We talk a lot about wins in this industry. Case studies are almost always success stories — traffic up, conversions up, client thrilled. But some of the most valuable lessons come from the engagements that fall apart, and we think those deserve airtime too. Here’s what I learned from an recent client breakup.
We Were Measuring the Wrong Things
Early in the engagement, we established performance metrics we could track. The problem? What we were measuring didn’t map to what actually mattered inside their business. Traffic moved. Rankings improved. Lead form submissions were up. But the client didn’t feel it — because revenue wasn’t moving in ways they could connect to our work.
That’s on us. With smaller businesses especially, the signal has to be tight: leads in, sales out. Softer metrics like organic visibility and session quality have a place, but they can’t carry the success narrative for a client who needs immediate ROI and doesn’t have the runway for longer-term optimization cycles. Compounding this: our sample sizes were often very small, making even small boosts seem like wins, when maybe there were just empty signals.
Lesson: Before any engagement kicks off, align explicitly on which metrics will feel like success to the client. And be honest about whether you have enough data to actually measure them.
Execution Ownership Was Never Clear
Our recommendations were solid. I stand by that. But they were being translated through a game of consultant telephone — passed from the client to developers, to writers, to contractors — with C&R left entirely out of the implementation loop. We had no visibility into how tasks were being prioritized or who was responsible for what.
The result: the same recommendations kept resurfacing because nothing was moving. The client felt buried by the volume. We felt like we were spinning. And neither side had a clean picture of why nothing was landing.
Making this worse: the client was independently using AI tools and other research platforms to generate content and marketing ideas — outside of any collaborative process with us. We weren’t aware of the full picture of what was being executed, and neither were they, really. When multiple agencies and contractors operate in parallel without clear role definitions, static in the line becomes louder than the signals.
Lesson: Define the execution path before you start. Who owns what? How are our recommendations triaged? Where do they land, and who closes the loop? We want to help prioritize the most impactful moves for clients to take, instead all recommendations we made were weighted the same which isn’t how we meant to deliver.
We Weren’t the Right Fit for This Client
This one is harder to say, but it’s the most important.
C&R’s work is most powerful when the website is treated as the hub of an integrated marketing ecosystem — with content, SEO, social, and paid channels all feeding into and from it. This client wanted to pivot entirely to LinkedIn and step away from the website altogether. That’s their call to make. But it meant our core value proposition — website optimization as a lead generation engine — was fundamentally at odds with where they wanted to go.
Our best clients are marketing professionals who think comprehensively across channels and are curious about how the pieces connect. This client had limited strategic marketing experience and, understandably, wanted simpler answers and faster results than our methodology is designed to deliver. They weren’t looking for an optimization partner, they just wanted results.
We also noticed something more values-level: this client appeared to be purely profit-driven, without a broader sense of purpose behind the business. That might sound like a soft filter, but it matters to us. Our strongest relationships are with clients who are building toward something — environmental impact, community, a mission that goes beyond margin. That shared orientation shapes how people show up, how they make decisions, and how they treat the people they work with.
Lesson: Our intake process needs to screen more explicitly for omnichannel marketing mindset, realistic timelines, and — yes — purpose alignment. Not every prospect is a great fit, and that’s okay.
The Relationship Broke Down, and We Weren’t Ready for That
At some point, the professional dynamic shifted sharply. In one call, the tone became disrespectful. The client hung up on us. When we addressed the behavior directly, there was no acknowledgment, no accountability, no ownership.
What made this harder: a junior member of our team was present. That’s the moment we recognized we needed a formal policy for what we’ve since started calling our “no assholes clause.” Everyone has bad days — we’ll give one free pass, genuinely. But if the behavior continues without acknowledgment or accountability, the engagement ends. Protecting our team is not negotiable, and moments like this are an opportunity to demonstrate what our company values actually mean in practice.
The dynamic had also fundamentally changed by this point. The client had stopped seeking our input. They were telling us what they would do regardless of our recommendations. The collaborative relationship that makes this work succeed was already gone.
Lesson: Don’t wait for a dramatic moment to name a relationship problem. Build in regular check-ins around collaboration health — not just deliverable status. And codify your values in your contracts so there’s no ambiguity about what behavior ends an engagement.
Our Contracts Weren’t Built for the Current Legal Reality
We had a 25% kill fee. On a $13,000 contract with roughly $10,000 outstanding at cancellation, that meant $3,000 owed. Seemed reasonable. Turned out to be largely unenforceable: the client was in a different state, cross-state legal representation is complicated and expensive, and the cost of pursuing the fee would have met or exceeded what we’d recover.
We’re revising our contracts. I still believe a 25% kill fee reflects a fair fee for a derailed engagement like this one, but it’s not legally worth pursuing so we’re upping our cancellation fees to 50% of the contract value. We’re also strengthening late payment penalties and clarifying language around legal fee responsibility. But the honest truth is this: for smaller contracts, legal action is rarely economical regardless of how tight the language is. Know that going in.
One more wrinkle: there’s a genuine dispute over who actually canceled this contract. Both sides have a version of events, but our lawyers have reviewed the emails and it’s clear we tried to repair while they chose to leave. It was their choice and I don’t blame them, however they didn’t honor their signed agreement upon taking that step. We’re protecting ourselves legally here too with a kill fee that can be enforces no matter who cancels.
Lesson: Contracts protect you on paper. Before you sign, ask yourself honestly whether you’d pursue enforcement if it came to it — and structure your fees with that reality in mind.
The Takeaway
We came out of this engagement with a sharper intake process, tighter contracts, a formal conduct policy, and a much clearer picture of who we do our best work with.
It wasn’t fun. But it was useful.
If you’re evaluating agencies, ask them about their failures. The ones who’ve thought carefully about what went wrong tend to be the ones who’ve learned not to repeat it. If you’re going into a new client engagement, make sure you have clear guidelines on expectations and what happens when things escalate.
