Choosing a marketing agency is hard when you can't easily judge the work itself. Most businesses only find out an arrangement isn't working after several months and a fair amount of money. These are the warning signs worth checking for before you sign, and the questions that tell you a lot about how an agency will actually operate.
Long lock-in contracts
A minimum term long enough to cover setup is reasonable. A long contract with steep exit fees mostly protects the agency, not you. Good work tends to keep clients without needing a contract to do it. Ask what happens if you want to leave, and how much notice is required.
You don't own the accounts
Your Google Ads account, analytics, Google Business Profile, domain and website should be in your name, with the agency given access. If an agency runs everything in its own accounts, you can lose your history, data and sometimes your website when you leave. Ask directly: "If we part ways, what do we keep?"
Guaranteed rankings or results
No one can guarantee first place on Google or a fixed number of leads, because no agency controls the search engines, your competitors or your market. Promises like these are a sign of either inexperience or a sales pitch that will be walked back later. A credible agency will tell you what it will do, how it will measure progress and what is outside its control.
Reporting on vanity metrics
Impressions, clicks, traffic and "engagement" are easy to grow and easy to report. They don't pay your bills. Ask to see an example report. It should show enquiries, how many were qualified, and ideally how many turned into work, with the cost of each. If the report is mostly charts of activity, you'll struggle to tell whether the money is working.
Fees tied to your ad spend
Percentage-of-spend fees aren't always wrong, but they reward spending more rather than spending better. A flat, agreed fee for a defined scope keeps the incentives aligned with your results. Either way, your ad spend should be paid directly to the platform from your own account so you can see exactly where it goes.
You never speak to the person doing the work
It's common to be sold by a senior person and then handed to a junior account manager, or to work that has been outsourced. Ask who will actually run your account, what their experience is, and whether you can speak to them before signing.
No clear scope
"Ongoing SEO" or "campaign management" can mean almost anything. A good proposal says what will be done, in what order, how often you'll hear from them and how success will be measured. If you can't tell what you're paying for each month, that ambiguity usually works against you.
One-size-fits-all packages
Bronze, silver and gold packages with fixed deliverables are easy to sell but rarely match what your business needs. A sensible starting point is a diagnosis of where enquiries are actually being lost, followed by work aimed at that constraint.
Questions worth asking before you sign
- Who will work on our account day to day, and can we meet them?
- Do we own every account, the website and the data?
- What exactly is included each month, and what costs extra?
- How will you measure success, and what will the report show?
- What's the notice period, and what happens to our accounts if we leave?
- Can you show us real reviews or references from businesses like ours?
What good looks like
A good agency is clear about scope, puts the accounts in your name, reports on enquiries and revenue rather than activity, and is honest about what it can and can't control. You can read how we work and see our pricing to judge us by the same standard.