The questions that actually reveal quality
Most agency selection processes judge the pitch, not the agency. These are the questions that get useful answers.
Our bias, declared
We wrote this partly because we lose deals to agencies who pitch better than they deliver, and a better-informed buyer is good for us. Everything below applies to us too. Ask us all of it, and if we dodge any of it, that's your answer.
Side by side
| Factor | Good sign | Warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Who runs the account | The strategist who pitched you, named in the contract | "You'll be assigned a team" after signing |
| Pricing | A written, scoped quote, no call required to get it | Requires three calls to learn the number |
| Contract length | 90 days, then 30 days' notice | 12-month minimum with auto-renewal |
| Account ownership | You own every account, pixel, and asset | Agency-owned accounts you'd lose on exit |
| Reporting metrics | Blended CAC, pipeline, revenue | Impressions, reach, engagement |
| Response to "what wouldn't you do?" | Specific things they decline and why | "We can do anything you need" |
| References offered | Including a client who left | Only current, hand-picked, recent clients |
| Guarantees | Leading indicators, in writing | Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed revenue |
| Case studies | Include what went wrong and what they'd change | Uninterrupted successes with vague metrics |
Choose good sign when
Ask them to critique your current setup live
A good agency will open your site and analytics on the call and have specific observations within minutes. Vagueness here is the clearest warning sign. They either can't see the problems or won't say them out loud.
Ask who specifically will work on your account
Get names and titles, and ask to meet them before signing. Bait-and-switch (senior people on the pitch, junior people on the account) is the most common agency failure mode and it's easy to screen for.
Ask what they'd tell you not to do
An agency that agrees with everything is selling, not advising. The willingness to say 'don't do that, and here's why' is the best available proxy for whether they'll be useful in month eight.
Ask for a reference from a client who left
Almost nobody asks this and the reaction is informative on its own. Agencies with nothing to hide can usually produce one; the answer tells you how they behave when a relationship ends.
Choose warning sign when
Guaranteed rankings or guaranteed revenue
Google doesn't sell ranking guarantees, so anyone offering one is either misrepresenting or planning to game something that will be corrected in a core update.
Ownership of your ad accounts
If campaigns run in agency-owned accounts, you lose all history, audiences, and learnings when you leave. That's a retention tactic, not an operational need.
Reporting that never contains bad news
Every account has bad weeks. An agency whose reports are uniformly positive is curating, and you'll find out what was hidden at the worst possible moment.
Pricing that requires a discovery process to learn
There's no legitimate operational reason a retainer range can't be shared on a first call. Withholding it's a negotiation tactic that costs you time whether or not you're a fit.
Related questions
Ninety days is the minimum honest window. That's enough time for tracking fixes, restructuring, and one full learning cycle. But agree the leading indicators in week one, in writing, so you're judging against something specific, not a general feeling in month four.
Other comparisons
Services referenced
Get the audit before you decide anything.
Thirty minutes, free, no obligation. We'll tell you honestly whether you need an agency at all, including when the answer is that you don't.