12 questions to ask a marketing agency before you sign
Most lists like this ask about deliverables. Deliverables are the easy part. These are the questions that surface how an agency will behave once the pitch is over — including the ones we find uncomfortable.
Agency relationships rarely fail over the work. They fail over four things nobody discusses in the pitch: who actually does the work once you sign, how the money really behaves, whether you will be told the truth when results are poor, and what you walk away with if it ends. Ask about those four and you will learn more in twenty minutes than any credentials deck can tell you.
Why the usual questions don't help
Ask an agency what they'll deliver and you'll get a confident, competent answer. Every agency has rehearsed that one. It sorts nobody, because the number of posts or blogs or campaigns is almost never why a relationship goes wrong.
What goes wrong is quieter. The senior person who pitched is unreachable by month two. The reporting only ever shows the metrics that went up. The contract turns out to run twelve months. Nobody mentioned that the ad account is in the agency's name until you asked to leave.
This matters more than it used to, because these relationships are getting longer. The ANA and 4As found that average client-agency tenure has doubled from 3.2 years in 2016 to roughly seven years — and that independent agencies average 7.3 years against 5.8 for holding-company ones. You are not making a decision about the next quarter. You are choosing who to be in a room with for years.
Twelve questions, in four groups. For each, what a good answer sounds like — and what should worry you.
Who will actually do the work
01
Who will work on my account day to day, and can I meet them before I sign?
The most common complaint about agencies anywhere is that the people who pitched are not the people who deliver. This question is not rude. It is the single most useful thing you can ask.
02
How many other clients does that person carry?
Talent isn't the constraint in most agencies. Capacity is. A brilliant account lead across eleven clients will give you the attention of an average one.
03
What do you need from us to do this well?
Good marketing is not something done to a business from outside. If an agency needs nothing from you, either they are not planning to understand your business, or they are being polite about a dependency that will surface as a complaint in month three.
How the money actually behaves
04
Is media spend inside or outside this fee?
The most expensive misunderstanding in marketing budgets, and it is almost always accidental. A fee that looks affordable can leave nothing to actually reach anyone with.
05
Does your fee go up if our ad spend goes up?
Percentage-of-spend pricing is legitimate and common. It also means your agency earns more when you spend more, which is worth naming out loud rather than discovering later.
06
What is not included in this number?
Ask it in the negative. It is much harder to gloss over than "what's included?" Photography, paid tools, influencer fees, video editing and translation are the usual surprises.
How you'll know whether it's working
07
What will you report, how often — and what does a bad month look like in that report?
The second half of that question is the one that matters. Any agency can describe a dashboard. Far fewer can describe how they'll tell you something went badly.
08
What will we actually see in the first 30, 60 and 90 days?
Early months are where trust is built or quietly lost. Vagueness here usually means there is no onboarding process, just an intention to start.
09
What happens if it isn't working at three months?
Every plan looks good on signing day. What separates agencies is whether they have a mechanism for admitting a plan is wrong, or simply keep invoicing while hoping.
What happens when it ends
10
Who owns the ad accounts, analytics and creative files?
Settle this before signing, never during an exit. If an agency creates ad accounts under its own business manager, you can lose years of conversion history and audience data on the day you leave — and it will be too late to argue.
11
What is the notice period, and what actually happens during it?
A ninety-day notice period during which work quietly stops is a real and common problem. The length matters less than what is committed to inside it.
12
Tell me about a client you couldn't help. What went wrong?
The honesty test. Every agency of any age has failed a client. What you're listening for is whether they can describe it without blaming the client entirely, and what they changed afterwards.
The thirteenth question, if you only ask one
What kind of client are you wrong for?
An agency that knows what it is bad at has thought seriously about what it is good at. An agency that claims to suit everyone has usually not decided what it is — which means your strategy will be whatever they happen to sell.
We would rather be asked this than most things on the list. If it helps: we are the wrong choice for a business that already knows exactly what it wants made and just needs it produced cheaply and fast. That is a real need, and a freelancer or a production studio will serve it better than we will.
- Ask who does the work, not just what the work is. It is the most predictive question on the list.
- Settle account and file ownership before signing. It cannot be fixed later.
- Ask what a bad month looks like in your reporting. Honest agencies have an answer ready.
- Short initial commitment, long relationship — not the other way round.
Common questions
What should I ask a marketing agency before signing a contract?
Ask about four things most pitch conversations skip: who will actually do the work day to day and how many other clients they carry; whether media spend sits inside or outside the fee; what a bad month will look like in your reporting; and who owns the ad accounts, analytics and creative files if you part ways. Deliverables are easy to agree on. These four are where relationships actually fail.
Who owns the ad accounts if I leave my agency?
Whoever the contract says, which is why it must be settled before signing rather than during an exit. Insist that your business owns the Google Ads, Meta Business and analytics accounts and grants the agency access, rather than the agency creating accounts it owns. If accounts are already in the agency's name, you can lose years of conversion history and audience data on the day you leave.
How long should a marketing agency contract be?
Keep the initial commitment short and let the relationship be long. Three to six months is usually enough to judge whether the working relationship functions, while twelve-month lock-ins signed before you have seen any work mostly protect the agency. Industry data suggests good client-agency relationships now average around seven years, so a long partnership is normal — it just should not be contractually forced at the start.
Where these figures came from
Client-agency tenure figures are from the ANA and 4As report on relationship tenure. The rest of this article is drawn from experience on both sides of the table rather than from published research, and is offered as such.
Twelve years in brand strategy and marketing leadership — including years spent commissioning agencies rather than running one, which is where most of this list comes from. More about Megnon →