Hiring a marketing agency means handing your company’s image and part of your budget to an outside team. When it works, the phone rings more often. When it does not, the business loses months, money and sometimes access to its own accounts.
These are the eight questions that best help you tell a good agency apart from a choice that will cause headaches.
1. Have you worked with businesses like mine?
Ask to see case studies from your industry or from businesses with the same type of customer. A clinic, a real estate firm and a clothing store sell in different ways. Similar experience shortens the time to results.
2. Who will manage my account day to day?
At some agencies, the person who sells the contract is not the person who works on it. Ask who plans the campaigns, who creates the graphics and who you will talk to when you need something.
3. How do you measure results?
Likes and reach are intermediate metrics. What matters to the business is enquiries, quote requests and sales. A good agency asks about these right from the start and shows them in its reports.
4. Will the ad account, social profiles and domain be in my name?
This is the most important question on the list. The ad account, Facebook page, Instagram profile, Google Business Profile and website domain should belong to your company. The agency gets access, but it is not the owner. That way, if you ever part ways, nothing is lost.
5. What is the plan for the first 90 days?
An agency that knows its work can explain where it will start, what it will test first and when it expects the first signs of results. Vague promises are a sign of improvisation.
6. How much of the fee goes to ads and how much is the agency’s service?
Ad spend is what you pay to Google or Meta. The agency’s service is the work of planning, creating and optimising. The two need to be listed separately in the proposal, so you know exactly how much you are investing in media.
7. Do you do everything in-house or outsource parts of the work?
Campaigns, creative, video and websites work best when they are connected. When each part goes to a different supplier, nobody takes responsibility for the final result. Knowing who does what avoids surprises.
8. How do the contract and exit work?
Ask about the minimum term, notice period and what happens to the materials produced if the contract ends. Graphics, videos and copy paid for by your company should stay with it.
Red flags when hiring
- A guaranteed first place on Google. Nobody controls the algorithm. Anyone who guarantees a ranking is promising something they cannot deliver.
- Prices far below the market. This usually means little dedication, generic content or work done by people who are still learning.
- No questions about your business. A ready-made proposal before understanding what you sell, to whom and at what margin.
- Reports full of vanity metrics. Lots of reach charts and no data on enquiries or sales.
A local agency or one from anywhere?
Today you can work well with an agency from any city, with online meetings and digital reports. Even so, an agency from your region has advantages: it knows the local market, understands how your audience talks and can meet in person or film at your business when needed.
For businesses in Passo Fundo and the surrounding region, iodo is a digital marketing agency in Passo Fundo that brings paid media, content, video, visual identity and websites together in one team. You can see our work in our case studies before talking to us.