10 questions to ask before you choose a digital agency
Every agency pitch sounds the same. Custom strategy, fast turnaround, "results-driven" — the deck rarely shows the difference. The difference shows up later: after the contract is signed, after the first invoice, after the first monthly report. The slide says "tailored approach," while the real difference hides in the workflow — who does what, and when. By then, backing out is expensive.
A polished portfolio will not warn you in advance. Ten questions asked in the first meeting will — because the answer usually matters less than how it is given. The list below is not a set of correct answers — it is a set of questions. The point is not to interrogate anyone, it is to watch how they react. It groups into three themes: ownership, money, and results.
Who owns the accounts and the code
1. Whose name are the ad accounts opened under?
Google Ads, Meta Ads, GA4, the domain — all of it should sit in your own business account, with the agency added as a user. Otherwise, when the relationship ends, campaign history and tracking setup can leave with them. The question is simple: "Who opens the account, you or us?" If the answer is "we open it, then transfer it later," ask for the transfer date in writing. One nuance: an agency running your campaign through Meta's partner access inside Business Manager is normal practice. The problem starts when the Business Manager itself — the one billing runs through — is opened under the agency's own name.
2. If I leave, what am I actually left holding?
Domain, hosting access, CMS admin password, analytics history — ask for that exact list on day one. Bringing up an exit in the first meeting feels premature, but that is exactly when the answer is most honest: the side that hasn't earned anything yet has no reason to hide it. A follow-up worth asking: does the analytics history transfer, or do you start from zero? The second option means losing the ability to compare against last year.
3. Is the site built on open code, or a closed builder?
A site on an open stack — WordPress, a standard codebase — can move to another team. Some cheap offers are built inside the agency's own closed page builder: there is no code to export, only a rental. The gap shows up three years in; asking now is cheaper. It is easy to test — just ask if you can get an export of the site's code. "No, the platform doesn't allow that" already tells you what you need to know.
Where the money goes, and who actually does the work
4. Is the management fee billed separately from ad spend?
"We charge 1,000 AZN a month" is not an answer by itself — ask how much of it flows to the ad platform and how much is the fee. Insist on two separate line items. A model with a hidden markup on media spend puts the agency's incentive against yours: the more you spend, the more they make, whatever the result. Some agencies sell this as one bundled "management plus media" figure — that alone is not a red flag, but refusing to name the split is.
5. How many revision rounds are included, and what happens after?
"Unlimited revisions" sounds generous in a pitch and usually means either shrinking quality or hidden delays in practice. You need an actual number — one, two, three rounds — and a written price for anything beyond it. Practical tip: when the first proposal lands, estimate how many times you will actually ask for a "small change" — it is usually more than it looks.
6. Who, by name, will actually work on this?
The person in the pitch meeting is usually not the person doing the work. That alone is not the problem — hiding it is. Ask who designs, who runs the ads, by name, and what happens if that person leaves the team. This matters most at small agencies, where one person leaving can shift the quality of the whole project overnight.
7. How many hours until I get a reply?
Something can break on a live campaign at night. Ask for a number — "we respond fast" is not one. A written SLA (say, "4 hours during business hours") is different from a spoken promise — one lives in the contract, the other gets forgotten.
How results get measured, and who can be trusted
8. What number will you use to call this a success?
Impressions and reach are easy to show; leads and revenue are not. Agree in writing, before the campaign starts, on the exact metric that counts as success — an agency that redefines it afterward is usually masking a miss. Agreeing the metric in writing before the work begins heads off a dispute later, because "success" can mean different things to different sides.
9. How do you collect reviews?
It sounds like an odd question to ask an agency, but the answer reveals a lot. Offering a discount for a review, or having staff write them, is explicitly banned under Google's own platform policy — and getting caught can mean the entire review history is deleted. An agency that runs that play on itself will run it on your profile too. An easy check you can run yourself: open the agency's own Google profile and see if the reviews cluster into a narrow window — that is not proof of a violation, but it is worth asking about directly.
10. What can't you promise me?
The real question is what they will not promise. Google itself warns businesses that no one can guarantee a #1 ranking. An agency offering a "guaranteed top spot" either doesn't understand how search works or is knowingly misleading you — either way, walk. The same rule holds for advertising too: a "guaranteed outcome" is not possible there either, because no one controls the platform's own algorithm.
How to read the answers you get
By question ten you have a benchmark: a strong agency answers specifically, in writing, with numbers; a weak one drifts into generic reassurance — "we're different," "you can trust us." The test is simple: if the answer comes immediately with a concrete number, the process behind it is real. If they pause and say "we usually discuss that separately," the process probably does not exist yet.
An agency that dodges a hard question has already answered it — just not in words.
Two or more vague answers is an early signal of the friction to come — worth hearing before you sign, not after. No agency will answer all ten questions perfectly — in small teams, some of this is still being formalized. The difference is elsewhere: an honest agency says "we haven't fixed that yet, but we'll agree it with you"; an evasive one changes the subject.
We hold ourselves to the same ten questions — accounts stay with the client, the management fee is billed separately from ad spend, the number of revisions is fixed up front. See how we run the same kind of site and advertising audit — the findings there are handed over in writing and ranked by impact too.
