20 questions to ask before you sign with any agency
Twenty questions to ask a marketing agency before signing, why each one matters, and what a good answer sounds like. Use them on us too.
Before you sign with a marketing agency, ask questions that can only be answered with specifics. Ask what they will do in the first thirty days and what the first number in their report is. Ask who will own your accounts, and what happens if it does not work. Google gives the same advice to anyone hiring for SEO. Interview them, check their references, and ask what results they expect and in what timeframe (Google Search Central).
We wrote this list knowing you might use it on us. That is the point. An agency that cannot answer these plainly is telling you something, and you would rather find that out now than in month four. Print the page, take it to each call, and write the answers down.
The short version
- Ask questions that need a number, a name or a date to answer. General answers all sound alike.
- Make sure you own your analytics, ad accounts, Search Console and Business Profile. Each of these Google products has an owner or administrator role that controls access.
- Ask where links come from. Google’s spam policies treat buying or selling links for ranking purposes as link spam.
- Be wary of any promise of a first-place ranking. Google says no one can guarantee a number one ranking on Google.
- Ask for a real report with names removed, and count how many lines are about enquiries or sales.
- Ask the same questions of two or three agencies and compare the answers side by side.
What should you ask about the work itself?
Ask what they will actually do, in order, and how they decide. A good answer names the first tasks and says what they are measured against. A weak one starts with publishing.
| Question | Why it matters | A good answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| 1. What would you do in the first thirty days, specifically? | The first month shows whether they measure before they act | “Check your tracking, record a baseline, audit the site, then agree priorities with you” |
| 2. What would you stop doing if traffic went up and enquiries did not? | Shows whether enquiries or traffic is the real target | A named change, such as rewriting titles or moving effort to pages that bring calls |
| 3. Which of my current pages would you delete, and how would you decide? | Deleting a page that has links or rankings loses them | “None until we have checked its search and link history” |
| 4. Where do the links come from, specifically? | Google’s spam policies treat bought links as spam | Three examples of placements they earned, with the reason each site linked |
| 5. Who writes the content, and can I speak to them? | You need to know whether a person who knows your trade is writing | A name, their background, and a yes to a call |
| 6. What happens if my site needs rebuilding before any of this works? | Some sites cannot rank or convert until fixed | A plain answer about what they would check first and what it would cost |
The link question is the one to push hardest on. Google lists buying or selling links for ranking purposes as a form of link spam (Google Search Central). “Outreach” is not an answer. Placements you can go and look at are.
What should you ask about reporting and measurement?
Ask to see the report before you see the proposal. The order of the numbers in a report tells you what the agency thinks it is paid for.
| Question | Why it matters | A good answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| 7. Show me a real client report with the names removed | A sample report shows what you will get every month | A real report, with enquiries or sales in the first few lines |
| 8. What is the first number on the first page of your report? | The first number is what they want you to judge them on | Enquiries, calls, bookings or sales, with cost per enquiry beside it |
| 9. How will you know whether this worked, and when will we know it? | Without a date and a metric, nothing can be judged | “Non-branded enquiries, checked at month three and month six” |
| 10. How do you measure a phone call? | For many local businesses, calls are most of the enquiries | Call tracking or a call conversion in the ad account, and how they match calls to jobs |
| 11. What baseline will you record before starting, and will I get a copy? | Without a baseline, any later claim cannot be checked | A dated record of rankings, traffic and enquiries, sent to you |
| 12. Who owns the analytics and ad accounts? | Whoever owns them controls your history | “You do. We work as users you can remove” |
Photo: George Morina on Pexels.
Why should you own your accounts?
Because the accounts hold your history, and ownership decides who can remove whom. Each Google product has a role that controls access:
- Search Console needs at least one verified owner, and owners can add and remove other users (Search Console Help).
- Google Business Profile can have several owners but only one primary owner, who must transfer that role before leaving (Google Business Profile Help).
- Google Ads has an admin access level, and Google suggests adding more than one administrator so you do not lose access if one person becomes unavailable (Google Ads Help).
- Google Analytics reserves deleting users for the Administrator role at the account level (Analytics Help).
Our recommendation is that the business holds the owner or administrator role in all four, and the agency is added as a user. Check who is listed today, before you sign anything.
What should you ask about the relationship and the contract?
Ask who does the work, who you will speak to, and how you leave. The answers decide what the next year feels like.
| Question | Why it matters | A good answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| 13. Who will actually do the work, and will I ever speak to them? | The person selling is often not the person doing | Names and roles, and a yes to speaking with them |
| 14. Who is on the monthly call? | You want the person who knows your account on it | The person doing the work, with the senior person you met now |
| 15. What is the minimum commitment, and what happens after it? | The exit terms matter more than the start | A clear term, notice period and what happens at the end |
| 16. What do I keep if I leave? | Content, data and access should stay with you | “Everything: pages, content, accounts, data and access” |
| 17. What is not included in the fee? | Exclusions show where extra costs will come from | A written list: ad spend, content volume, development, tools |
Which three matter most if you only ask three?
