Choosing an Agency: Nine Questions Before You Sign

Why does choosing an agency go wrong so often?

Three agencies have pitched. All three had beautiful slides, well-known logos and a convincing team at the table. You pick the most likeable or the cheapest. Six months later you are looked after by someone you have never seen, you do not understand the reports, and nobody can tell you whether the work brings in orders.

This is rarely down to bad intent. It is down to the nature of the business. Agencies sell with their best people and deliver with the available ones. As a client, you can only judge the work once it is there. And most owners buy a service like this only every few years, while the agency sells every week.

You make up for this difference with preparation. You do not need expertise in search engine optimization or ad buying for that. You need questions that show in advance how an agency works, and a few arrangements that keep you independent. Put simply, the question is: how do you find an agency that measurably helps your sales, and how do you stay independent in the process? To answer it, we first clarify what needs to be settled before you inquire, then go through the nine questions for the first meeting and the question of ownership, and end with comparing proposals, making the decision, and a pilot project.

In the sales meeting an agency shows its best side. How it handles uncomfortable questions shows the side you will work with later.

What do you need to clarify before you approach an agency?

Many disappointments arise before the first agency is contacted. If you order “more visibility”, you get visibility and wonder why no orders come of it. So first clarify four things with yourself and write them on one page. This document is called a brief.

1. Goal in sales numbers

   How many additional inquiries or orders do you want in twelve months, and for which service? A goal such as “20 qualified inquiries a month for service X” can be checked.

2. Starting point

   How many inquiries come in today, through which channels, and what becomes of them? Without a baseline, nobody can prove an improvement later.

3. Budget and time

   What total amount is available in the first year, including ad spend? How many hours a month can you or someone on the team contribute?

4. Responsibility in-house

   Who is the contact person, who approves, and who handles the inquiries that are supposed to come?

Send the brief to three or four agencies that fit your size. An agency whose smallest client spends ten times your budget will treat you kindly and serve you as an afterthought.

The nine-question test: what do you ask in the first meeting?

I group these nine questions under the name nine-question test. Ask every agency in the same order and write down the answers. That way you compare answers and not presentations.

1. Who specifically will work on our project, and can I talk to that person?
2. What results have you achieved for a company of our size, and may I call them?
3. How do we measure success after three and after twelve months?
4. Who owns the website, domain, ad accounts and data?
5. What is not included in the price?
6. What does working together look like each week, and how much time do you need from us?
7. How do we get out of the contract, and what is handed over to us then?
8. Which parts of the work do you subcontract to third parties?
9. What would you advise us against?

Questions one, two and eight clarify who actually does the work. Questions three and six clarify how the work is done and measured. Questions four, five and seven protect your property and your budget. The ninth question is the most important one, because it shows whether the agency has engaged with your company.

How do you recognize good answers, and what are the warning signs?

Good agencies answer concretely, name limits and ask questions back. Weak answers stay general, promise a lot and dodge when it comes to numbers. The table sets the two side by side.

Actually call the reference. Ask three things there: what changed about the inquiries, how did it go when something went wrong, and would you sign again? Ten minutes on the phone say more than any case study on the website.

Who owns the website, domain, ad accounts and data?

This question decides whether you can change agencies without starting from scratch. The principle is simple: everything that has value beyond the collaboration runs through your company. The agency is given access, and you can withdraw that access at any time.

Have these points confirmed in the contract and check them after the start by logging into each account yourself once. This is not legal advice. For larger engagements it is worth having the contract reviewed by a professional before signing, especially the clauses on usage rights, term and data processing.

How do you compare agency proposals properly?

Proposals can rarely be compared directly because every agency includes different things. The lowest quoted price is therefore often not the cheapest proposal. Put all proposals into the same table and add every line that is missing from a provider. The following worked example shows three proposals for a website and ongoing support in the first year.

With advertising, the ad spend that goes to the platform comes on top. It is not part of the fee and should be shown separately in every proposal.

Which pricing model fits?

How do you make the decision? A scorecard

After three meetings, impressions blur. A simple scorecard helps you stick to the answers. Award zero to two points per question: zero for an evasive answer, one point for a usable one, two for a concrete and substantiated one. The maximum is 18.

The score does not replace your judgment; it organizes it. Two rules make sense here. A zero on question four, ownership, is a knockout criterion as long as it has not been resolved. And when scores are similar, the person who will actually work for you decides, because that is who you will spend the coming months with.

How do you start working together with little risk?

The best test of an agency is a piece of real work. So, where possible, start with a limited pilot project and not with an annual contract. That can be a service page with a campaign, a technical audit with an action plan or a topic area with three articles.

1. Week 1: start with access and baselines

   You create the accounts and invite the agency. Together you record how many inquiries come in per source today.

2. Weeks 2 to 4: first delivery

   The agency delivers the first visible result. You see what coordination, pace and quality look like day to day.

3. From week 4: fixed rhythm

   A short meeting every two weeks and a monthly report that ends at inquiries and not at clicks.

4. Day 90: agreed checkpoint

   You review the interim targets from question three. After that you decide whether to continue, adjust or stop.

The checkpoint after 90 days rarely tests orders yet; the time is usually too short for that. It tests whether what was promised has been delivered, whether measurement is in place and whether the early metrics point in the right direction.

First steps for this week

Whether you are searching right now or already working with an agency, these steps are worth it in both cases. In an existing relationship, the nine questions make a good agenda for the next annual review.

• Write the brief on one page: goal in sales numbers, starting point, budget, responsibility.
• Check whose name the domain, hosting, ad accounts and analytics are in today, and log into each one yourself once.
• Send the nine questions to every agency before the meeting.
• Call one reference per agency.
• Put all proposals into one table and add the missing items.
• Fill in the scorecard right after each meeting.
• Propose a pilot project with a checkpoint after 90 days.

A good agency will be grateful for this preparation. Clear goals, quick approvals and honest feedback from sales are exactly what it needs to do good work.

We started by asking how you find an agency that measurably helps your sales without making you dependent. The answer lies less in the pitch than in your preparation: a clear brief, questions about results for comparable clients, accounts registered to your company, and a comparison of total costs in the first year. Whether the relationship works is then shown by a limited pilot with a checkpoint after 90 days.