Questions to Ask a Digital Marketing Agency
These are questions for the meetings before you sign with a full-service digital marketing agency, one that would handle your search, paid ads, content, social media and email together. They are grouped in the order those meetings usually run: the people on your account, their results for businesses like yours, the channel and budget plan, reporting, ownership of the accounts and data, and finally fees and how you would leave. If you are hiring for one channel only, the People, Reporting and Ownership groups still apply as written.
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The questions
Each question, and why to ask it
People
Who would run each channel for us: search, paid ads, content, social and email?
Why ask it
A full-service agency is several specialists under one invoice, so ask for a name against each channel and how many other accounts that person carries. One name against all five often means a generalist working from checklists. A blank beside a channel is likely the one that gets bought in or done last.
Is there one strategist over all our channels, and how often would we talk to them?
Why ask it
The reason to hire one agency instead of five is that someone decides between the channels. Find out who that is, whether they join the regular call or only the pitch, and whether they can move budget without a new proposal. If each channel reports to you separately, you are the strategist.
Which channels do your own staff run, and which go to contractors or white-label partners?
Why ask it
Buying in a channel is common and no mark against them. What matters is being told which one, who checks that work before you see it, and whether the outside firm gets your logins and customer data. The useful follow-up is what the agency adds to the bought-in channel besides its margin.
What would you need from our side to do this well, and how many hours a month should we plan for?
Why ask it
Five channels mean five sets of requests: logins, product knowledge for the writers, photos, offers for the email calendar, and word from your sales team on which leads were any good. Have them list it by channel so you can put a name on your side against each line. 'Nothing, we take care of everything' sounds generous and tends to produce marketing that could be about any company.
Will the people in this meeting still be on our account six months from now, and who steps in if one of them leaves?
Why ask it
Pitches are often led by senior people who step back once the contract is signed, so find out who stays after kickoff and how long each has been at the agency. People change jobs at every agency, so what you are checking is the handover: written notes on your account, an introduction to the replacement, and hearing about it before a new name appears on an email.
Whose approval does an article, an ad or an email need before it goes out, and how long can we take?
Why ask it
Slow sign-off on the client side is a common reason a content calendar slips, and agencies know it. Settle who on your side approves what, a turnaround in days, and what the agency does when the deadline passes: wait, publish, or give the slot to another piece.
How do your search, paid and content people share what they learn about our account?
Why ask it
A paid search account can show within weeks which phrases turn into customers, which is exactly what the content and SEO people need and often never see. The answer you want is a routine: a shared document, a joint meeting, one plan. 'We all sit near each other' is a seating chart, so press for an example from a current client.
Which of our deliverables would be drafted with AI tools, and who edits them before they carry our name?
Why ask it
Go channel by channel, since ad variations, blog drafts and report summaries carry different risks. Pin down who checks facts and product claims, and whether anything you send them is pasted into outside tools. A fee that was priced on human writing hours may deserve a second look.
What did it take to earn the partner badges on your website, and who on our account holds the certifications?
Why ask it
Each platform sets its own rules for partner status, and they can rest on ad spend managed or exams passed as much as on client results, so have them explain what theirs required. A badge tells you the agency is active on that platform. Whether the person holding the certificate would ever touch your campaigns is the part worth hearing.
Results
Which current clients are closest to us in size, sales cycle and monthly budget?
Why ask it
A shop taking card payments, a clinic booking appointments and a firm with a six-month sale need different mixes, and so does a budget a tenth the size. Ask what they ran for the closest match and what they would do differently for you. If their nearest client is nothing like you, it is better heard now than discovered in month four.
Can you walk us through one account where several channels worked together, in the client's own analytics?
Why ask it
A slide with one percentage on it hides the starting point and the time it took, while a screen share of the real account shows the baseline, the dips and which channel carried the result. Give them a few days' notice, since they may need that client's permission. Notice whether they credit a price change or the client's own team with any of it.
Which clients may we call, and can one of them be a business that stopped working with you?
Why ask it
Put the same three things to each: who really did the work, whether the leads in the reports turned into sales, and how the handover went or would go. A former client who still takes the call is a good sign in itself. With the current ones, finish on what they would change.
What share of your clients renew after their first term, and what do the ones who leave tell you?
