Questions to Ask Before Hiring a Marketing Agency

Most agency pitches sound the same. Data-driven, results-focused, strategic partners. The difference between an agency that delivers and one that drains your budget usually shows up three months after you sign, when the reports are vague and the person who pitched you has disappeared from the account.

You can find most of that out before you sign. It comes down to asking questions that force specific answers, and knowing what a good answer sounds like.

The short answer: 8 questions to ask any marketing agency

1. What results have you delivered recently for businesses like mine? Ask for recent, relevant examples with real numbers.
2. Who will actually work on my account, and can I meet them? The person pitching is often not the person doing the work.
3. How do you measure success, and what will your reports show me? Look for leads, cost per acquisition and revenue, not impressions and clicks.
4. What happens in the first 30 days? A real agency has a discovery and setup process with steps, owners and dates.
5. What happens if it isn't working? You want a clear review process and written recourse, not "we always deliver".
6. What do you need from me? An agency that needs nothing from you is using a template.
7. Who owns the accounts and data, and what are the contract terms? You should own your ad accounts, analytics and raw data.
8. Why should I choose you over [a specific competitor]? Name the other agency you are considering and see how they answer.

The rest of this guide explains why each question matters, what strong and weak answers sound like, and the warning signs to watch for during the pitch and after you sign.

Question 1: What results have you delivered recently for businesses like mine?

Generic client lists prove very little. Customer behaviour, search intent and sales cycles differ between industries, and tactics don't always transfer.

Ask for examples from the last 6 to 12 months. Search and advertising platforms change constantly, so a case study from several years ago tells you what the agency could do then, not what it can do now.

Case studies, not testimonials

Testimonials are easy to cherry-pick. Case studies are harder to fake because they show the starting point, what the agency did, and what changed. Ask the agency to walk you through one: what they found, why they chose their approach, and what the numbers looked like before and after. You can see how we present ours on our SEO and Google Ads case studies page.

Numbers that match your goals

Decide what you want first: more enquiries, lower cost per lead, more sales from a particular service. Then ask how the agency has moved that specific number for someone else. If you ask about leads and the answer pivots to traffic or engagement, they are avoiding the question. If they can't share any numbers, they either don't track results properly or the results aren't worth sharing.

Question 2: Who will actually work on my account, and can I meet them?

The person selling the service is rarely the person delivering it. That is normal, but you need to know who you are actually hiring.

The common pattern is a bait and switch. An experienced director runs the pitch, you sign on the strength of that conversation, and the account is then handed to a junior who is learning on your budget. Vague answers like "our team will look after you" are a warning sign.

Ask to meet the people who will run your account before you sign. Ask them:

• How long they have been doing this work, and on which platforms.
• How many accounts they currently manage.
• Who your day-to-day contact will be, and who oversees strategy.
• What happens to your account if that person leaves.

If the agency won't arrange the meeting, that tells you what you need to know.

Question 3: How do you measure success, and what will your reports show me?

Vague reporting is where underperformance hides. "We'll send monthly reports" isn't an answer. You need to know which metrics they track, why those metrics matter, and how they connect to revenue.

There is also a second half to this question: who decides whether success was achieved? It should be agreed numbers, defined before the contract starts, not the agency's interpretation after the fact. "Increase brand awareness" or "improve engagement" can't be measured. "More qualified enquiries from organic search, measured by form submissions and tracked calls" can.

Ask for a sample report. If the agency hesitates, or says every report is customised but can't show you one, reporting is not a real part of their process.

The metrics a good agency should report

Impressions, reach, click-through rate and social engagement measure activity. They are not useless, but on their own they create an illusion of progress. A good report connects marketing activity to business outcomes, which usually means it includes some of these:

• Cost per qualified lead. Not just any lead. Agree what counts as qualified (right location, right service, real budget). A cheap lead that never converts costs more than an expensive one that does.
• Lead-to-customer conversion rate by channel. If one channel sends fewer leads but far more of them become customers, that should change where your budget goes.
• Customer acquisition cost compared with customer value. Spending $500 to win a customer is a loss or a bargain depending on what that customer is worth over time. You may need to share your own sales data for this to work.
• Return on investment, not only return on ad spend. ROAS shows revenue per dollar of ad spend. It ignores your cost of delivery and the agency's fees. Profit is what matters.
• Time from first contact to sale. If your sales cycle is three months, judging a campaign after four weeks is pointless.
• Which channels contributed. Customers often see an ad, search your name later and then call. Reporting that gives all the credit to the last click can lead to bad budget decisions.
• Visibility for the searches that actually drive sales. Ranking for 50 keywords means little if competitors own the handful that bring in buyers.

Most of these depend on proper tracking of calls, forms and sales, which many businesses don't have set up. Ask the agency how they will track enquiries back to the source. Our lead tracking and marketing reporting pages show what that looks like in practice.

Question 4: What happens in the first 30 days?

The first month shows you how an agency really operates. A real onboarding process has specific steps: a discovery session, an audit of your website and ad accounts, tracking setup, competitor research, a strategy, then campaign setup and initial testing. Each step should have an owner, a timeframe and a deliverable.

If they pitch a solution in the first meeting, before asking about your customers, margins, sales process or capacity, they are using a template.

Warning signs in the answer: they can't say who is responsible for each step, they can't give timeframes, or they say "it depends" more than a couple of times. Flexibility is fine. Having no structure is not.

Question 5: What happens if it isn't working?

Underperformance happens. Markets shift, competitors respond, ads stop working. What matters is whether the agency has a plan for it, and what recourse you have.

