Brand & Communication
How to choose a marketing agency: eight questions to ask before you sign
A marketing agency is an outside team that does the brand, content, advertising and analytics work in your place or alongside your own people. The choice should not be made on the strength of a pitch: nearly every agency pitches well, because a pitch is the product they build most often.
The eight questions below exist so you can see the difference before or beneath the presentation. They are deliberately uncomfortable, including for us.
1. Who will work on this every day
The founder or the strategist is often the person in the meeting, while somebody else does the daily work. Ask for names, roles, and how many other clients those people carry at the same time. Dodging the question is already an answer.
2. What will you measure, and when
"We will raise awareness" cannot be measured. Ask which two or three numbers they will watch in the first three months, and which of those connects to revenue. If the proposed metrics are dominated by likes and impressions, you are agreeing to activity rather than to a result.
3. Show me a case where it did not work
This single question says the most. A team that has never had anything go wrong is either new or is not telling you the truth. A good answer sounds like this: here is what did not work, here is why, and here is what we changed in the process afterwards.
4. Who owns the accounts and the files
Ad accounts, analytics, the domain, the social pages and the source files should be yours, with the agency holding access. If it is the other way round, ending the relationship means losing the history, the audience and the learning. This belongs in the contract, not in a meeting.
5. What happens if there is no result after three months
Ask what leaving looks like: notice period, what happens to unfinished work, what happens to money already paid. An agency that handles that conversation calmly is confident in its own results. An agency that changes the subject is selling a long contract rather than an outcome.
6. What is done with AI, and who checks it
Almost everyone uses AI now. What matters is not whether they use it but whether they admit it and who verifies the output. Ask two specific questions: at which stage does a model take part, and who checks the facts before anything is published. "We do not use AI" in 2026 is either untrue or an admission of inefficiency.
7. What is included in the price and what is not
Ask for the price broken down: working hours, media budget, production, licences and tools, each on its own line. The most common unpleasant surprise is a media budget that one side assumed was inside the fee and the other did not.
8. How and how often will you report
Ask how often you receive a report, in what form, and who you can reach when a question comes up mid-week. The quality of communication shows itself in the first month and rarely improves afterwards.
One question that is not worth asking
"How many clients have you worked with" rarely helps. Fifty clients can mean fifty one-month projects or five multi-year partnerships. Ask instead how long the average client stays. That one number says more than an entire portfolio.
If the list looks long
You do not need all eight in one meeting. Three will do: who works on it daily, what you will measure in three months, and show me a case where it did not work. Honest answers to those three make the other five predictable.
FAQ
Frequent questions
What is a marketing agency?
A marketing agency is an outside team that does brand, content, advertising and analytics work in place of a company's own staff or alongside them. Agencies differ by specialisation: some offer a full service, others cover a single area such as advertising or branding.
How do you choose a marketing agency?
By the answers to three questions rather than by the pitch: who will work on the account every day, which two or three numbers will be measured in the first three months, and can they describe a specific case where the result did not come. The contract should also state in writing that ad accounts and source files belong to the client.
What does a marketing agency cost?
It depends on the volume of work and the model: a monthly retainer, an hourly rate or a project fee. What matters is seeing the price broken down - working hours, media budget, production and tool licences on separate lines - because the most common misunderstanding is whether the media budget sits inside the fee.
How long before marketing shows a result?
Paid advertising gives the first measurable signals in two to four weeks; organic channels take three to six months. An agency promising sharp organic growth in the first month is not basing that promise on the tool.