Why ask it
Renewal after the first term counts only clients who were free to go, which makes it a fairer figure than an average length of stay. Nobody outside the agency can audit the number, so the reasons matter more. Budgets cut and businesses sold are ordinary; 'they wanted faster results' said of several clients points back at how results were forecast.
Do any of your clients compete with us for the same customers or the same search phrases?
Why ask it
In paid search this is more than a matter of loyalty: two clients bidding on the same phrases in the same area are in the same auctions, with one agency setting both bids. Find out whether they would turn a rival away while you are a client, how wide they draw 'rival' (your trade, your town, your keywords), and whether that would go in the contract. Experience in your field and a conflict can be the same fact, so decide which you would rather have.
Which channel is your strongest, and which would you tell us to buy from someone else?
Why ask it
Many full-service agencies grew out of one discipline, such as search, web design or paid media, and added the rest later. Knowing the home discipline tells you where their best people sit. An agency that names a weak channel and suggests a specialist for it is easier to believe about the others.
Having looked at our site, our ads and our social accounts, what would you fix first?
Why ask it
It works as a small free sample. Remarks that could only be about your business, such as a form that fails on a phone or ads sending people to the homepage, show someone spent an hour on you; a score out of a hundred from an audit tool shows they spent a minute. Either way, have them say why that fix comes before the others.
How do you market your own agency, and which channel brings you most of your clients?
Why ask it
An agency selling content with a blog last updated two years ago, or selling social with silent accounts, has something to explain. Referrals are a respectable answer, since they mean clients speak well of the work. Look at their site and feeds before the meeting so you can ask about what you saw.
Tell us about an account where one channel never paid off. What did you do with that budget?
Why ask it
Across five channels something will underperform, so the story should come easily. Listen for how long they gave it, what figure made them stop, and whether the money moved to a channel that was working or stayed put because the retainer was fixed by channel.
What would you expect for us at three, six and twelve months, and what is that built on?
Why ask it
Paid channels can show something in weeks while search and content usually take far longer, so a sensible forecast has a different shape for each. Have them state what the figures assume about your budget, your approvals and your site. A range with conditions gives you something to review against; one confident number does not.
Would you put any result in writing as a guarantee, and what happens if you miss it?
Why ask it
No agency controls where a search engine ranks a page or what an ad auction charges, so read any promise closely. Check whether it covers something that matters, such as qualified leads, or something easy, such as traffic or rankings for phrases nobody types. Who does the measuring, and whether a miss means a refund, free months or nothing, belongs in the same clause.
Channels and budget
How would you decide which channels we start with and which ones wait?
Why ask it
A proposal that switches on everything in month one spreads a small budget too thin to learn from. Good reasoning starts from how your customers look for what you sell and how soon you need results. The follow-up is what would have to be true before a waiting channel is added.
How would our monthly budget divide between your fee, ad spend and content production?
Why ask it
Three pots blur easily into one headline figure. If the fee swallows most of it, little is left to put in front of customers; if ad spend takes nearly all, ask who is being paid to think. Get the split per channel as well, and what they would expect to change after the first quarter.
What is the smallest ad budget at which paid search or paid social is worth running for us?
Why ask it
Below some level a campaign gathers too few clicks to tell a good ad from a bad one, and the management fee outweighs the spend. Where that level sits depends on what clicks cost in your trade and area, so ask how they worked theirs out. An honest floor may mean starting on one platform instead of three.
What happens in the first 30, 60 and 90 days?
Why ask it
The first month is usually access, tracking checks, audits and a plan, with paid campaigns the earliest thing to go live. A good answer has dated deliverables per channel and says which of them are waiting on you. A plan that publishes and launches in week one, before anyone has checked what is being measured, is moving too fast.
How often do you move money between channels, and what makes you do it?
Why ask it
This is the practical test of the word 'integrated'. You want a rule: a monthly review, a cost per lead that triggers a shift, a person allowed to make the call. If the retainer fixes each channel's share for the year, the agency has no reason to tell you one of them is not earning its place.
Would an article written for search be reused in our emails, social posts and ads, or is each channel's content made separately?
Why ask it
Reuse is one of the real savings of having everything under one roof. Have them trace one piece from another client all the way through: the article, the email that linked to it, the posts cut from it. If each channel has its own writer and its own calendar, you are paying for several small agencies.
How do you choose what to write about, and who decides a topic is worth an article?
