20 Questions to Ask a Marketing Agency Before You Hire One

The best questions to ask a marketing agency cover five things: who will do the work, what they will actually do each month, how results are tracked and reported, how the contract and fees are structured, and who owns your accounts and data. A good agency answers all of them plainly, in writing, before you sign anything.

Below are 20 questions we’d want answered if we were the ones hiring, grouped by topic, plus the red flags to listen for. If you’re earlier in the process, our guide on how to choose a digital marketing agency covers shortlisting, and what an SEO agency actually does explains the work itself.

Questions About Fit and Experience

1. Have you worked with businesses like mine?

You’re not looking for an agency that has done your exact trade in your exact city. You’re looking for one that understands how your customers search and buy. A dentist, a garage door company and a law firm all get leads differently. Ask which industries they work with and what they learned from them.

2. Who will actually work on my account?

Many agencies sell with a senior person and hand the work to someone else, sometimes an outside contractor. That isn’t automatically bad, but you should know. Ask for names and roles: who handles strategy, who writes, who runs the ads, and who you call when something breaks.

3. What would you not recommend for my business?

This one tells you a lot. An agency that thinks every client needs every service is selling packages. A good one will tell you which channels are a poor fit for your budget or market, and why.

4. Do you ever turn clients away?

Agencies that are honest about fit will say yes. If your goals, budget or timeline don’t line up with what they do well, the right answer is a referral, not a contract.

Questions About Strategy and the Work

5. What will you do in the first 90 days?

The first few months usually include an audit, tracking setup, fixes to the website and Google Business Profile, and the first campaigns or content. Ask for the order of operations. “We’ll optimize your SEO” isn’t a plan.

6. What happens each month after that?

Ongoing work should be specific: pages written or improved, links earned, ad tests run, reviews requested, reports delivered. If the monthly deliverables are vague, you’ll have a hard time telling whether the work is getting done.

7. Which channels do you recommend for me, and why?

For most local businesses the choice is some mix of SEO, local SEO for the map pack, and paid search such as Google Ads. Paid ads bring leads faster. SEO takes longer but keeps working. Ask the agency to explain the trade-off for your situation, not in general. Our post on organic SEO vs paid search goes deeper.

8. How does my website fit into the plan?

Traffic doesn’t help if the site doesn’t turn visitors into calls. Ask whether they’ll review your site for conversion problems, and what they’d change first. Our local business website checklist lists what a lead-generating site needs. If they recommend a rebuild, ask how they’ll protect your rankings. We explain how in our guide to website redesign SEO.

Questions About Results, Tracking and Reporting

9. How will we measure success?

Rankings and traffic are useful signals, but the numbers that pay the bills are calls, form leads and booked jobs. Agree on the main measures up front, and make sure the agency can actually track them.

10. What does a monthly report look like?

Ask to see a sample. A useful report shows calls, leads and rankings, explains what changed and why, and says what’s next. A report that’s twenty pages of charts with no explanation is a warning sign. Our post on the metrics we report and why shows what we think belongs in one.

11. How do you track phone calls and form leads?

For a local business, phone calls are often the biggest source of leads. Ask whether they use call tracking, how forms are recorded as conversions in Google Analytics and Google Ads, and whether you can see the data yourself.

12. How long before I should expect results?

Paid ads can produce leads within days of launch, though they usually need a few weeks of tuning. SEO typically takes months, depending on competition and where you’re starting. Be wary of anyone who gives a confident date without looking at your market. Here’s our take on how long local SEO takes.

Questions About Cost and Contracts

13. How is your pricing structured?

Agencies usually charge a monthly retainer, a fee for a one-time project, or a setup fee followed by a monthly fee. Ask what drives the number: the size of your market, the number of locations and services, how much content is involved, and how much of your site needs fixing. See our pricing page for how we approach it.

14. Is ad spend separate from your fee?

It should be. With Google Ads or Meta ads, the money you spend on ads is paid to the platform, and the agency’s management fee is a separate cost. Ask whether ad spend is billed straight to your card by Google or Meta, or whether it passes through the agency. Our article on Google Ads cost explains the difference.

15. How long is the contract, and how do I cancel?

Some agencies require six- or twelve-month terms. Others work month-to-month. Ask what notice you need to give, whether there’s a cancellation fee, and what happens to work in progress.

