Six things: reporting cadence and contents, response time for account issues, named personnel with a stated caseload, a scheduled point where ACoS targets are reset by product stage, defined kill criteria, and what you receive on exit. Everything else in an SLA is decoration.
The short version
- Reporting must include cost of customer acquisition, not just spend and sales.
- Response time for suppressed listings and account issues, in hours.
- Named people and their caseload. We run about 1.4 brands per operator.
- A target reset point, because launch ACoS and mature ACoS are different jobs.
- Kill criteria in writing, so the honest recommendation is protected.
The six clauses
I run Flapen with about 70 brands under management, and the majority are profitable within their first year. These are the commitments that produce that, written as they should appear in an agreement.
| # | Clause | Weak version | What to require |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reporting | "Monthly reporting" | Weekly written, includes CAC by channel |
| 2 | Response time | "Prompt support" | Hours, by severity, business days defined |
| 3 | Personnel | "A dedicated team" | Names plus brands per person |
| 4 | Target reset | Not mentioned | Scheduled review, targets reset by stage |
| 5 | Kill criteria | Not mentioned | Named metrics and a window |
| 6 | Exit | Not mentioned | Itemized handover on termination |
1. Reporting
Specify contents, not just frequency. "Monthly reporting" can be satisfied with a slide deck that shows spend and sales going up.
Require cost of customer acquisition, broken out by traffic channel. That is the number that says whether the growth is worth having. Also require the report to state what changed and why, which builds the documentation you will need if you ever switch.
Ours is a written update posted every week, a live review with the client's team every two weeks, and 24/7 access in between. Cadence matters less than contents. A weekly note with real numbers beats a monthly deck.
2. Response time
Two tiers, and be specific about the clock.
Account-threatening issues, meaning suppressed listings, a Buy Box loss, an account health warning, or a policy notice, need a same-business-day commitment. Routine questions can run to a couple of days. Define what counts as a business day when the team is in a different time zone, because that is where most disputes start.
3. Named personnel and caseload
Ask for the name of the person running your account and how many accounts that person carries.
We run about 1.4 brands per operator, and that ratio is the reason a real audit fits into week one. Above eight, an account manager is maintaining a checklist. An agency that will not put the number in writing has told you the number.
Add a notification clause: if your named lead changes, you are informed. Not a breach, but a trigger to review.
4. The target reset
Almost never in an SLA and it belongs there.
A new product needs aggressive ACoS to build velocity and ranking. A mature product needs efficient ACoS to protect margin. If nothing schedules a reset, the launch target quietly persists into maturity and margin erodes for months before anyone notices.
Write in a quarterly review where targets are reset by product stage, with the reasoning recorded.
5. Kill criteria
Define what triggers a recommendation to stop spending: rating trend, return rate, conversion rate, and cost of customer acquisition trajectory, measured over a defined window.
This protects you from the structural incentive of any ongoing fee, which is to keep every product alive. It also protects the agency, because a documented recommendation is defensible when a client does not want to hear it.
6. Exit
Itemized: campaign structure and current bid strategy, negative keyword lists with reasoning, open cases with numbers, and creative in source files rather than exports. If it is not listed, expect a revoked login and nothing else.
What kpis should the sla commit to
Commit to reporting them, not to hitting them. Any agency guaranteeing an ACoS number before seeing your account is guessing, and the guarantee will be hedged into meaninglessness in the fine print.
The five to require in every report:
- Cost of customer acquisition, by channel
- ACoS against the product's current stage target
- Conversion rate
- Return rate
- Organic share of revenue
The fifth is the one that catches a slow failure. If the share of revenue coming from paid rises every month, the agency is renting you sales rather than building an asset, and every other number can look fine while it happens.
What most agencies will not tell you
Most agency SLAs commit to activity, not outcomes or transparency. Number of campaigns reviewed, number of optimizations made, hours allocated. All of it is easy to satisfy and none of it tells you whether the account improved.
Watch what happens when you ask to replace an activity commitment with a reporting commitment. Adding "the weekly report will include cost of customer acquisition by channel" costs a competent agency nothing, because they already calculate it. Resistance to that sentence is the most informative moment in the whole negotiation.
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Our reporting cadence is fixed, not negotiable downward, at Flapen.