Why ask it
A calendar built only from keyword volumes produces articles that match everyone else's. Better inputs are the questions your sales and support people hear, the phrases your paid search has already shown to convert, and gaps in what competitors cover. A real brief that was handed to a writer will show which of those they use.
Who fixes the website when a landing page, a form or page speed is holding the campaigns back?
Why ask it
Every channel ends at your site, so a slow page or a broken form taxes all of them at once. Find out whether the agency can edit the site itself, whether that work is in the fee, and what happens when the fix needs your developer. Left unassigned, it becomes the problem each side points at later.
How would you grow and look after our email list, and what would you send to it?
Why ask it
Email is often the service with the thinnest plan behind it, so get specifics: what a new subscriber receives in the first week, how often the list hears from you, and how sign-ups are collected. Consent rules for marketing email differ by country. The agency should be able to say which ones apply to your subscribers and how its sign-up forms meet them.
On social media, would you post, run the paid campaigns, answer comments and messages, or all three?
Why ask it
These are three jobs with three prices, and a proposal often means only the first. Replies are the sticking point: decide which ones the agency may answer, which come to you, and how fast a complaint is passed on. Settle who covers evenings and weekends, or agree that nobody does.
Reporting
Which two or three figures should decide whether we renew with you?
Why ask it
Making them choose forces a ranking that a forty-line dashboard avoids. Good choices sit close to money: qualified leads, cost per customer, revenue from the channels they run. Write the chosen figures into the agreement along with today's values, so the renewal conversation starts from numbers both sides accepted.
What counts as a lead in your reports, and how do you take out spam, job seekers and existing customers?
Why ask it
A form fill and a customer are a long way apart, and an agency judged on lead count has every reason to count generously. Agree the definition before work starts and write it down. Someone also has to go through the leads and mark the junk, so settle whether that is them, you, or nobody.
Can you show us a report you sent a client last month and point to the part that changed a decision?
Why ask it
Any agency can produce charts; the second half of the question finds out whether the report is read by its own authors. Look for a few lines in plain words saying what was done, what happened and what changes next, with leads and sales ahead of impressions and followers. While it is on screen, settle how often yours would arrive and who would talk you through it.
Will you connect your reporting to our CRM or sales records, so we can see which leads became customers?
Why ask it
Without that link the agency tunes for what it can see, which is enquiries, and the cheapest enquiries are often the worst ones. They will need something from you: CRM access, a monthly export, or a salesperson marking outcomes. If your records are a spreadsheet, say so and find out how they have worked with one before.
When a customer saw an ad, read an article and opened an email before buying, which channel gets the credit?
Why ask it
There is no single right answer, only a method they can explain. Crediting the last click flatters branded search and email; crediting the first flatters whatever is good at introductions. Ask which model their reports use, why, and whether the channels' separate reports ever add up to more sales than you made.
How do you track phone calls, form fills and chats, and who checks that the tracking still works?
Why ask it
Tracking breaks quietly: a site update drops a tag, a form changes, a consent tool is reconfigured, and the reports go on looking normal. Listen for a regular test, such as someone submitting each form every month. If your business runs on calls, ask how a call is tied back to the ad or page that produced it.
How will you separate people who searched for our name from people who had never heard of us?
Why ask it
Searches for your company name convert well because those people were already on their way, and the SEO report and the paid search report will both happily claim them. Have branded and non-branded results put on separate lines every month. The non-branded line is the one that shows new demand.
How do you report on visitors you cannot track because of consent banners, ad blockers and private browsing?
Why ask it
Part of your audience is invisible to analytics, and the ad platforms fill the gap with estimates. An agency should be able to say which of its numbers are counted and which are modeled, and how it checks them against your own sales. Be wary of a report in which nothing is uncertain.
After a bad month, who calls us, how soon, and what do they bring?
Why ask it
You are asking for the procedure, since no agency can promise there will be no bad months. A good one has a named person, a few days at most, a cause they have checked and a change they propose. On the reference calls, find out whether that client heard about their worst month from the agency or noticed it in their own sales first.
Ownership
Will the ad accounts, analytics, Search Console and business listing be in our company's name, with you added as a user?
Why ask it
Accounts opened under the agency's login hold your campaign history, audience lists and conversion data, and those can be hard or impossible to take with you. The clean setup is that you own each account and grant access you can remove. If they insist on running ads in an account of theirs, ask why, and what you would receive on leaving.
