Marketing Agencies Charge Premium Retainers for Minimal, Low-Quality Automated Work
A founder paid $1,750/month to an organic marketing agency for six months before discovering the actual deliverables were a single AI-written article every few days, purchased low-quality backlinks, and roughly 15 minutes of human effort per week. This points to a broader trust and transparency gap for small businesses paying agency retainers without visibility into what work is actually being done.
Signal
Visibility
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Impact
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Problem descriptions, scores, analysis, and solution blueprints may be updated as new community data becomes available.