Picture day ninety. You open one report. Calls, forms and messages are split by source and by job type, so a request for a full garden redesign is never pooled with a one-off lawn cut. Beside them sit the site visits booked and kept, and one named person can say what changed this month and why. The report does not yet claim a ranking or a signed job from search, because Google says changes you make to a site can take effect in a few hours or take several months. Treat that picture as your acceptance criteria, ask each agency to sign up to it, then read the rest of this article as the plan for meeting it across a year.
Read the year from your start date
Day ninety lands in a different season depending on when you sign. A September start reaches it in late autumn or early winter, so the autumn and winter work below comes first. A March start reaches it in late spring or early summer, so spring and summer come first. Mark your day-ninety date, and ask each agency which checks it will show you by then and which belong to a later season. Write both lists into the contract. If an agency will not separate the two, the plan is a hope, not a set of criteria.
Fixed checks for the first month, whatever the season
Some checks have nothing to do with the weather, so settle them before the calendar starts.
Ask which named person will write your project pages, set up your tracking and answer your calls, and what that person has done for a landscaper before. A team name or a job title is not an answer. Google's own advice on hiring an SEO is to check business references and ask past clients whether the work was useful, easy to work with and produced positive results. Ask for two, chosen to sell the way you do, design-and-build projects or regular maintenance, and ring them. Google also says no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, so treat any promised position as a reason to keep looking.
Then the advertising rules. California's contractor board says Business and Professions Code section 7030.5 requires a licence number in all forms of advertising for construction needing a contractor's licence. Oregon's Landscape Contractors Board tells licensed landscape contracting businesses that all written advertising must include the business licence number, and lists websites, Facebook included, as written advertising. Those are the only two states checked here, so look up yours and ask who at the agency reads every advert for the number. In the UK, CAP Code rule 3.52, as the ASA explains it, requires the necessary authorisation for an advert to show a trust mark or quality mark, so ask to see that permission before a BALI or other trade-body logo goes up. In the US, NALP says its Landscape Technician Certification is for technicians who want to validate their knowledge and skills, so a "NALP certified" line should name the technicians who hold it. In the UK, review requests after a finished job sit under guidance from the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) that tells a business not to pay customers or give them gifts for a positive review.
Autumn: the turf and planting windows open
In the UK, the RHS says turf is best laid in mid-autumn. It adds that bare-root trees, shrubs and hedging become available towards the end of October for planting between November and March. A 2017 university extension note from Illinois puts the best time to seed a cool-season lawn in late summer to early autumn, and for Central Illinois gives 15 August to 15 September. Those are work windows, not enquiry peaks; we found no public source that dates enquiry peaks in either country. So the marketing has to run ahead of the work, and the agency should start from your own enquiry dates for the last three years. For design-and-build, ask for a date by which turf, planting and hedging pages will be live, before the window rather than inside it, and a follow-up list for planting schemes quoted to start in November. For maintenance, the autumn deliverable is next year's contract renewal offer, sent while this year's visits are still fresh.
Winter: open quotes and a plan you can read
Some installs carry on through the cold months. The RHS says turf can be laid any time between mid-autumn and early spring, whenever the soil isn't too wet or frosty. So winter should not show in the report as a gap. For design-and-build, the deliverables are every open quote chased and finished projects photographed while the planting is fresh. For maintenance, they are last year's customers asked about the coming year. Ask for the first plan as a month-by-month list of what will be published, tested and reported, and which items need something from you.
Spring: capacity before demand
In spring, ask how the agency will pace enquiries against the jobs your crews can take. BALI's 2026 member survey called staff recruitment the standout concern, with 27% rating it extremely challenging. If your crews are booked into autumn, extra enquiries cost money without producing work. Ask who can turn adverts down, and how fast. For design-and-build, the spring deliverable is a waiting list with real start dates; for maintenance, it is rounds filled street by street before new areas are advertised. For US lawns, the Illinois note says warm-season grass is best sown before the start of summer, so ask which regional calendar the agency is using.
Summer: book the autumn
The RHS advises avoiding laying turf from mid-spring to early autumn. A summer enquiry for a new lawn may therefore be a customer you book for autumn. Ask the agency to report signed autumn jobs next to summer enquiries, and to say how it keeps those customers warm until the start date. The report should also count signed contracts separately for design-and-build and maintenance, because a single leads figure hides which half of the business is growing.
Other routes, and where The Social Target sits
Not every landscaper needs an agency this year. If your crews are full until autumn, a freelancer who sets up tracking and fixes your online profiles, or a few weeks of better phone handling, may serve you better than a retainer.
The Social Target, which publishes this article, is a marketing agency, not a freelancer or a call-handling service, and it sells marketing for landscapers in the UK and the US. If one of the cheaper routes above fits your year, it is not the hire you need yet.
An email to send your shortlist
Copy this, fill in the brackets and send it to every agency you are considering. Then compare the replies side by side.
Subject: Questions before we choose a landscaping marketing agency
Hello, I run a [design-and-build, maintenance or mixed] landscaping business covering [area]. Before I choose an agency, please send me the following. First, the name of the person who would write my pages, set up my tracking and reply to me, and what that person has done for a landscaper before. Second, contact details for two clients who sell the way I do, so that I can ask them how it went.
Third, a sample report that separates design-and-build enquiries from maintenance enquiries and shows site visits booked and kept. Fourth, who checks that every advert carries my licence number, and that any logo is one I am entitled to show. Fifth, how you would pace enquiries against my crews, and who can turn adverts down.
Sixth, your written process for asking customers for reviews. Last, what you will commit to showing me by day ninety, and what you would measure only later. Please do not send ranking guarantees. Thank you, [name]
To see how these checks apply to your own year, tell us about your business.
↳ Frequently asked
01What should a garden design business that also sells maintenance expect an agency to show at day ninety?
Evidence that the setup works, not a finished result. That means tracking that sorts design-and-build enquiries from maintenance ones, and the site visits booked and kept. It means adverts checked against licence and badge rules, and a named person who can explain the numbers. Rankings and signed jobs from search belong to later months, and Google says no one can guarantee a number one position. Ask for the day-ninety list on paper before you start.
02Does a landscaping agency need to know the difference between cool-season and warm-season lawns?
In the US it does, because the best sowing months differ. A university extension note from Illinois puts cool-season seeding in late summer to early autumn and warm-season sowing before the start of summer. An agency that times lawn adverts to one calendar risks mistiming them for regions on the other grass type, so ask which regional calendar it follows.
03What does the NALP technician certification tell a homeowner about a landscaping company?
It describes individual technicians. NALP says the programme is for technicians who want to validate their knowledge and skills. A website that says the company is NALP certified should say which technicians hold it. An agency writing that copy should ask you for their names before publishing the claim.
04Which months suit laying turf in the UK, and what should that change in an agency's plan?
The RHS says turf is best laid in mid-autumn. It can go down any time from mid-autumn to early spring when the soil is not too wet or frosty, and should be avoided from mid-spring to early autumn. So a summer lawn enquiry may be an autumn booking. The plan should publish turf pages ahead of autumn and report signed autumn jobs, not only summer enquiries.