Notes for owners · Digital marketing
What to ask a vendor who says results are guaranteed
Seven questions that turn a promise of guaranteed leads into something you can read: guaranteed against what, counted by whom, and what happens to your money if the number is missed.
The GullySales team · Updated 17 Oct 2026 · 5 min read
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A vendor says "fifty guaranteed leads" and the price is fair. Before you pay, notice that the sentence is incomplete. Guaranteed against what, counted by whom, and repaid how? Ask those three things in writing. A promise that survives them is a contract term. One that does not is a sales line. Nobody outside your business controls whether your buyer says yes, so treat a promise about orders or rankings as a hope. A promise about delivery can be a term.
Seven questions and what the answers sound like
Put these to the vendor by email and keep the reply, word for word.
| Question | A reply that holds | A reply that is a slogan |
|---|---|---|
| What exactly is guaranteed? | "A named dealer enquiry with a phone number, up to fifty" | "Results" or "growth" |
| What counts as a lead in the document? | A definition quoted from the agreement | "Anyone who shows interest" |
| Whose records decide if it was met? | Yours, or a tool you both can open | "Our dashboard" |
| Over what period, and what is a miss? | A date and a number below which it is a miss | "Ongoing" |
| What happens on a miss? | A refund or credit, in writing, paid by a date | "We will work harder" |
| What must I do for it to hold? | A short list: reply speed, an approved page, a minimum spend | A long list found later in the terms |
| What is excluded? | Named exclusions | "Subject to market conditions" |
Questions five and six matter most. The refund clause and the conditions clause are where the guarantee is really written.
What does "a lead" mean in their report?
In a vendor's report a lead can be a form fill, a click on a phone number, a like, a missed call or a name from a bought list. Ask for one example: a lead from their last client in your trade, exactly as it would reach you. If you are shown only a count on a dashboard, you have not been shown a lead.
Write your own definition into the agreement. For a firm that sells to other businesses it might read: a named person at a company, with a working phone number, who asked about a product you sell. Anything else is activity.
Who counts, and from which records?
A guarantee measured only in the vendor's dashboard is a guarantee the vendor marks. Insist on a source of truth you can open: your own phone log, your enquiry register, your CRM or an analytics account in your name. If the vendor says "our reporting is transparent", ask for read access to the raw data.
For example: a pickle and snack maker in Kolhapur
This is an invented case. The owner wants wholesale buyers in other states. A vendor promises "fifty guaranteed leads" for a fixed fee, and the owner pays.
Fifty rows arrive in a sheet. When a family member rings them, many are people who clicked for a free sample, a few are existing customers, and several numbers do not connect. Perhaps six are shops that would stock the product. The vendor points to the contract: fifty leads delivered, guarantee met.
The owner had left the word "lead" undefined and had not asked what the refund covered. Two of the six shops place small first orders, and the fee is never recovered. From then on the definition goes on page one of every agreement: a named shop or distributor with an address who asked about stocking. The owner also rings ten rows in the first days, before the invoice is paid. Those ten calls would have shown a count closer to six than fifty in the first days, not after the fee was gone.
What about a ranking guarantee?
Treat it as a special case, because it sounds checkable and is not. A ranking differs by the person searching, the town, the phone, the day and the exact words typed. Nobody controls where a search engine places a page. If a vendor promises a position, ask five things. Which exact phrase? Searched from where? On which device? Counted on which day? And what is paid back if the page slips a week later?
A fair offer is work, not a position: pages written, a profile set up, tracking in place. Those can be inspected.
When a guarantee is worth having
Guarantees on delivery are reasonable. Examples are a site built to a written scope, a tracking setup done and tested, and a report that matches your own records. These are within the vendor's control, so they can be written as terms and checked.
A guarantee on how your market behaves is different. Rankings move when competitors act. Orders depend on your price, your reply and your quote. If a vendor will guarantee those but not the first kind, ask why the promise sits on the part they do not control.
What to ask for instead
You do not need a guarantee to protect yourself. Ask for four things.
- A stated measure and a baseline taken from your own records before work starts.
- Accounts held in your name, with the vendor added as a user.
- A clause that lets you stop if the setup is not delivered as written.
- Reports in your terms: enquiries, replies, quotes and orders.
If a vendor refuses all four, treat the guarantee as marketing. If one has already misled you, keep every message and invoice, write to the vendor, then to the payment platform or your bank if money is involved. Your adviser can say whether a consumer or legal route fits.
Send the seven questions before you pay
Email the table above to any vendor who has promised a number, and keep the reply. The pricing page shows how our own quotes are split, for comparison. If you want a second reading of an agreement you have been given, marketing audit is the service nearest to that, and you can tell us what you need.
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