust budget toward what holds |
| Sunday | Plan the next batch; prepare whatever is six weeks out |
The last line matters more than it looks. Ramadan, Black Friday and back-to-school all need creative finished before the auction gets expensive, and an agency that starts in the week itself is buying the year's priciest impressions with its least-tested content.
Reporting takes longer than it should
Pulling numbers is quick. Explaining them is not. A useful monthly report means reconciling what the ads manager says with what actually arrived, separating a real change from normal variance, and writing a recommendation someone can act on — which takes most of a day per account and is the part clients see least of.
It is also where bad agencies save time. A dashboard screenshot takes four minutes and says nothing; the paragraph explaining why a cost moved is the deliverable.
Where strategy actually fits
Strategy is a small, concentrated part of the month, not a continuous activity: deciding the offer, deciding who to talk to, deciding what to test next. It takes hours, it shapes everything else, and it is usually finished before the week starts.
An agency talking about strategy every week and shipping nothing is avoiding execution. An agency executing with no strategy is busy and directionless. The ratio to expect is roughly one part deciding to nine parts doing.
What this means for judging an agency
- Ask what changed this week and why. A specific answer means someone is reading the account.
- Count the creative. No new ads in a month is the clearest warning sign in this business.
- Check reply times in your own inbox, not in the report.
- Ask what they turned off. Good months include cuts.
- Ask what is being prepared for next quarter. If nothing, nobody is looking past this week.
What our monthly work covers by service is under services, prices are published on pricing, and if you want to know whether your current arrangement is doing the invisible parts, tell us what you receive each week — the gaps are usually easy to spot from the outside.
Quick answers.
01What does a marketing agency do day to day?
Checks accounts and acts on what changed, produces the next batch of creative, answers messages, fixes tracking, and reads numbers. The strategy everyone talks about is a small fraction of the week; the execution is the job.
02Why does it cost so much if it is just posting?
Posting is the visible tip. Underneath it sit creative production, campaign structure, tracking, response handling and analysis — and those are where the cost per result is actually won or lost.
03How many people work on one account?
Usually several part-time rather than one full-time: someone on strategy, someone producing, someone buying media, someone replying. Ask for the names and how many accounts each carries.
04What should I expect to see weekly?
New creative in rotation, a short note on what changed and why, and answers within hours rather than days. Monthly, a report that includes what failed.
05What is the agency doing when nothing is being posted?
Usually the most valuable part: reading performance, cutting weak ads, fixing tracking, writing the next batch, and preparing for the season that is six weeks away.