If you build landing pages or a new site for us, where will it be hosted, and could another developer take it over?
Why ask it
Pages built in the agency's own page builder or on its hosting may stop working the month you stop paying. Three things to pin down: who registers the domain, who holds the hosting account, and whether the site runs on a system other developers know. A landing page tool on their license is fine if you are told so now and can export the pages.
Once we have paid, who owns the articles, images, video and ad creative, including the editable files?
Why ask it
Ownership comes from what the contract says and the law where you are, so read the clause instead of assuming. Go through published work, unused drafts and source files such as design and video projects one at a time. Stock photos and music are usually licensed, not owned, so find out whose license they sit under and whether it carries over to you.
Which software would our marketing run on, whose license is it, and what do we lose if we leave?
Why ask it
Email platforms, call tracking, reporting dashboards and scheduling tools are often on the agency's own plan. That is cheaper while you stay and awkward when you go: tracked phone numbers, email automations and years of reports may not come with you. Go tool by tool on which could be moved to an account of yours, and what that would cost.
Who holds the passwords to our social accounts, email platform and website, and how are they kept?
Why ask it
The safe pattern is that your company is the owner or admin of every account and each agency person has an individual login you can remove in a minute. One shared password in a spreadsheet means you cannot tell who did what, and it has to be changed every time someone leaves the agency. Find out how quickly access is removed when one of their own staff goes.
What customer data of ours would you hold, and what happens to it when the contract ends?
Why ask it
Email lists, CRM exports and uploaded audience files are personal information about your customers, so treat handing them over as a decision in itself. Where are the files kept, who can open them, do subcontractors see them, and how is deletion confirmed afterwards? Privacy rules differ by country and state, and the agency should be able to name the ones that cover your customers and say how it meets them.
Fees and exit
How is your fee worked out: a flat retainer, a share of ad spend, a price per channel, or by the hour?
Why ask it
Each model rewards something. A share of ad spend pays more when you spend more, a flat retainer pays the same whether the month was busy or quiet, and hourly billing rewards time. None is wrong, but ask which they would pick in your place and what the fee would be if they advised you to cut spend.
Channel by channel, what does the monthly fee buy us, and what would show up as an extra?
Why ask it
Get quantities, not service names: how many articles, emails, ad variations and landing pages a month, and how many hours of strategy. Typical extras are video, photography, web development, software and further rounds of changes. A proposal that lists 'SEO' and 'social' with no numbers cannot be compared with anyone else's.
Whose card is on the ad accounts, and would we see the platforms' own receipts?
Why ask it
With your card on the account, the spend is visible to you and nothing is added on the way. When the agency pays and bills you afterwards, ask whether a markup is applied, when you are invoiced, and for the platform receipts alongside. It also settles a practical point: whose problem it is when a payment fails and the ads stop.
What is the minimum term, and what should we be able to see by the end of it?
Why ask it
Agencies ask for a minimum because search and content need months, which is fair, and because it steadies their income, which is also true. Tie the term to evidence: by the last month, which figures should have moved and by roughly how much. If they want a year, ask for a checkpoint after three or four months where you can leave if the agreed early signs are missing.
How do we end the contract: how much notice, by what date before a renewal, and at what cost?
Why ask it
Read the renewal clause for the date by which notice has to be given, since missing it can mean another full term. Two more things to check: whether the fee can rise at renewal without a new signature, and what is owed for work already under way. How automatic renewals are treated varies from place to place, so have someone qualified look at the wording.
Could we start with one or two channels, or a paid audit, before taking the full package?
Why ask it
A smaller start shows how they work: whether deadlines are kept, how a report reads, who answers your emails. Some agencies decline because their margin is in the bundle, and their reason is worth hearing. It is also the moment to learn whether a channel can be added or dropped mid-term without reopening the whole contract.
On the day we give notice, what starts happening to our campaigns, accounts and files?
Why ask it
A written offboarding list is the good sign: access transferred, tracked numbers and domains released, content and source files delivered, scheduled emails and posts either finished or cancelled. Two details to pin down are whether campaigns keep running through the notice period and whether handover work is charged. Then check with a former client that it went that way.
What would make you end the relationship with a client?
