Fifteen questions to ask before you hire an agency, and what an alarming answer sounds like
For marketing leads and founders assessing an agency or a media buyer without knowing the craft from the inside. Fifteen questions to ask, with what a healthy answer contains and what counts as an alarm.
You're choosing an agency or a media buyer, and you get one conversation, maybe two, to decide whether to sign. The problem isn't that you ask too little. The problem is that you can't hear whether the answer is any good. Someone can state something wrong with full confidence, and something correct with hesitation. Without knowing the craft from the inside, jargon and precision sound the same to you.
What's inside
- Fifteen questions, grouped into seven blocks, written out to copy straight into a conversation or an RFP
- Per question: why you ask it, what a healthy answer contains, and what answer is an alarm
- A way to weigh the answers without a scoring system that implies a precision it doesn't have
Where should we send the question list?
Why this works without knowing the craft
A healthy answer to a process question is specific, because the process itself is specific. Someone who looks at the same numbers every week names them without effort, and names the moment they look. Someone who doesn't have the process fills in the answer that best fits what you want to hear.
Vagueness is itself the signal, regardless of whether you speak the trade's vocabulary. The fifteen questions below are chosen so the difference between a working process and an invented answer shows up in the shape of the answer: a number against a feeling, a name against "the team," a fixed moment against "regularly." You don't need to know whether the approach is the right one. You only need to hear whether there is an approach.
The fifteen questions
Ask them verbatim, in this order or your own. Write the answer down, as close to word for word as you can. You'll need that exact phrasing later, to reread what was actually said.
Measurement and tracking
1. What exactly do you measure, and what don't you? Why: this exposes whether there's a distinction between what feeds bidding and what's reported only. Healthy: names concrete steps and points out a gap on their own. Alarm: "we measure everything," or only a platform dashboard mentioned, with no such distinction.
2. Who owns the ad account, the pixel, and the data? Why: ownership decides what you keep if you leave. Healthy: the account and pixel sit under your company's name, the agency works through partner access. Alarm: the agency holds the account or pixel under its own name, or hesitates on this question.
3. What happens to the measurement setup if we end the engagement? Why: this is the moment that reveals whether ownership was only on paper. Healthy: access and history stay with you, written into the contract. Alarm: "we'll sort that out when it happens," or the contract is silent on it.
Scaling decisions
4. What numbers decide whether you increase or decrease budget? Why: a scaling decision with no named criterion is a guess with an invoice attached. Healthy: names a specific metric and a threshold the metric is checked against. Alarm: "by feel," or "we just watch if it's going well."
5. Over what window is that decision made? Why: a one-day window tells you something different from a window matched to your sales cycle. Healthy: names a period and explains why it fits how long a lead or purchase takes to mature. Alarm: decides on a single day's numbers, or can't name a window at all.
Creative approach
6. How many creative variants run at the same time per campaign? Why: too few variants leave nothing to compare, too many dilute the volume per variant into noise. Healthy: names a number and explains the relationship to budget and volume. Alarm: one ad per campaign, or "as many as possible" with no reasoning.
7. How do you determine that something is a winner? Why: this separates a process from an impression. Healthy: names a comparison method and a minimum volume before a conclusion is drawn. Alarm: "that one is clearly performing better," with no window or volume mentioned.
8. Who makes the creative, and who signs off on it? Why: keeping production out of view is one way to hide a weak link. Healthy: a clear answer on who produces and who gives the final look. Alarm: no one knows precisely, or the answer shifts during the conversation.
Who does the work
9. Who actually works on this account, and how many hours per week or per month go into it? Why: the person in the sales pitch is rarely the person running the account day to day. Healthy: names a role, a person, a time commitment, and who provides senior oversight. Alarm: only the face from the sales pitch is named, or "the team" with no names or hours.
Reporting
10. What numbers do we get, and how often? Why: a fixed set on a fixed cadence can be compared over time, a dashboard on request can't. Healthy: names a fixed set of numbers and a fixed frequency, and can show a sample report. Alarm: "on request," or a dashboard with no explanation of what the numbers mean.
11. Do you bring bad news yourselves, or do we have to ask? Why: this predicts whether you hear a problem in time or only after it has already caused damage. Healthy: explains through which channel and at what point they flag a setback on their own. Alarm: an evasive answer, or "that doesn't happen often" as the only response.
Handoff to sales
12. How does a lead or inquiry reach sales, and what happens in the first 24 hours? Why: this is where revenue most often leaks, at the point between media and the sales team. Healthy: describes a concrete system, with a connection and a response time. Alarm: "that's on your side," with no interest in what happens after.
13. Who's responsible if lead quality drops: media or sales? Why: an answer that shifts all responsibility away leaves you alone with the next problem. Healthy: acknowledges shared responsibility and names how they track that together. Alarm: points entirely at sales, or doesn't know what happens to a lead after handoff.
Departure terms
14. Who owns the accounts, pixels, and campaigns if the relationship ends? Why: you'd rather hear this before you sign than during a termination. Healthy: written into the contract, ownership with you from day one. Alarm: ownership with the agency, or "that's never been an issue" with no written agreement.
15. What do we take with us in terms of history, and in what format? Why: without history, the next partner starts from zero. Healthy: an export of campaign data and creative in a usable format. Alarm: "access ends, and you won't need much more than that."
How to weigh the answers
Don't add up alarms into a score. That implies a precision that isn't there, a question about ownership doesn't carry the same weight as a question about reporting frequency.
Instead, read the answers in pairs. Questions 1 and 3 should confirm each other: what they measure, and what's left of it on departure. Questions 4 and 5 should confirm each other: the criterion, and the window that criterion is checked against. Questions 12 and 13 should confirm each other: how the handoff works, and who feels responsible for it. If the two answers in a pair contradict each other, that carries more weight than one vague answer on its own.
One sharp alarm on the three measurement and tracking questions outweighs scattered uncertainty elsewhere. Every other answer, about scaling, creative, reporting, rests on that layer. If that layer isn't solid, the rest is guesswork with an invoice attached.
Finally, pay attention to the shape of the answer, not just the content. A number, a name, a fixed moment is stronger than "usually," "the team," "regularly." Note one word per question: concrete, vague, or evasive. The pattern across fifteen questions tells you more than any single answer on its own.
Next step
This doesn't decide for you. It gives you a way to hear what you otherwise wouldn't. Ask the three measurement and tracking questions first, in every conversation from here on, before you talk budget or creative.