Question 1

What is the difference between an agency retainer, a project fee and a commission model?

Accepted Answer

Three ways of paying for marketing services, each creating **different incentives** — and the incentive structure, more than the headline rate, determines what you actually receive.

**Retainer.** A fixed monthly fee for an agreed scope or a block of hours.

**Suits** ongoing work needing continuity — SEO, content, always-on social, PR.

**The risk is drift in both directions.** Scope creeps beyond what the fee covers, souring the relationship; or the agency delivers less in quiet months while the fee continues. **Retainers should specify deliverables, not just availability**, and be reviewed on a schedule.

**Project fee.** A fixed price for a defined deliverable — a website, a campaign, a rebrand.

**Suits** discrete work with clear boundaries, and gives the client budget certainty.

**The risk** is that everything not written down becomes a change request, and that an underpriced project gets the agency's least experienced people once margin disappears.

**Commission on media spend.** The agency takes a percentage of what you spend on advertising.

**The structural conflict is obvious**: the agency earns more when you spend more, regardless of whether spending more is right. It also **penalises efficiency** — an agency that halves your cost per acquisition halves its own income.

**It persists** because it is simple and scales with the work media buying actually involves.

**The other models you will encounter:**

**Hourly or day rate**, transparent but rewarding slowness and penalising experience.

**Performance-based**, paying on outcomes. Appealing and hard to implement fairly: attribution disputes are guaranteed, and the agency controls only part of the funnel.

**Hybrid**, a reduced base plus performance element, which is where most sophisticated arrangements land.

**What to actually check regardless of model:**

**Who does the work** — pitch teams are frequently not delivery teams.

**Whether media is bought transparently**, with rebates and arbitrage disclosed.

**Who owns the accounts, data, creative and tracking** when you leave. This is the single most commonly regretted omission.

**Notice periods**, which are often long.

Question 2

How does influencer marketing actually work?

Accepted Answer

A brand pays someone with an audience to feature its product — and the mechanics of pricing, contracting and disclosure are considerably more structured than the casual appearance suggests. The

Question 3

What is customer acquisition cost and how do you work out payback?

Accepted Answer

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is what it costs, on average, to acquire one paying customer. Payback period is how long that customer takes to earn the money back. Calculating CAC. Total sales and

Question 4

What is the difference between CPM, CPC, CPA and ROAS?

Accepted Answer

They are four ways of expressing what advertising costs and returns, measured at different points in the chain. CPM — cost per mille (thousand impressions). What you pay to have your ad shown a

Question 5

What is a media plan, and what does flighting mean?

Accepted Answer

A media plan sets out where advertising will run, when, for how much, and to whom. Flighting is one of the scheduling patterns it can use — concentrating spend into bursts rather than spreading it

Question 6

How does affiliate marketing actually work, and who gets paid for what?

Accepted Answer

A performance model where a third party — a publisher, creator or comparison site — sends traffic to a merchant and is paid only when a defined action occurs, usually a sale. The mechanics are

Question 7

What is in-housing, and why do brands keep changing their minds about it?

Accepted Answer

Moving marketing capability from agencies to employed teams — and the reason it cycles is that the trade-offs are genuine on both sides, so the correct answer changes as a company's circumstances

Related Questions