16. What isn’t included?

Find out what costs extra: new pages, photography, landing pages, ad creative, software subscriptions, or work on a second location. Surprises here cause more friction than the base fee.

Questions About Ownership and Access

17. Who owns my website, domain and content?

You should. The domain should be registered in your name, and you should have admin access to the website and hosting. If the agency builds the site, ask what happens to it if you leave.

18. Who owns my ad accounts, analytics and Google Business Profile?

These should be in your name too, with the agency added as a user or manager. If an agency runs ads in its own account, you can lose the history and data when you part ways.

19. What do I get if we stop working together?

Ask for a clear answer: access to every account, copies of reports, and any content or creative they made for you. A good agency makes leaving easy, which is part of why clients stay.

Questions About Communication

20. Who is my main contact, and how often will we talk?

Ask how quickly they respond, whether you’ll have regular calls, and who covers when your contact is out. Clear communication is most of what makes an agency relationship work. We wrote more on this in the importance of transparency in digital marketing partnerships.

Quick Reference: Good Answers vs Red Flags

Topic	A good answer sounds like	A red flag sounds like
Who does the work	Names, roles and who to call	“Our team handles it”
Monthly work	A specific list of deliverables	“Ongoing optimization”
Results	Calls, leads and rankings, tracked and shared	Rankings or traffic only
Timeline	A range based on your market	A guaranteed date or position
Pricing	What drives the fee, and what’s extra	A fixed package before they’ve asked about you
Contract	Clear terms and an easy way out	Long lock-in with a cancellation penalty
Ownership	Accounts in your name	Accounts in the agency’s name

Red Flags to Watch For

• Guaranteed rankings. Google’s own guide to hiring an SEO says “No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.” Anyone promising one is guessing or misleading you.
• A package before a conversation. If they quote a plan before asking about your services, market and goals, the plan isn’t built for you.
• Vague reports. If you can’t tell what was done or what it produced, that’s a problem.
• They keep your accounts. Your domain, website, ad accounts and analytics belong to you.
• No straight answer on fees. You should know what you’re paying for and what ad spend goes to the platform.

Questions a Good Agency Will Ask You

The conversation should go both ways. Expect a good agency to ask what a new customer is worth to you, which services you want more of, where you get leads today, what you’ve tried before, how fast you can handle new calls, and what your budget is. If they don’t ask, they can’t build a plan that fits. And if you’re still weighing whether to hire outside help at all, see our comparison of marketing agency vs in-house marketing.

How Local Blitz Answers These Questions

We’ve worked with local businesses since 2009, from offices in San Diego (Encinitas) and Indianapolis. We don’t sell cookie-cutter packages. Depending on what you need, we work on a monthly retainer, a one-time project, or a setup fee plus a monthly fee, and ad spend is always paid separately to the platform. Contracts are month-to-month. Our reports cover calls, leads and rankings. And if we’re not the right fit, we’ll tell you and point you to someone who is. You can see how an engagement runs on our process page.

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I ask a marketing agency before hiring?

Ask who will work on your account, what they will do in the first 90 days and each month after, how they track calls and leads, what their reports include, how their fees are structured, whether ad spend is separate, how long the contract is, and who owns your website, ad accounts and analytics.

What are red flags when hiring a marketing agency?

Common red flags are guaranteed rankings, a fixed package offered before they understand your business, vague monthly deliverables, reports with no explanation, long contracts with cancellation penalties, and ad or analytics accounts held in the agency’s name instead of yours.

Should I sign a long-term contract with a marketing agency?

It depends on the agency and the work, but you should understand the term, the notice period and any cancellation fee before signing. Month-to-month contracts give you the most flexibility, and an agency confident in its work doesn’t need to lock you in.

Who should own my Google Ads and analytics accounts?

You should. Your Google Ads account, Google Analytics property, Google Business Profile, domain and website should be in your business’s name, with the agency added as a user or manager. That way you keep your data and history if you change agencies.

How many marketing agencies should I talk to?

Talking to two or three agencies is usually enough to compare how they approach your business. Ask each the same questions so you can compare answers side by side, and pay attention to what they ask you, not just what they say.

Talk to an Agency That Answers These Questions Up Front

If you’d like to put these questions to us, book a free strategy call. We’ll look at your website and your market, tell you what we’d do first, and give you straight answers on how we work. If you’re curious how your business shows up in AI answers, our free AI visibility check is a quick place to start.