These are the hardest to answer well and the most revealing.
| Question | Why it matters | A good answer sounds like |
|---|---|---|
| 18. What happens if it does not work? | Tells you whether any of the risk sits with them | A named point at which you can leave, or a written guarantee with its conditions |
| 19. Have you ever turned a client down, and why? | An agency that takes every client will take ones it cannot help | A real example and the reason |
| 20. Can I speak to a current client in a similar market? | A reference call is stronger evidence than a case study the agency wrote | A name you can call, ideally one you pick from their case studies |
On the first of these, many agencies work on a monthly retainer with no link to results. There is nothing wrong with that if it is said plainly, but you should know which arrangement you are in. On the third, Google’s advice is the same: check an SEO’s business references and ask past clients whether the work was useful (Google Search Central).
Photo: Jack Sparrow on Pexels.
How do you tell a good answer from a bad one?
Listen for specifics. An answer with a number, a name or a date in it describes a real account. An answer made of process and best practice sounds professional and commits to nothing.
You do not need to understand search or ads to run this list. You only need to notice which answers contain something you could check and which do not. Be careful with promises about rankings. Google says no one can guarantee a number one ranking, and warns against anyone who claims to (Google Search Central).
If you ask us these on a call, you will get an answer to every one, including the uncomfortable ones. Where the answer is that we cannot help you, we will say that too.
The bottom line
A good agency’s answers can be checked. Ask for the number, the name and the date, and write down what you hear. The agency whose answers you can verify is the one worth a second call.
Questions people ask about this
Is it rude to ask all twenty?
No, and an agency that treats it as rude has answered a question of its own. You are about to spend money over months. Twenty questions is proportionate, and any agency that has done this before will have heard most of them.
What if I do not understand the answer?
That is useful information. A good agency explains what it does in plain language, because it has to explain results to business owners every month. If an answer only makes sense to somebody who already does the job, either it was not thought through or you are being managed.
Should I ask several agencies the same questions?
Yes, and write the answers down as you go. Side by side, the difference between a specific answer and a general one becomes obvious in a way it does not in a single call, where everyone sounds reasonable.
What if the agency refuses to share a client report?
Treat it as a no. Names and figures can be removed, so confidentiality is not a reason to decline. An agency that has never produced a report it is proud of has told you what its reports look like. Ask instead for the headings of a report, in order. If enquiries or revenue do not appear in the first three, you have the same answer by a different route.
How do I check a reference call is genuine?
Ask for the client yourself rather than accepting an introduction, and pick one from the case studies rather than the one offered. On the call, ask what went wrong in the first three months and how it was handled. Every real engagement has a rough patch. A reference who cannot name one is either new to the agency or coached.
Should I ask these questions by email instead?
Ask them on a call and take notes. Written answers are polished by whoever sells for the agency, and you lose the pauses. A person who does the work answers a specific question quickly, because the answer already exists. A person who does not reaches for process language. That difference is audible and it disappears in writing.
What does a good first-month plan look like?
It starts with measurement and ends with a baseline you can keep. Expect tracking checked or rebuilt, a record of current rankings, traffic and enquiries, and a list of what is broken on the site. Publishing before that is guessing. If the plan opens with content or link building in week one, ask what the work is being measured against.
Can I use this list on my current agency?
Yes, and the results are usually clearer than on a prospect, because you have months of evidence to compare the answers against. Ask for the baseline they recorded, then ask what has moved since. If there is no baseline, that is a finding. If the report still leads with impressions after a year, you already know what you are paying for.
Why does account ownership matter so much?
Because the accounts hold your history. Analytics data, ad account learning, Search Console and the Business Profile all belong to the business. An agency that holds them as owner can take that history with it when you leave. Check now, in the account settings, who is listed as owner. If it is the agency, ask for the transfer before signing anything else.
What if every agency gives the same answers?
Then the questions were too easy or the answers were too general, and you need to push on the specifics. Ask for the name of a page, a date on which a change happened, and the number that moved afterwards. General answers all sound alike. Specific answers cannot, because they describe different accounts.
Is a long minimum contract always a bad sign?
Not on its own. Search work takes months to show, and an agency asking for a fair run at it is being honest about the timeline. The problem is a long term with no exit. Ask what happens if the reported numbers do not move by an agreed month. An agency confident in its work will name a point at which you can leave.
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