Why ask it
It turns the interview round and usually gets a candid answer: unpaid invoices, approvals that take months, budgets cut below what can work, rudeness to staff. You learn what they expect from you, and whether they have ever cared enough about results to walk away from a fee.
How to interview a full-service digital agency
Practical guidance for the conversation itself
Before you contact anyone
Work out what a customer is worth to you
An agency will quote you a cost per lead sooner or later, and the figure means nothing unless you know roughly how many leads become customers and what a customer brings in. Pull those two numbers from your own records before the first call, even as estimates. They turn the Results and Reporting questions from a chat into arithmetic.
List every account you already have
Write down your ad accounts, analytics, Search Console, business listing, email platform, social profiles, domain and hosting, with who holds the admin login for each. It is common to find that a former employee or an earlier agency owns something. Recover it now, because the Ownership questions are much easier to ask when you already hold the keys.
State the budget in two parts
Give each agency the same two figures: what you can pay for their work and what you can spend on ads. An agency told only a total will divide it in the way that suits its own pricing, and the proposals will not line up. If you do not know how to split it, say so and compare the splits they suggest.
Decide what you could keep in house
Full service is a convenience, not a requirement. If someone on your team already writes well or runs the social accounts, say which channels are on the table and which are not. It makes the Channels and budget questions sharper, and it shows which agencies can work alongside your people instead of replacing them.
In the pitch
Ask for the channel leads to join
The person selling is rarely the person doing. Request that the people who would run your search, paid and content work join for twenty minutes, and put the People questions to them directly. How they talk about another client's account tells you more than the deck does.
Have them open a live account
For the question about channels working together, ask for a screen share of a real client's analytics or ad account with the name hidden. Say so when you book the meeting, because they may need that client's permission first. People who work in these tools every day move through them quickly and can answer a side question on the spot.
Put the same core questions to each agency
Choose two questions from each of the six groups and ask them of every agency, in the same words. Twelve shared questions give you a fair comparison, and the rest of the list is there for whatever a particular pitch makes you curious about. Note the answers during the meeting, since three pitches blur together by the end of a week.
Send the contract questions ahead
Whoever presents may not know the notice period or who pays the platforms. Email the Ownership and Fees and exit questions a few days before and ask for written replies. Written answers are easier to compare, and they are the ones you will want to point to later.
Comparing the proposals
Break each bundle into channels
A single monthly price hides what each channel costs. Ask each agency to show the fee per channel with the quantities behind it: articles, emails, campaigns managed, hours. Once the bundle is in pieces you can see which agency is charging a lot for the channel you care about least.
Check that 'lead' means the same thing in each
One proposal may forecast leads and count every form fill and call, while another counts only enquiries that pass a check. The second will promise a smaller number and may be the better offer. Go back to each agency's answer on what counts as a lead before you compare forecasts.
Price the alternative
Before choosing among full-service agencies, get one quote from a specialist in the channel that matters most to you. Sometimes a specialist plus a freelance writer covers what you need for less. Sometimes the coordination a single agency provides is worth the extra. Either way you will know what the bundle is costing you.
Use the reference calls for the unglamorous questions
References will say the agency is pleasant. Spend the call on things they have lived with: whether reported leads matched what reached their sales team, how a poor month was handled, and whether they hold the logins to all their accounts. Those answers are the ones a pitch cannot give you.
Signing and the first month
Turn the answers into the scope of work
What was said in a meeting does not bind anyone. The named team, the monthly quantities per channel, the lead definition, the figures you will be judged by and the offboarding list should all appear in the agreement or its schedule. If the agency resists writing down something it said freely in the pitch, ask why.
Ask someone qualified to read the terms
Minimum terms, renewal, ownership of work and liability are contract matters, and how they are treated depends on where you are. This page can tell you what to ask about, not what your agreement means. Having a lawyer or an experienced adviser read it once is a small job next to a year's retainer.
Open the accounts yourself
In the first week, create or recover each account under your company's own email address and invite the agency in. It is usually an afternoon's work, and it settles the first question on the Ownership list before any campaign runs. Keep a simple record of who has access to what, and review it whenever someone leaves on either side.
Put the first review in the calendar
Agree a date around the three-month mark and what will be on the table: the early figures you chose together, what has shipped per channel, and what the agency would change. A review that exists from the start is an ordinary meeting. One that is called only when you are unhappy feels like a confrontation.