Hiring the wrong agency is expensive in two ways: the monthly retainer you pay, and the revenue you don't generate while they're burning it. Most agencies are good at selling. Far fewer are good at the one thing you're actually paying for — producing measurable business outcomes.
These 9 questions cut through the pitch and tell you what you actually need to know before you sign.
The short version — what to ask:
- Who actually does the work on your account day-to-day?
- How do you define and measure success?
- Can you show me real conversion tracking you've built?
- What does a weekly or monthly report actually contain?
- Who owns the accounts and data if we stop working together?
- What are the contract terms and exit conditions?
- Can I speak to a client reference in my industry?
- What happens specifically in the first 90 days?
- What's your process when results fall short?
1. Who Actually Does the Work — Senior Strategists or Junior Pass-Through?
Ask exactly who manages your campaigns day-to-day — not who pitched you, but who opens the account on Monday morning.
Most agencies run a bait-and-switch that's so standard it's barely noticed. A founder or senior strategist closes the deal. Your account then gets handed to a coordinator with 18 months of experience managing a $10,000/month budget — while you're paying premium rates.
Ask the agency: "Who specifically will manage my campaigns? What's their experience level? How many other accounts are they running simultaneously?" Account managers handling 25+ accounts aren't managing anything — they're reacting to alerts.
The answer you want: a named person with demonstrable experience at your spend level, with a manageable book of accounts. "A team handles it" is not an answer.
Takeaway: Get the name and background of your actual account manager before you sign — not after.
2. How Do You Measure Success — Revenue and Leads or Vanity Metrics?
A serious agency measures success by cost per lead, cost per acquisition, and revenue tied to spend — not impressions or traffic graphs.
Traffic is up 40%. Great — did revenue move? Agencies that lead with clicks, impressions, session duration, and "engagement" as proof of success are optimizing for metrics that feel good but don't correlate to outcomes. This isn't accidental. Vanity metrics are easier to move than revenue.
Push for specifics: "What KPIs will we report on every week?" The right answer includes cost per lead (CPL), cost per acquisition (CPA), and — if the agency is serious — cost per signed customer or cost per revenue dollar. If their first-instinct metrics are traffic-based, that's how they're actually managing the account.
At the accounts we run, every campaign is measured from click to signed customer. Traffic is a data point, not a deliverable.
Takeaway: If their KPI list leads with traffic and impressions, expect traffic-and-impressions results.
3. Can You Show Conversion Tracking You've Built, Not Just Dashboards?
Anyone can screenshot a dashboard. What matters is whether the numbers in it are accurate — and most aren't.
Conversion tracking breaks in predictable ways: duplicate tags that fire twice, form submissions counted but not filtered for spam, call conversions attributed to organic when they came from paid, server-side events misfiring after a site update. An agency that doesn't know what's actually in their tracking setup is reporting numbers they haven't verified.
Ask: "Can you walk me through the conversion tracking you've built for a current client — which events fire, where they fire, how calls are attributed?" A competent agency can do this in 10 minutes on a screen share. Hesitation or a redirect to dashboard screenshots is a red flag.
We build tracking to the transaction level — Google Tag Manager containers, call tracking tied to source, CRM integration where needed — so every number in the report is verifiable against a real outcome. You can see examples at our work.
Takeaway: Ask to see a working tracking setup, not a results screenshot. The setup is what produces the screenshot.
4. What's Your Reporting Cadence and What's In It?
Weekly or monthly doesn't matter as much as what's actually in the report.
A real report tells you: what was spent, what it produced (leads, calls, conversions), what the cost per outcome was, what changed since last period, and what's being done about it. It does not require a glossary. It does not start with industry benchmarks. It tells you where your money went and whether it worked.
Ask: "Can you show me a sample report?" Look for the ratio of explanation to numbers. A 20-page PDF where 14 pages are definitions and methodology is a report designed to look thorough, not communicate performance. A good report is 2-3 pages with a clear read on spend, outcomes, and the next action.
Takeaway: Request a real sample report — one that was sent to an actual client, not a template deck — before you commit.
5. Who Owns the Accounts, Pixels, and Data If We Part Ways?
You should own your Google Ads account, Meta Business Manager, analytics properties, and pixel data from day one.
This is a non-negotiable. Your Google Ads account history (Quality Scores, audience lists, conversion history, bidding signals) has real dollar value that compounds over time. Your pixel data — website visitors, custom audiences, lookalike seeds — is an asset you paid to build. An agency that creates accounts in their own MCC (manager account) or Business Manager and doesn't grant you admin-level ownership is retaining leverage over your exit.
Some agencies do this by habit rather than malice. Others do it intentionally. Either way, the result is the same: when you leave, you lose the history.
The rule: every account, pixel, property, and data asset should be created under your business's ownership from day one, with the agency added as a manager — not the other way around. Ask before signing.
Takeaway: If you don't have admin ownership of every account from day one, negotiate it in writing before the contract is signed.
6. What's the Contract Term and Exit Clause?
Month-to-month or 90-day notice is standard for a confident agency — long lock-ins signal they don't trust their own results to keep you.
A 12-month contract with a penalty clause for early exit is a retention strategy, not a service structure. It tells you the agency doesn't believe its results will keep you around without a legal barrier. That's worth knowing upfront.
Reasonable contract terms: month-to-month with 30-60 days notice, or a short initial term (3 months) to cover onboarding costs, then rolling. Some agencies require a longer initial commitment for SEO — that's defensible because the work has a longer feedback loop. But a 12-month paid lock-in for Google Ads management, where results are visible in weeks, is not.
