What questions should I ask a marketing agency before signing?

The short answer

The short answer Ask twelve, but four decide it: who does the work day to day, what ships in month one with dates, who owns the ad accounts and content, and what result do you expect and when. Google's own guidance says walk away from anyone guaranteeing a number one ranking. The four that decide it 1. Who.

The short answer

Ask twelve, but four decide it: who does the work day to day, what ships in month one with dates, who owns the ad accounts and content, and what result do you expect and when. Google’s own guidance says walk away from anyone guaranteeing a number one ranking.

The four that decide it

1. Who does the work, day to day, and can I meet them now? The most common gap between pitch and delivery is personnel. The strategist who wins the account often manages 12 accounts and touches yours quarterly. Ask for the name, the title, the hours per month, and a fifteen-minute call with that person before you sign. If the answer is “our team,” ask again.

2. What ships in month one, with dates? A real answer is a list: audit delivered by the 10th, tracking rebuilt by the 15th, first three landing pages live by the 28th. A weak answer is a phase name. “Discovery” is not a deliverable.

3. Who owns the accounts and the content? Google Ads, Meta, Analytics, Search Console, the domain, the CMS, and every page produced should be in your entity’s name from day one. Agencies that hold accounts are holding you in place. When you leave, you lose conversion history, audience lists and quality score, and rebuilding costs months.

4. What result do you expect, and in what timeframe? This is Google’s own recommended question in its Search Central guidance on hiring search help. The right answer is a range with the assumptions written down. The wrong answer is a guarantee. Google is explicit: “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.”

The other eight, in order

What does the monthly report contain? Ask to see a real one, redacted. If it leads with impressions and reach rather than cost per lead and conversion rate, you know the reporting philosophy.
How is media budget separated from your fee? Pass-through at cost, itemised. Blended “all-in” pricing hides both the take rate and what is actually working in the account.
What are your assumptions about our cost per lead? Any agency worth hiring knows the benchmark. Across 13,474 US search campaigns, WordStream put the 2026 median cost per lead at $66.69, with home improvement at $90.92 and legal at $131.63. If their forecast is far below the category median, ask what they know that the benchmark does not.
How do you build links, specifically? Google’s spam policies define buying or selling links for ranking purposes as a violation unless qualified with rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored”. “We have relationships with publishers” usually means paid placements. Ask what happens if a link is disavowed.
What happens if we miss the target in month six? The answer reveals whether there is a plan or a renewal.
What do you need from us, and how fast? Agencies fail on unresponsive clients as often as on bad strategy. If they cannot name what they need from you, they have not thought about delivery.
Which of your clients most resembles us, and can I speak to them? Not a logo wall. A phone call with a current client in a comparable category.
What are the exit terms and the data handover? Notice period, what transfers, in what format, within how many days.

Question	Answer that passes	Answer that fails
Who does the work?	Named person, hours/month, on the call today	“Your dedicated team”
Month one deliverables	Itemised list with dates	“Discovery and strategy phase”
Account ownership	Client-owned from day one, in writing	“We manage that for you”
Expected result	A range plus stated assumptions	A guaranteed ranking or lead count
Link building method	Named tactics, policy-compliant	“Publisher relationships,” no detail
Reporting	CPL, CVR, leads by source	Impressions, reach, engagement

Red flags Google itself lists

Google’s guidance names several warning signs that translate directly to any marketing vendor: firms that contact you unsolicited by email, that will not clearly explain what they intend to do, that promote link popularity schemes or bulk search engine submission, and third-party tools claiming to be “approved” by Google, which none are.

Add two of our own. First, a proposal with no numbers in it. Second, pricing that is far below market for the promised scope. In a 260-agency survey, SE Ranking found 64 percent charge under $1,000 a month and hourly rates cluster at $50 to $100. A $900 retainer is roughly ten hours. Ten hours cannot deliver a multi-channel program, and any proposal claiming otherwise is describing something that will not happen.

What we’d do

TACK™ has run over 2,500 campaigns for more than 300 brands since 2009, and every one of those engagements started with the same four answers written down: who, what, by when, and who owns it. Scopes are deliverable lists with dates. Accounts are client-owned from day one. Reporting leads with cost per lead and conversion rate.

The two motions are Get Found for organic and AI visibility and Get Leads for paid media and conversion. See the full capabilities or the case studies. Engagements start at $5,000 per month.

Common mistakes

Asking about tactics instead of accountability. Which bid strategy they use matters far less than who is responsible when the number misses.

Taking the deck as the deliverable. Pitch quality correlates with new-business investment, not delivery quality. Ask for a client’s actual monthly report instead.

Negotiating price before scope. Cutting a fee without cutting deliverables just moves the cut somewhere you cannot see it.

Skipping the reference call. Fifteen minutes with a current client in your category answers more than a two-hour pitch.

The bottom line

Four questions do most of the work: who, what by when, who owns it, and what result by when. Get all four in writing before you sign, and treat any guarantee of rankings as a reason to end the conversation.

If you want to run those questions past someone with no stake in the answer, book a call with TACK™ or call 310-620-1141.