15 questions to ask a marketing agency before you hire

The best questions to ask a marketing agency are about how they work, not what they've won. Ask who will actually do the work, what they'd fix first in your funnel, how they report pipeline instead of clicks, what they need from you, and how you leave if it isn't working. Score each answer the same way across every agency, and the right fit usually becomes obvious.

Why the usual agency questions don't help

It's the third agency call this week. The deck is beautiful. There's a slide of logos, a slide of a growth chart with no axis labels, and a slide titled "Our Process" with five hexagons. You ask "do you have SaaS experience?" They say yes. You ask "can you show results?" They show the chart again.

Most lists of questions to ask an agency are fine, and most of them get the same polished answers from everyone, because every agency has rehearsed them. "Do you have experience in our industry?" Yes. "Do you have case studies?" Yes. You end up choosing on vibes and price, which is how a lot of founders land in the situation we describe in signs your marketing agency isn't working.

Hiring an agency is a lot like hiring a builder for a house. Every builder will show you photos of beautiful finished homes. The useful questions are the ones a good builder answers easily and a bad one squirms on: who's actually on site every day, what happens when the plans meet the dirt, how change orders work, and who you call when a pipe leaks in year two. Those answers tell you what living with the builder will be like. The photos don't.

If you haven't yet decided whether an agency is even the right model, start with our pillar on fractional CMO vs. marketing agency vs. in-house. This article assumes you've decided an agency fits and you're comparing a shortlist.

The questions, grouped by what they reveal

We've grouped 15 questions into five areas. Each one includes what a strong answer sounds like and the red flag to listen for.

Fit: are they built for a company like yours?

1. What kind of company do you do your best work for, and who is not a fit? A strong answer names a stage, a budget range and a type of problem, and names who they'd turn away. (A builder who says "we don't do commercial" is telling you something useful.) Red flag: "we work with everyone."

2. What would you need to see in our numbers to know you can help? A strong answer asks about your funnel: traffic, conversion to demo or trial, close rate, sales cycle, deal size. Red flag: they quote a package before asking about anything past your website.

3. Based on this call, what do you think is actually broken? You want a hypothesis, stated with appropriate humility, not a diagnosis after 30 minutes. "I'd bet the demo page is leaking, but I'd want to see the data before committing to that" is a great answer. Red flag: a full plan with no questions asked.

Proof: can they back up the pitch?

4. Can you walk me through one result end to end: the problem, what you changed and what moved? Pick one case study and go deep. A strong answer explains the mechanism and admits what didn't work along the way. Red flag: the story stays at the level of the headline number. Our article on what "proven results" should mean goes deeper on how to verify claims.

5. Can I talk to a current client, and one who left? Current clients are easy. A former client who'll still take a call is a stronger signal than any testimonial. Red flag: references only from relationships under six months old.

6. How long do your clients usually stay? Long relationships are the best proof an agency delivers, because nobody keeps paying for something that doesn't move. We'll offer our own: Adora POS has been a client for seven years. Red flag: vague answers, or every example is a three-month project.

People: who actually does the work?

7. Who specifically will work on our account, and can I meet them before signing? This is the builder question. The person who pitches is often not the person who builds. A strong answer introduces the real team. Red flag: "we'll assign a team after kickoff."

8. How many other clients will that person be working on? There's no perfect number, but there should be an answer. Red flag: they don't know, or won't say.

9. What do you do in-house, and what do you subcontract? Subcontracting isn't bad. Hiding it is. A strong answer is specific: "we do strategy, copy, design and ads ourselves, and use a trusted developer for complex builds." Red flag: everything is "in-house" until you ask who the developer is.

Process: what will working together actually be like?

10. What happens in the first 30, 60 and 90 days? A strong answer has a clear first month of discovery and fixes, then a rhythm of testing. Red flag: month one is all "strategy" deliverables with nothing shipped.

11. What will you need from us, and how much of our time? Good agencies are honest that they need access, decisions and someone on your side who answers within a day or two. Red flag: "we handle everything," which usually means they'll guess.

12. How do you decide what to stop doing? Every good marketer kills things. A strong answer describes a rule ("if a channel can't show qualified pipeline after eight weeks of fair testing, we cut it and move the budget"). Red flag: nothing ever gets stopped, it just gets "optimized."

Reporting and exit: how will you know it's working, and how do you leave?

13. What will you report on, and how often? Listen for pipeline and revenue language: qualified demos, opportunities, cost per opportunity, closed deals by source. A strong agency will want access to your CRM to tie marketing to deals. Red flag: impressions, clicks and "engagement" with no line to revenue.

14. Who owns the ad accounts, the website, the data and the creative? You should. Ad accounts, analytics, CRM and site should all be in your name, with the agency added as a user. Red flag: "we run it from our agency account" with no plan for handing it over.

15. What does it look like if we part ways? A strong answer covers notice period, handover of files and access, and documentation. Agencies that are confident in their work make leaving easy. Red flag: long lock-ins, or any hesitation about handing over accounts.

The scorecard you can print

Score each agency on every question, using the same scale: 0 for a red flag, 1 for an acceptable but vague answer, 2 for a specific, honest answer. Do it right after the call, before the follow-up email arrives and reshapes your memory.

A couple of reading notes. Questions 7, 13 and 14 matter more than the rest, so treat a zero on any of them as a dealbreaker regardless of the total. And when two agencies score close, pick the one whose answer to question 3 made you think about your business differently. That's the one doing the work already.

What about price?

Price matters, but ask it last. If you lead with cost, every conversation bends toward the cheapest package rather than the right plan. Once you know who fits, compare what's included, how the fee is structured and what your total spend (fee plus media) would be.

Our guide to how much a SaaS marketing agency costs lays out the pricing models and what drives the ranges. If you're a Redding or Shasta County business rather than a software company, our guide to choosing a marketing agency in Redding covers the local version of these questions.