Read the exit clause carefully: what notice period is required, what happens to work in progress, whether there are penalty fees, and whether ownership of assets is contingent on contract completion.
Takeaway: "What's the minimum commitment and what's the notice period to cancel?" — ask this directly. The answer is more predictive than the case studies.
7. Can I Talk to a Client in My Industry?
Ask to speak to a reference in your industry managing a similar budget, not a testimonial from a different business type.
Testimonials are curated. A law firm reference doesn't tell you much about home services performance. A $5,000/month e-commerce client doesn't predict what happens at $50,000/month. The reference should match your vertical, your budget range, and — ideally — your primary channel (paid search, SEO, social).
Ask for the reference before the proposal stage, not after. An agency that hedges ("we have to check with them first") is normal — giving you no reference at all after a reasonable ask is a signal.
When you speak to the reference: ask what results they've actually seen (specific numbers), whether the agency was transparent when performance dipped, and whether they'd sign the contract again knowing what they know now.
Takeaway: One real conversation with a matched reference tells you more than a 40-page proposal deck.
8. What Happens in the First 90 Days?
A credible agency can map out the first 90 days without vague language.
"We'll get to know your brand and audience" is not a 90-day plan. It's a placeholder. What you should hear instead: week one is an audit of existing accounts, tracking, and conversion setup; weeks two through four involve structural fixes and campaign builds; by day 60 the first performance data is in and being acted on; by day 90 you have a baseline CPL and a documented test-and-scale plan.
Ask: "What are the specific deliverables in the first 30, 60, and 90 days?" Write them into the contract as a schedule of services. If the agency can't be specific before the engagement starts, they will not be specific during it.
At RGDM, the first 30 days are almost entirely infrastructure: tracking verification, account audit, pixel setup, landing page review. Campaigns don't scale until the measurement layer is confirmed accurate. You can see how that plays out in practice at our work.
Takeaway: Demand a written 90-day plan with named deliverables before you sign — it's both a planning tool and an accountability contract.
9. How Do You Handle Underperformance?
If an agency has no defined underperformance protocol, accountability isn't built into the relationship — it's an afterthought.
Every campaign has stretches where performance drops — algorithm updates, seasonal shifts, a competitor entering the market, a landing page test that fails. What separates a real operator from an order-taker is what happens next.
Ask: "If CPL jumps 40% for two consecutive weeks, what's your process?" You want to hear a specific answer: a performance trigger, a named person who owns the call, a structured review of spend data, a hypothesis, a test, and a timeline. What you don't want: "We'll take a look and see what's going on."
Also ask whether there's any performance-based component to their fee structure. An agency that has no financial skin in the outcome is structurally different from one that shares risk. It doesn't mean base retainers are wrong — but alignment matters, and how they answer this question tells you how they think about their own accountability.
Takeaway: Ask for the specific protocol — who calls whom, what data is reviewed, what the timeline is — not just a reassurance that they'll address it.
The Bottom Line
Nine questions, each with a specific answer you should expect. If an agency stumbles on more than two of them, that's your data. Confidence, specificity, and willingness to give you references and a written 90-day plan aren't asks you should have to fight for — they're the baseline for a competent operator.
If you want to see how we answer these questions, book a 30-minute call. We'll review your current spend, tracking setup, and where the revenue leak is — no pitch deck, real numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should I ask a marketing agency before hiring?
Ask nine things: who does the actual work, how they measure success (revenue vs. vanity metrics), whether they can show real conversion tracking, what their reports contain, who owns your accounts and data at exit, what the contract term and exit clause are, whether you can speak to a matched client reference, what the 90-day plan looks like in writing, and what their protocol is when performance drops.
How do I vet a marketing agency?
Start with the reference call — ask to speak to a client in your industry managing a similar budget. Then ask for a sample report (not a template) and a written 90-day deliverable schedule. Verify that you'll own all accounts, pixels, and data from day one. If the agency hesitates on any of these, that's your answer.
What are red flags when hiring a marketing agency?
Major red flags: vague answers about who manages your account day-to-day, reporting that leads with traffic and impressions instead of CPL and CPA, accounts or pixels held in the agency's name rather than yours, 12-month lock-ins with early-exit penalties, and no defined process for when campaigns underperform.
How long should a marketing agency contract be?
Month-to-month with 30-60 days notice is standard for paid media. A 3-month initial term is reasonable for SEO given longer feedback loops. Any contract requiring 12+ months with penalty clauses for paid search or social management is a lock-in structure, not a service structure — negotiate it before you sign.
Should I own my Google Ads account or can the agency own it?
You should own your Google Ads account with admin-level access from day one. The agency gets added as a manager. Account history — Quality Scores, audience lists, bidding signals, conversion data — has real compounding value. Losing it when you switch agencies means starting over with higher CPCs and lower performance from day one.
What does a good marketing agency report look like?
A good report covers: total spend, leads or conversions generated, cost per lead, cost per acquisition, what changed versus the prior period, and what action is being taken. It should be readable in five minutes. Reports that require a glossary or lead with industry benchmarks are designed to look thorough, not to communicate results.
How do I know if a marketing agency's results are real?
Ask to see the conversion tracking setup — not a dashboard screenshot, but the actual implementation. Which events fire, where, and how calls are attributed. If the agency can't walk you through this on a screen share in ten minutes, the numbers in their reports are unverified. Accurate tracking is the foundation; everything else is built on it.