re: Digital Marketing Companies in SE LA

The reason people think they never get much from these companies is because they don't realize how little money is left over to go to the actual lead gen with a google, FB, etc.

An agency is likely going to charge you $50 an hour for some low level lackey. 5 hours a week of their time, and you're already down half your budget. Also don't ignore your website...it's one of the biggest things that will hurt your rankings with Google and lead to a much higher CPC.

In no particular order, the top factors for ranking on Google are:
High-quality content.
Mobile-first.
Page Experience.
Page speed.
On-page optimization.
Internal links.
External links.

Google purposely created adwords so that the average Joe could run a campaign themselves. Read up on it and mess around with it and you should be able to figure it out yourself. There's Google classes online you can take. Facebook is the same way, you should be able to do it yourself with a bit of trial and error.