Can I shoot straight with you?
If you Google “questions to ask a marketing agency,” you’ll find about 400 articles written by — wait for it — marketing agencies. Each one has the same recycled 10 questions. “What’s your experience in our industry?” “Can you share case studies?” “What does your reporting look like?”
Here’s the rub: the agency already knows how to beat those questions. They’ve been asked them 200 times. They’ve got the slick answer queued up before you finish talking. They’ve got a deck. They’ve got a “case study” that’s mostly screenshots and vibes.
So if you’re a service business owner about to sign with an agency — or worse, you’ve already been burned by one and you’re trying again — those standard questions aren’t going to save you.
I’ve talked to dozens of business owners who got burned by an agency. They all asked the “right” questions. And they still got fleeced. Because the right questions on Google aren’t the right questions for you.
Below are 7 questions to ask a marketing agency that they probably haven’t rehearsed for. Ask these and watch the temperature in the room change. Their answers — or the way they dodge — will tell you everything.
1. “Who, by name, will actually do the work on my account?”
Not “what does your team look like.” Not “tell me about your process.” Who, by name, is writing my emails, building my landing pages, and running my Google Ads campaign on Tuesday at 10 a.m.?
Most agencies sell you on the senior strategist who’s in the pitch meeting. Then your account gets dropped to a 22-year-old account coordinator who has 14 other clients and just learned what a UTM parameter is last month.
A good answer sounds like: “Sarah will be your account lead. Marcus runs paid. Jen writes the copy. Here’s how to email them directly.”
A bad answer sounds like: “Our team will handle it.” Run.
2. “Will the Google Ads, Meta, GBP, and CRM accounts be in MY name — and will I have admin access from day one?”
This one alone has saved my friends more money than any other question.
If you go to Reddit’s r/smallbusiness and search “marketing agency,” you’ll find post after post of business owners who fired their agency and discovered they didn’t own their own ad accounts. The agency built everything inside the agency’s Google Ads MCC. The Facebook pixel? On the agency’s Business Manager. The GoHighLevel CRM? Their tenant.
Leave that agency, and you leave with nothing. No ad history. No pixel data. No customer list. Years of data — gone.
The right answer is unambiguous: “All accounts are created in your name. You have admin access on day one. We have manager-level access only.”
If they hesitate, push back, or say “we set things up under our agency for efficiency” — that’s a hostage clause dressed up in business-casual. Walk away.
3. “What’s your exit clause? If I cancel today, what do I leave with?”
Don’t ask “what’s the contract length.” Every agency has that answer rehearsed.
Ask: if I cancel, what do I take with me, and what gets clawed back?
A real partner will say: “Everything. Your accounts are yours. Your website is yours. Your content is yours. We’ll do a 30-day handoff so nothing breaks.”
A bad agency will quietly mention that the website you paid them $15,000 to build is on their hosting, their domain, and their WordPress license. Cancel, and either you keep paying them monthly or your site goes dark.
I’ve seen this exact scenario three times in the last year. Every time, the business owner thought they “owned” their site. They didn’t.
4. “What’s a realistic CPL for my market — and what’s the CPL you’ll commit to by month 4?”
CPL = Cost Per Lead. Not impressions. Not reach. Not “engagement.” A lead — a person with a name and a phone number who wants to talk to you.
This question filters the practitioners from the actors. A real agency that’s run ads for businesses like yours will pull up a calculator and say: “In your market, for your service, we’d expect a starting CPL of $80–120 in month one, dropping to $40–60 by month three as we optimize. By month four we’d commit to a CPL under $50, or we have a conversation.”
A bad agency will say something like: “It depends on so many variables, we can’t really commit to numbers.” Translation: they don’t know. Translation: they’ve never done it. Translation: you’re paying for their education.
It really does depend on a lot — but a practitioner can give you a range with confidence. If they can’t, they’re not a practitioner. This is exactly why we built our 4 Crucial Pieces of Your Lead Generation System framework — so the numbers are tied to a system, not a guess.
5. “Show me a real client report from the last 30 days — not a case study deck.”
A “case study” is a marketing asset. A real report is what they send their actual clients on actual Mondays.
Ask to see one. Names redacted, fine. But you want to see:
- Leads generated (not impressions)
- Cost per lead (not CTR)
- Revenue tracked (not “engagement”)
- What they did, what worked, what didn’t
- Next week’s plan
If their reports are 30 slides of “vanity metrics” — impressions, reach, follower growth, time-on-site — and zero dollars in or out, you have your answer. They’re optimizing for the report, not for your bank account.
A good report fits on one page. It tells you exactly what happened, why, and what’s next. Plain and simple.
6. “How often will I actually talk to a human at your agency — and which human?”
There’s a difference between “we have weekly reporting” and “I get on a call with someone who knows my account every Wednesday at 2 p.m.”
Most agencies sell you on a high-touch onboarding (great!) and then quietly transition you to a Slack channel that’s mostly bots and automated reports. Three months in, you realize you haven’t actually spoken to a person at your agency in six weeks.
The right answer is specific: “You’ll have a weekly 30-minute call with your account lead. You can text or call them directly between meetings. Average response time is under 4 business hours.”
The wrong answer is squishy: “We’re always available.” OK, but available how and from whom?
You’re a service business. You know what high-touch service looks like. Hold your agency to the same standard you hold yourself.
7. “What’s the first thing you’d cut from your own service if my budget were 30% smaller?”
This is my favorite question, because nobody has rehearsed for it.
A great agency will think for a second and say: “Honestly? I’d kill the social media management piece first. For your business — a service business with a 30-mile radius and a phone-based sale — social posting drives almost no leads. I’d put that money into Google Ads or local SEO.”
A bad agency will defend everything they sold you. Because every line item is “essential.” Because cutting anything means cutting their revenue.
If they can’t tell you what they’d cut for you, they’re not advising you. They’re selling you. And there’s a real difference.
So… now what?
Here’s the gist: agencies are not all the same. There are great ones out there. There are also a lot of average ones in expensive suits. Your job, before you sign anything, is to pressure-test the difference.
The standard 10 questions don’t pressure-test anything. They were written by agencies, for agencies, to make agencies look good. These 7 are written for you — the business owner who’s about to write a check, and who can’t afford to write the wrong one.
If you’re already burned, you’re not crazy. You asked the wrong questions, like everyone else does. Now you know better.
And if you want to road-test these questions on a real agency — well, lucky for you, we’ll happily answer all 7 of them on a 30-minute call with no pitch deck, no hype, and no slick recovery answers. Schedule a free call. Ask us any of these. We’ll answer them on the spot.
You got this.
– Andrew
P.S. If you’re sitting on a current agency contract right now and one of those answers made your stomach drop — don’t panic, just go read what’s actually in the agreement before you renew. The finish line is a lot closer than it feels. Promise.
