12 questions to ask before you hire a marketing agency

What goes wrong with bad agencies

When businesses come to us after another agency, we see the same damage again and again:

• Websites butchered by quick changes nobody checked.
• Location pages that never ranked: the same page copied for every suburb with the name swapped.
• Meta ads with no lead qualification. A low cost per lead on the report, and a business owner wasting time and money calling people who were never going to buy.
• Cheap bought backlinks that hold the website back for months.

Every one of those could have been caught with the right questions before signing.

Questions about ownership and contracts

1. Who owns the ad accounts, the website and the analytics?

Good answer: you do, from day one. Red flag: the agency builds everything in its own accounts, so leaving means starting from zero. At WEDEE every account is the client's from the start, and handed over in full if they leave.

2. Is there a lock-in contract?

Good answer: month to month, or a short term with a clear reason. Our SEO and Google Ads are month to month. Meta ads run on a 3 or 6 month term, because the first months are creative testing. Red flag: twelve months with exit fees.

3. Is my ad spend paid straight to Google or Meta?

Good answer: yes, on your own card. Red flag: the agency bills your spend and adds a margin you cannot see.

Questions about the people

4. Who will actually do the work?

Good answer: a named specialist you can talk to. Red flag: a salesperson now, then an account manager who passes messages to people you never meet.

5. How many clients does that person look after?

If one person runs 40 accounts, yours gets about an hour a week.

6. What is your client retention rate?

Agencies that keep clients get results. More than 90% of our clients stay, and the average stays past twelve months. Most agencies never publish theirs.

Questions about results

7. Can I see results for a business like mine, with the source?

Good answer: real case studies with numbers and where they came from, such as an ad account or Google Analytics. Red flag: percentages with no source, or “we can't share client data” for every client.

8. What will you measure, and how will you report it?

Good answer: enquiries, calls, sales and cost per client, tracked properly. Red flag: reports full of impressions, clicks and rankings for keywords nobody searches.

9. What happens in the first 90 days?

A good agency can tell you exactly: what gets fixed first, what gets built, and when you should see the first enquiries. For SEO, our clients usually see the first organic enquiries in the first one or two months, from quick wins.

10. How do you qualify leads?

For ads, ask what questions go on the form and why. Up to five relevant questions costs a little in volume and saves a lot of wasted calls.

Questions about the work

11. How do you build links and location pages?

Red flags: “we build 50 links a month”, or one template page per suburb. Good answer: earned mentions, real local listings, and fewer, better pages written for each service and area.

12. Will you tell me if your service is not right for me?

The best agencies turn work down. We tell businesses when SEO will not work for them, and when Meta is better than Google Ads, or the other way around. Our channel tool uses the same logic.

Want this applied to your business? Ask for a free SEO and AI search audit. Our SEO specialist reviews your site and shows you the results on a call, with no obligation.

Common questions

What should I ask a digital marketing agency before hiring?

Ask who owns the accounts, whether there is a lock-in contract, who will do the work, what their retention rate is, for sourced results from similar businesses, and how they measure and qualify leads.

Should I own my Google Ads account?

Yes. The ad account, website and analytics should be in your name from day one, so you keep your data and history if you change agencies.

Are lock-in contracts normal for marketing agencies?

Many agencies use twelve month contracts, but they are not necessary. WEDEE runs SEO and Google Ads month to month, and Meta ads on a 3 or 6 month term because the first months are testing.

Sources. Retention figures are WEDEE reported.