A good answer covers how often they review performance, what thresholds trigger a change in strategy, how quickly they act, and what they will tell you. Ask for an example of a time they changed course partway through a campaign. Good agencies adjust and refine. Watch for agencies that treat every setback as a reason to start over or sell you a new service.

Ask what is in writing

Ask what your recourse is if agreed targets aren't met. That might be a strategy review at no extra cost, a performance clause, or the right to leave the contract. Whatever it is, it should be in the contract, not mentioned casually in the pitch.

Be careful with the opposite extreme. Any agency that guarantees specific Google rankings is promising something it doesn't control. What a credible agency can commit to is the work itself, the reporting, and being honest about what is and isn't working. For realistic timeframes, see our guide on how long SEO takes.

Listen for excuses loaded in advance

Red flag answers sound like "we always deliver", "that's never happened" or "we'll just work harder". Also listen for conditional promises: "results depend on your budget", "assuming your product is competitive". External factors are real, but an agency that front-loads them is preparing its defence. A better answer separates what the agency controls from what it doesn't, and commits to the parts it controls.

Question 6: What do you need from me?

Marketing is something an agency does with your business, not to it. If they say they need nothing from you, they are either downplaying the reality or planning to use a generic approach.

Good agencies will ask for access to your analytics and ad accounts, an understanding of your margins and customer value, feedback on lead quality from whoever answers the phone, and timely approvals. Ask how much of your time they will need each week or month. The answer should be specific.

Question 7: Who owns the accounts and data, and what are the contract terms?

Your Google Ads account, analytics, tracking and raw data should belong to you, with the agency given access. If an agency refuses to give you access to the underlying data, it is controlling information that belongs to your business.

Before you sign, get the following written into the agreement:

• Which metrics must appear in reports, how a lead is defined, and how often you will receive reports. Monthly suits most small businesses.
• Your right to access raw data and pull your own reports.
• Minimum term, notice period, and what happens to accounts and assets if you leave.
• What is in scope, and how changes in scope are handled.

Pricing should also be clear. If you want a benchmark, our guide to how much SEO costs in Australia breaks down typical fees.

Question 8: Why should I choose you over [a specific competitor]?

Don't ask why they are better than "other agencies". Name the other agency you are genuinely considering. This forces them to talk about real differences rather than generic claims.

Strong agencies will acknowledge what the competitor does well, then explain where they differ: team structure, process, reporting, pricing or contract terms. Weak agencies will criticise the competitor or fall back on being "more strategic" or "more results-focused".

Certifications such as Google Partner status are a useful baseline, but they don't prove results in your industry.

Warning signs to watch for, before and after you sign

These patterns tend to appear early and rarely fix themselves.

During the pitch

• They talk about their process more than your goals. The first meeting feels like a product demo of their framework and dashboard rather than a conversation about your business.
• The proposal lists deliverables, not outcomes. "12 blog posts and 4 email campaigns" tells you what you are buying, not what it is meant to achieve. Ask how each piece of work connects to a measurable goal.
• They can't explain how the work connects to revenue. The link might be indirect or take time, but they should be able to explain it clearly.
• They guarantee rankings or promise results with no input from you. Both suggest they will either use a template or overpromise.

After you sign

• Reports list tasks instead of results. Content published, ads launched, meetings held. Reports that read like timesheets show the agency was busy, not that anything worked.
• They celebrate vanity metrics while the core numbers stall. Impressions are up, but enquiries and sales aren't.
• Scope only flexes their way. Every request from you is "out of scope", while their own missteps are quietly absorbed. Strategy discussions are treated as a paid extra.
• They go quiet when results dip. Responses slow down and meetings get rescheduled when you ask hard questions.
• They blame external factors without changing anything. Algorithm updates and seasonality are real, but the explanation should always come with "here is what we are doing differently".
• Meetings are status updates. Nothing gets decided, your team's concerns get acknowledged and then ignored, and the call could have been an email.

What a good agency relationship looks like

A good agency challenges your assumptions respectfully. You are paying for expertise, and if they never disagree with you, they aren't applying it. When a month goes badly, they raise it before you do, arrive with data and a proposed change, and focus on what to do next rather than who to blame.

The best agencies welcome these questions because they have already asked them of themselves. If an agency dodges, deflects or gets defensive, it has disqualified itself. If you want to see how we answer them, our SEO and Google Ads services page sets out what we do and how we report on it.

FAQs

What should I ask a marketing agency before hiring them?

Ask for recent results with businesses like yours, who will actually work on your account, how they measure and report success, what happens in the first 30 days, what happens if results fall short, what they need from you, who owns the accounts and data, and why they are a better fit than a specific competitor you are considering.

What are the red flags when hiring a marketing agency?

Common red flags include guaranteed Google rankings, senior staff who pitch and then disappear, proposals that list deliverables without outcomes, reports full of impressions and clicks but no leads or sales, refusing access to your own data, and blaming external factors without changing the approach.

What metrics should a marketing agency report on?

At minimum: cost per qualified lead, lead-to-customer conversion rate by channel, customer acquisition cost compared with customer value, and return on investment rather than only return on ad spend. Impressions and click-through rate are useful context but shouldn't be the headline.

Should I trust a marketing agency that guarantees results?

Be cautious. No agency controls Google's algorithm, so guaranteed rankings are a warning sign. A credible agency commits to the work, transparent reporting, and clear written recourse if agreed targets aren't met.

Who should own my Google Ads and analytics accounts?

You should. The agency should be given access to accounts registered to your business, so you keep your data, history and tracking if you ever change agencies.